It was in early 2001 when Northampton, MA resident, Ryan Andrews, started being introduced to rap music. At age 7, he wrote his first song. Coming from a middle class family, Ryan didn't have much to work with when recording music. Just an old cassette recorder and a dream. At first, he didn't even use beats...just his own vocals. Eventually, he fell in love with a girl named Alicia in 2004 when he was 10. It was because of this relationship that he decided to start making his own rap music on a regular basis. His girlfriend's father, Tony, tossed out the name Heartbeat 120 over lunch one day. Ryan loved it and started using that name. He would rap under that name for 8 years and producing 7 albums. However, Heartbeat 120 was destined for failure.



After being suspended from his old high school of Northampton High for undisclosed reasons, he was relocated to HEC Academy located in downtown Northampton. It is here that he made "The Exile Tapes EP", an album to catalog all the bullying and unfair treatment he recieved in NHS. One song was entitled "School Shooting", a graphic depiction of the acts of violent punishment we sometimes all secretly wish we could deliver upon the people that treat us badly. "Making that track was also a release for me. I felt if i made a song about doing violent things to these people it would prevent the anger inside me from bottling up and exploding, causing some innocent people to get hurt," Ryan says about the song.

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Ryan discovered the brony community soon after making that track. He saw the error of his ways but thought that poetically, the song was too good to be unreleased, so it made it onto the album. Because several students from NHS were named in the song, Heartbeat 120 was arrested by local police a few days after release, at the age of 17. He was charged with one felony charge of a bomb/hijack threat and two misdemeanors: threat to commit murder and threat to commit rape. "It wasn't until they questioned me did I really know I was in trouble. I was terrified," Ryan says. The felony charge was dropped almost immediatly, but Ryan was sentenced on 4 months house arrest then a following 3 years probation. However, the GPS bracelet he needed to wear would not be available for a full 24 hours from the day of his arraignment. He had to spend the night in the county jail. On the ride to jail, Ryan decided that he would fully embrace the pony lifestyle by loving and tolerating everyone. He knew this positive attitude would help him in the end. Ryan comments about his night in jail. "It wasn't that bad, until the screams started at night."


As the bracelet was being delivered to the courthouse the next day, Ryan started rapping in his holding cell...about ponies. He decided to use the ponies and the brony community to spread love and peace throughout the world and changed his rap name from Heartbeat 120 to Rainboom. He made it through his period of house arrest and is now serving his 3 years of probation. He has produced one album as Rainboom and has another slated for release later this year, just one day after his 19th birthday.

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