Manuel Enrique Rivas Joves (El Negro) was born in Barinas, Venezuela. Brought up in an artistic family, Manuel was constantly around music and art. Being the son of an architect and having 2 brothers in the fine arts (musician and visual artist), Manuel’s appreciation for the arts, particularly music, started to grow from an early age.

Manuel’s first instrument at age 7 was the flute. While Manuel was living in the US, he quickly abandoned the flute and picked up a guitar after moving back to Venezuela. After making the switch to the guitar at age 13, Manuel began to teach himself the necessary skills in order to further advance his playing and musicality. Strictly through the use of his ear, Manuel started to learn popular rock songs at the time and decided to put together a rock band. While his persistence helped in developing his skills, his hard work did not go unnoticed and his parents enrolled him in performance courses at the Blue Note School in Caracas.

After graduating from high school, Manuel put his music career aside and went on to study Advertising at the post secondary level. Nevertheless, Manuel’s calling was still very much a part of his life and he couldn’t ignore it any longer. Manuel decided to continue studying music and enrolled in music theory and jazz composition courses at the Ars Nova School, where he received lessons from Eugenia Atilano and took private lessons with jazz guitarist Julio Sanchez.

While studying at Ars Nova, Manuel met Fernan’ Dust (aka. Fernando Garmendia) who introduced him to the electronic dance music scene. Motivated by this strong movement in Caracas, Manuel started an electronic music project with Fernan’ and DJ Demetrio de Ccs called Digital & Pascual. Their music was a fusion of electronic music with Venezuelan folk under tones. This also led to Manuel’s second passion…the wonderful world of DJing. Under the guise of “San Benito”, Manuel was able to fulfill his thirst for electronic music holding a residency at Barra Bar. Despite the great chemistry and talent the band possessed, Digital & Pascual was forced to split up due to the political, and social-economic situation in Venezuela at the time.

In 2004, Manuel was forced to leave his native country, yet again and moved to Toronto. It was here that Manuel was able to meet a slew of musicians and knew what he had to do. Thus Babalao Stereo Club is born. The Toronto Based Latin-Funk band that is able to fuse all styles of music (indie rock, jazz, funk, soul, afro beat, electronica and Latin) to give you a jaw dropping, wild roller coaster ride that is sure to get your body moving and your blood pumping.