In 1989, David Massry opened the first Ritmo Latino store in Santa Ana, California. He named it Ritmo Latino (Spanish for “Latin Rhythm”) in order to appeal to its Hispanic customer base.
Ritmo Latino has been noted by its ability to provide innovative services and experiences to its customers that were not typically provided by niche music stores at that time. Ritmo expanded its business model in 1992, by becoming an authorized Ticketmaster vendor to provide additional services to its customers in all of its stores, and in 1998, by introducing the first Spanish Book Department in its store in Santa Ana.
In 1999, the first Ritmo Rock opened in Los Angeles. Ritmo Rock is a store concept dedicated to Latin and English rock, something Massry called “a niche within a niche.”[3]
In 2000, Ritmo Latino sponsored the first Premio de la Gente awards, which was created to award Latin music based on fans votes. The show was nationally televised with Uno Productions. Although Ritmo Latino no longer sponsors the show, it continues to air annually on Telemundo.[3]
Ritmo Latino continued to innovate by incorporating interactive technology into its stores. In 2001, Ritmo began putting Video Arcade rooms in its stores. In 2003, Ritmo's store in Miami became the first Latin music store to implement interactive listening stations. The listening stations were such a success that the company adopted the technology into all of its stores.[3] In 2005, Ritmo launched an educational computer software line specifically designed for the Spanish speaking market.
By 2007, Ritmo had 52 stores in the U.S., in states such as California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Washington D.C., Maryland, and New Jersey. They opened 3 new stores inside El Gallo Giro Restaurants and launched the first Tus Perfumenes, a store within a store concept dedicated to selling a full line of perfumes, in Oakland. Ritmo also received notable media attention when it accused Jennifer Lopez of not supporting her Latin heritage because she would not make public appearances promoting her album Como Ama una Mujer at any Latin-oriented music chain. Ritmo further garnered attention by banning all of Lopez's CDs from its stores.[4]
As the music retail industry declined, so did Ritmo Latino. In 2008, Ritmo Latino inaugurated their first transition to T-Mobile store in El Monte, CA, and opened 2 more stores by year's end. In 2009, Ritmo opened an additional 13 T-Mobile stores, including stores in the Northern California, Houston, and Washington D.C. markets, bring the total T-Mobile store count to 16.
The last Ritmo Latino music store closed in July 2010, and Ritmo Latino Inc was officially dissolved by the end of 2011.
