RJ DILUPO

I started playing piano at five years old in New York City. Piano came first and stayed central. Even during long stretches away from it, I always heard music in terms of tension, release, and timing.

 

I grew up between my dad’s hard rock and my mom’s power ballads. Guns N’ Roses on one side. Céline Dion on the other. Big melody. Big feeling. No apology. That contrast became the foundation of how I write.

 

As a kid, I was always doing voices. Shifting tone and delivery came naturally long before it had anything to do with music. That instinct carried forward and still shows up in how my songs move between restraint and spectacle without settling fully into one mode.

 

After leaving New York and settling in Los Angeles, I met who I thought was the one. Even in 2017, I knew he would change my life, just not in the way I expected. 

 

While on a trip to Europe, I attended a seminar at a music school in Berlin. In that moment, something clicked. All the piano lessons after school, every one-on-one session, every concept I had learned about music suddenly aligned. It was the “OH! Is that what that teacher meant” moment. A moment of clarity that pulled me fully back to piano. It wasn’t nostalgia. It was a return to the start.

 

I didn’t set out to be a singer. While working in Los Angeles at a bar with karaoke, I discovered, against my will, that I had a voice.

 

What I found first was stage fright. Then, almost immediately, the opposite. Applause. The unexpected joy of being seen. The elation that comes from performing, paired with the instinct to disappear as soon as it’s over. Both existed at the same time.

 

Adolescent ridicule had kept me quiet for years, but on a karaoke shift in WeHo, everyone sings. There was no opting out. Showing up became unavoidable.

 

At the same time, I was also a teaching assistant at a performing arts college. Between the bar and the classroom, I learned how voices are trained, controlled, and refined. What began as something accidental became deliberate. Singing turned into another instrument, used when it served the song and left alone when it didn’t.

 

Presence is my first album.

 

The emotions on Presence come from real damage, real attachment, and real restraint. The hurt wasn’t softened to make it easier to listen to. It was taken apart until only what mattered remained.

 

Whatever beauty exists here comes from leaving the emotion exposed, not hidden.​