Raised by his mother in Paramount, California, he took up singing, adopting his father nickname, "Chalino", and gained a strong local fan base among Mexican-American teenagers.
[4] On March 20, 2004, Sánchez gave a concert and made history when he became the youngest headliner and first Regional-Mexican recording artist to sell out the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
Sánchez's remains were returned to the United States, where his family scheduled a public wake on April 1, 2004, at the St. John of God Church in Norwalk, California.
As Sánchez was not well known among English-speaking authorities, local law enforcement vastly underestimated his fan base, and they were unprepared when more than 15,000 young people jammed the streets to attend the service.
[10] In 2009, Always & Forever, a stage play by Michael Patrick Spillers, dramatized the impact of Sánchez's death on a group of young people in South Los Angeles.