Prince Royce Ethnicity: Dominican Heritage of the Bachata Star
Prince Royce is of Dominican ethnicity. Born Geoffrey Royce Rojas on May 11, 1989, in the Bronx, New York, the singer known as the Prince of Bachata is the son of Dominican parents: his father, Ramon Rojas, drove a taxicab, and his mother, Angela de Leon, worked at a beauty salon. Raised in a Spanish-speaking Dominican household in New York City, he grew up on bachata, hip-hop, and R&B, and his bilingual smash “Stand by Me” made him one of the most successful Latin artists of his generation.
Quick Facts About Prince Royce
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Birth Name | Geoffrey Royce Rojas |
| Date of Birth | May 11, 1989 |
| Birthplace | The Bronx, New York, USA |
| Ethnicity | Dominican |
| Parents | Ramon Rojas and Angela de Leon, both from the Dominican Republic |
| Known For | “Stand by Me” bachata cover; “Corazon Sin Cara”; “Deja Vu” |
Early Life and Background
Geoffrey Royce Rojas was born on May 11, 1989, and raised in the Bronx, one of the five boroughs of New York City. He is the second oldest of four children born to Dominican parents. His father, Ramon Rojas, worked as a taxi driver navigating the streets of the Big Apple, while his mother, Angela de Leon, worked at a beauty salon. Like so many immigrant families, they worked long hours to give their children opportunities they had not had.
The Rojas household was bilingual and bicultural. At home, the family spoke Spanish and lived by Dominican traditions; outside, young Geoffrey absorbed the sounds of the Bronx, hip-hop, pop, and R&B. But bachata, the guitar-driven romantic music of the Dominican Republic, was always in the air. As a boy, he sang in his elementary school choir and competed in talent shows, and he recalled his first time performing before a crowd, singing a Christmas song in elementary school, as the moment he felt truly comfortable on stage.
At thirteen, he began writing poetry, which gradually turned into songwriting. His earliest musical ambitions leaned toward hip-hop and R&B, the music of his Bronx peers. At fifteen, he began making music with a partner named Jose Chusan, better known as Jino, and the duo performed as Jino and Royce, El Duo Real. At sixteen, he adopted the stage name Prince Royce and began working with longtime friend and producer Donzell Rodriguez and Vincent Outerbridge, known together as L Snipe and Vinny.
The turning point came at nineteen, when he met producer Andres Hidalgo, who became his manager and guided him toward bachata. Hidalgo introduced Royce to the legendary Sergio George, who signed him to Top Stop Music after hearing just three demos. Royce was working at a cell phone store and attending college while scraping together the $8,000 it cost to make his first album, money he has called the best investment of his life.
Prince Royce’s Ethnicity and Heritage
Prince Royce’s ethnicity is Dominican. Both of his parents were born in the Dominican Republic, and he was raised in the Dominican diaspora culture of New York City, one of the largest Dominican communities in the world. He grew up speaking Spanish at home and English away from it, and he has described himself as feeling very American while remaining deeply connected to his Dominican roots.
That duality defines his artistry. Bachata originated in the Dominican Republic as the music of the rural poor, romantic, guitar-led, and once looked down upon by the country’s elite. By the time Royce embraced it, artists like Aventura had already begun taking it global, and Royce, with his smooth bilingual style, became its brightest new star. His music fuses traditional bachata rhythms, the skittering bongos and twinkling requinto guitar lines, with R&B and pop sensibilities, creating a sound that belongs equally to Santo Domingo and the Bronx.
He has spoken about growing up Dominican in the Bronx as the central fact of his identity. In interviews, he has discussed how his parents’ sacrifices shaped his work ethic and how the Dominican emphasis on family kept him grounded as fame arrived. His cousins were his first street team, handing out flyers at festivals and parades when he was sixteen, and he has always credited his family’s support as the foundation of his career.
His 2015 album Double Vision, recorded entirely in English with collaborations alongside Snoop Dogg, Tyga, and Kid Ink, was an attempt to cross fully into the American mainstream. Though it received mixed reviews, the experiment itself revealed how naturally he moves between his two worlds. His biggest commercial triumphs, however, have come as a bachatero, and his return to Spanish-language bachata with the album Five, which debuted at number one on the Billboard Latin chart, confirmed where his heart and his audience truly are.
