Photos: El Compa Negro: a black teen from Compton sings Mexican music

Rhyan Lowery, a.k.a. El Compa Negro, greets Margarita Vaal during a break before going back onstage at Espinoza’s Family Restaurant in Rialto, Calif. Lowery’s transformation into El Compa Negro says something about the power of cultural proximity — and Los Angeles’ changing demographics.

Every weekend, Lowery and his band, Los Mas Poderosos, visit restaurants, nightclubs and places that cater to Mexican immigrants and second-generation Mexican Americans, performing cumbias and corridos that many of the clubgoers grew up hearing.

People dance to El Compa Negro and his band. Lowery was born in Compton in 1996, just a few years removed from the city’s heyday as a birthplace of gangsta rap, the group N.W.A and its seminal album, “Straight Outta Compton.” But the teen was baptized into a city that was fast becoming less black and more Latino.

Rhyan Lowery surveys the audience at Pepe’s Night Club in San Bernardino. In the neighborhood where he grew up, near Rosecrans and Santa Fe, most of his friends were Mexican American. Lowery said he quickly picked up the slang of Mexican Spanish.

Lowery poses for pictures with the group Los Dinamicos Del Norte after his performance at Pepe’s. When he doesn’t recognize a Spanish word, he’s quick to ask Lopez or a bandmate what it means, never wanting to sing a song he doesn’t fully understand. It’s enough to confuse some fans, who insist that he must be from Mexico.