Samuel Hernández

Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, during 1972, Samuel Hernández has earned recognition as a top-selling, prize-winning performer of Christian music whose domestic reach expanded beyond faith-based audiences into the broader secular market. He stages concerts throughout Puerto Rico along with Central and South America while directing his own ministry from bases in the United States, where records document his repeated visits to the impoverished, the ailing, and incarcerated individuals.

Although he took up the guitar in childhood, Hernández initially pursued another path, completing a baccalaureate in accounting and marketing at Universidad Metropolitana and finishing summa cum laude with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. He launched his working life as an insurance agent and collected multiple honors from industry groups before choosing to abandon that role in favor of a singing vocation devoted to spiritual service.

In 1993 he joined extended family members in el Grupo Ozem for the release of Un Sueño Hecho Realidad. His debut solo project, Soy una Vasija Nueva, appeared in 1997 and marked the formal start of his independent ministry; Christian radio embraced the recording, prompting tours that reached Central America, South America, and Florida. The 2000 album Falta 5 Para las 12 Llegó Jesús held the top Christian-radio position for twenty consecutive weeks and stayed at number one in sales for an entire year following its launch. After sustained road work, Hernández rushed into the studio late in 2003 to issue Jesús Siempre Llega a Tiempo, which debuted at number one on both Christian radio and sales charts, secured a Dove Award, earned a Latin Grammy nomination, and ranked among the earliest Christian albums to achieve strong commercial results in Puerto Rico. He became the first Puerto Rican artist working in religious music to receive a Billboard Prize nomination for Disc of the Year in the Sacred Music category; the recording also claimed the Prize Paloma de la Paz along with additional industry honors.

The 2005 concert set En Vivo Desde el Centro de Bellas Artes de Puerto Rico appeared in three distinct deluxe editions, each certified gold, while People Latino magazine presented Hernández with four awards that year. His 2006 release Dios Siempre Tiene el Control proved his strongest seller to date, encompassing fifteen tracks and more than seventy-four minutes of material. Kilo Cibrian, Milton Sesenton, and Kevin Lebron produced the project, Orlando Rodriguez handled mixing, leading local and international players contributed, and live strings were employed; the opening single “Si le Crees a Dios” generated separate videos for Latin and Anglo audiences, ultimately earning two Latin Grammys.

Hernández made his Universal Music Latino debut in 2009 with Por Si No Hay Mañana during a tour that concluded at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum alongside Marcos Witt. A second live album, En Vivo Desde la Sala de Festivales: Del Centro, followed in 2010. After a brief pause he returned to the studio for 2012’s Inyección de Fe, which occupied the top chart slot for six weeks. To mark two decades in music he issued a hits collection in 2013, after which he concentrated on ministry activities that combined concerts, guest sermons, and charitable efforts. Me Conecta al Cielo arrived in 2015, followed in 2016 by a duets album featuring Jaime Barcelo, Benjamin Rivera, Melody Joy, and Funky; the next year brought Gracias Señor en Vivo, which included guest contributions from Zammy Peterson, Adlan Cruz, and Raquel Vega.