We were lucky to catch up with Juan Rivera recently and have shared our conversation below.
Juan, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Confidence and self esteem was instilled in me as a young private in the military which helped build my overall character and helped form and shape the person I am today. As I look back from time to time on many life experiences I can easily say being in the US Army gave me the all of the above.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My name is Juan Rivera and my story begins at the early age of 5 years old in the Bronx New York. My mother had passed away during that time and I was adopted by my grandmother who took me and my younger brother in. Over the years we grew up in a normal Hispanic family environment lower class nothing fancy but we had what we needed to get by. We eventually moved to Puerto Rico when I hit 10 years of age and I clearly recall not being able to speak a lick of Spanish to save my life lol! It helped that me and my brother grew up with my puertorican family and spending time with local neighbors, watching Spanish soap operas, etc. I learned the language, culture and skills needed to get by. School was pretty normal, graduated from high school and decided I would relocate back to New York where I would work in Queens for some time as a grocer in a local supermarket but way before that during my time in Puerto Rico growing up I loved listening to reggaeton, rap and hip hop which eventually led me to make a very great friendship which I still have to this day and we shared similar interests in the music genre. It was then when I started writing my own music which consisted of recording on cassette players and ever since then from around age 15 I’ve been writing and singing my own songs & music and as a result JTA. R was born to the world. Currently I am the service department manager at a local boat dealership and during my time off I spend my time brainstorming new ideas for content. New music will be dropping in the near future and I plan to expand myself to publicity gigs.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Skills and areas of knowledge I highly recommend if you are growing up would be the first one: learn 2 languages as I’ve learned that in life you will be more likely to be successful overall, two: read a lot of books, knowledge is power and power is key. Study as much as you can especially in any subject that catches your attention. Lastly don’t be afraid to take chances because you only live one life and time doesn’t stop or goes back for anyone. Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can accomplish today, you will be amazed at what you can with your spare time.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am always searching for fresh new talent, people who share similar interests or want to get involved in the culture, love music in general and are eager to grow professionally to become successful in life. Anyone who is interested can look me up in my social media pages and DM me for any type of events, collaborations, etc.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juan.jta.r_91/profilecard/?igsh=bGxxbWJpc281YnIx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/f1Tc7mwTuS3wvDPa/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@juanjtarrivera?si=hXfUtVaNqTVXVfeC
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
