Ryan Beatty at Ryman Auditorium

Ryan Kevin Beatty (born September 25, 1995), known professionally as simply Ryan Beatty, is an American singer-songwriter from Clovis, California. By the end of 2009, at the age of 14, Ryan started uploading videos to his sister’s YouTube account… and then the social media world took notice; hundreds of thousands of people started becoming aware of Ryan’s vocal ability, charm and star-potential. On February 25, 2011, Ryan created his own YouTube Channel and started posting covers of popular songs on there, where he received tens of millions of views. In November of the same year, he released his debut single, "Every Little Thing", which reached #89 on the iTunes Pop Charts. The song would go on to be included in his debut EP, Because of You, released on July 24, 2012. Within 24 hours of its release, Because of You landed in the #1 spot on the US Pop Album Charts and the #7 spot on the Top Album Charts on iTunes. The EP also included "Hey L.A.", which was featured in a commercial for the AT&T "It Can Wait" campaign, featuring Ryan. Ryan would then go on to spent the summer of 2013 touring as one of the opening acts on Cody Simpson's Paradise Tour. Still in 2013, only a little over a year after his quick rise to recognition had begun, Ryan decided to fire his initial management team. The constraint he felt both creatively and emotionally because of his image as a "straight" teen heartthrob and the lack of input he was allowed when recording music were the factors that led him to the decision. In a 2020 interview, Beatty recalled firing his manager on a plane flying back to Los Angeles after a gig, telling them "I can't do this anymore". His decision to fire his management and separate from his first label led to a prolonged legal battle that prevented him from releasing music until 2016. After being inactive for three years, Beatty began to return to recording music in 2016, with the release of "Passion" and "Stay Gold". That same year, he also publicly came out as gay. In 2017, he began collaborating with the rap collective Brockhampton, providing backing vocals on Saturation II's "Queer" and Saturation III's "Bleach". He also provided vocals for "Sugar", a song from the collective’s fifth studio album that later gained some success on TikTok. In 2018, Beatty released his first studio album, Boy in Jeans, featuring the singles "Bruise" and "Camo". He released music videos for almost every song on the album, with the exceptions of "Cupid", "Money", and "Speed". Starting in January 2019, six months after Boy in Jeans had already been released, Beatty embarked on a short tour in support of the album. In a 2020 interview with Complex, he said that he initially delayed touring after the release of the album in order to focus on the recording of his second album, Dreaming of David, which he began working on soon after the completion of Boy in Jeans. From the end of 2019 into early 2020, Beatty released the singles "Dark Circles", "Patchwork", and "Casino", each with their own accompanying music videos, in the lead up to the release of Dreaming of David, which was finally released on January 31, 2020. Soon afterwards, he announced a US tour called "David, I Love You" in support of the album, later canceled due to the social distancing measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting late 2020, Beatty stopped using all social media platforms, only making sparse publications from time to time. Then, in March 2023, he cleared his Instagram page, indicating new music would be released soon. On March 15, after a series of Instagram posts and the launch of his new website, Beatty announced that his third studio album, Calico, would be released April 28, 2023. The lead single, "Ribbons", was released the following Friday. With the release of the album came a short film under the same name, containing music videos for the album's first three songs. Calico was well-received, with critics calling the album "a transformative step for the visionary singer-songwriter, an intimate and admirable embrace" and "arguably his best work to date". A five-date North American concert tour, titled "California in Every Color", was announced on May 2, with a five-date international leg of the tour being announced on July 18. Beatty came out as gay in June 2016, at the age of 20, three weeks after the Orlando nightclub shooting. He uploaded an Instagram photo of a Gay Power balloon on his Instagram account with the following caption: "proud to be a raging homosexual. it's taken 20 years of suffocating in the closet for me to become comfortable enough to say it, but now I can finally breathe. i did it!".