Family: Parents and Siblings
Prince Royce is the second oldest of four children born to Ramon Rojas and Angela de Leon. His father’s years behind the wheel of a New York taxi and his mother’s work in a beauty salon were the family’s economic engine, and Royce has never forgotten the grind. He has described watching his parents work tirelessly as the motivation behind his own relentless drive.
His siblings and extended family were his first believers. When he started performing at sixteen, his cousins helped him pass out flyers and build a local following, acting as his street team long before he had a label or a manager. That family-first ethos remains central to how he talks about success: not as an individual triumph but as a collective one.
He keeps his romantic life private, but his songs, swooning odes to eternal love, have made him an idol to millions, particularly among young Latina fans who see their own bicultural experience reflected in his.
Career: The Prince of Bachata
Prince Royce’s self-titled debut album arrived in 2010, and its lead single, a bilingual bachata cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me,” became a smash, breaking into the Top Ten of Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. The follow-up single “Corazon Sin Cara” confirmed he was no one-hit wonder. The album drew favorable comparisons to Aventura and established the twenty-year-old as bachata’s new prince.
Phase II (2012) brought the hits “Las Cosas Pequenas,” “Incondicional,” and “Te Me Vas,” reaching platinum status and peaking at number 16 on the Billboard 200. Soy el Mismo (2013) featured “Darte un Beso” and “Te Robare,” plus the collaboration “Already Missing You” with Selena Gomez. Double Vision (2015) included “Stuck on a Feeling” with Snoop Dogg and “Back It Up” with Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull, both charting on the Billboard Hot 100. Five (2017) became his fourth number-one on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart, powered by “Deja Vu” with Shakira, certified 9x Platinum (Latin) by the RIAA.
Across his career, he has won numerous Billboard Latin Music Awards, including Tropical Album of the Year, and remains one of the most successful artists in the Spanish-speaking world, a Bronx kid who carried Dominican bachata to the global stage.
Like fellow Latin music stars Willie Nelson and Angelina Jolie and Solica Cassuto, whose stories we have also told, Prince Royce proves that honoring your roots is the surest path to the world stage.
Dominican Pride in Every Note
To understand Prince Royce, you have to understand bachata, and to understand bachata, you have to understand the Dominican Republic. Born in the country’s poorest neighborhoods as the music of the marginalized, bachata was once dismissed by the Dominican elite as vulgar, only to conquer the world on the strength of its romantic honesty. When Geoffrey Royce Rojas, a taxi driver’s son from the Bronx, chose bachata over the hip-hop of his peers, he was choosing his parents’ homeland over his neighborhood’s soundtrack, and it made him a king.
His Dominican identity is not a marketing angle; it is the substance of his art. The requinto guitar lines, the bongo patterns, the Spanish-language poetry of longing, all of it flows directly from the island his parents left. He grew up speaking Spanish at home and English on the street, and his bilingual breakthrough, the bachata cover of Stand by Me, was literally a fusion of his two worlds: an American classic rebuilt on Dominican rhythm.
He has never been shy about what the heritage means to him. In interviews, he returns constantly to his parents’ sacrifices, his father’s years driving a New York taxi, his mother’s work in a beauty salon, and to the cousins who formed his first street team at sixteen. His success, he insists, belongs to the family and, by extension, to the Dominican diaspora that raised him.
That diaspora, millions strong in New York City alone, sees itself in him: the kid who could have been anything but chose to be Dominican, loudly, on the world’s biggest stages. From the Bronx to Santo Domingo to stadiums across Latin America, Prince Royce carries the island with him in every note, and the island, in turn, claims him as its prince.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is Prince Royce’s ethnicity?
Prince Royce is of Dominican ethnicity. Both of his parents, Ramon Rojas and Angela de Leon, were born in the Dominican Republic.
What is Prince Royce’s real name?
His birth name is Geoffrey Royce Rojas. He adopted the stage name Prince Royce at age sixteen.
Where was Prince Royce born?
He was born on May 11, 1989, in the Bronx, New York City, where he was raised in a Spanish-speaking Dominican household.
What kind of music does Prince Royce sing?
He is primarily a bachata singer, the romantic guitar-driven genre of the Dominican Republic, though he also records Latin pop and English-language R&B and pop.
For more verified details, see his Wikipedia biography.
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