Today we’d like to introduce you to J O V A.
Hi J O V A, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My story really starts when I moved from Puerto Rico to Houston at 10 years old. Puerto Rico had already given me a strong sense of identity, culture, and a love for music that would stay with me. By 16, I was seriously making music and beginning to figure out who I wanted to be as an artist. Hip-hop and urban music always felt natural to me because it was more than entertainment, it was storytelling. It gave people a way to say what they were living, believing, struggling with, and dreaming about.
Eventually, though, I stepped away from music. Life took me in different directions, and honestly, I needed that time. My faith and ministry became a huge part of my life. I spent more than 15 years leading worship and over a decade serving in ministry and leadership. Along the way, I discovered that music wasn’t my only creative language.
In 2018, I started seriously developing myself as a graphic designer. I’m largely self-taught, learning through trial and error, experimentation, and a lot of late nights figuring things out. Later, photography and visual storytelling became part of that creative journey too.
Then, in 2024, I came back to music.
But I wasn’t coming back as the 16-year-old kid who left it behind. I had grown up. I had experienced life, developed my faith, built new creative skills, and gained a completely different perspective. I finally had something to say that could only come from the person I had become.
That’s when JOVA really started taking shape.
Today, I don’t see myself as just a rapper. I’m a creative. Music, graphic design, photography, visual storytelling, and ministry may look like separate things on paper, but to me they’re all different ways of communicating and telling a story.
Houston has also played a huge role in that journey. Growing up between Puerto Rican roots and life in Texas has given me a perspective that continues to shape how I create and how I see the world.
Looking back, I don’t see the years I spent away from music as wasted time. I think I needed them. I had to live before I could fully understand what I wanted to say.
Now, I’m still creating, still learning, and still figuring things out, but for the first time, I feel like I’m not trying to become somebody else. I’m finally becoming JOVA.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. One of the biggest struggles has been learning how to keep creating even when life doesn’t look the way you imagined it would.
There were years when I stepped away from music completely, and for a long time I saw that as falling behind. I’d look at other artists and wonder what would have happened if I had never stopped. Coming back in 2024 meant dealing with that feeling and realizing I couldn’t change the time I had lost, I could only decide what to do with the time I had now.
I’ve also struggled with the pressure to pick one thing and stick with it. I’m a musician, graphic designer, photographer, and someone who has spent years in ministry. At times, I wondered if having so many creative interests meant I lacked direction. Eventually, I realized the opposite was true. Those different experiences were all shaping the way I communicate and tell stories.
There have also been the normal struggles of trying to build something while working, raising a family, navigating life, and figuring out where I fit creatively. There have been seasons where I questioned whether I was actually making progress.
But I think those struggles have made me more intentional. I’m not chasing the idea of becoming successful overnight anymore. I’m more interested in building something that feels authentic and sustainable.
The road hasn’t been smooth, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. Some of the detours ended up teaching me things I wouldn’t have learned if everything had gone according to plan.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work really comes down to one thing: storytelling. I’m an artist and rapper, but I also work in graphic design, photography, and visual content. I’ve been doing graphic design since 2018, and over time I’ve realized that all of these creative outlets are connected. Whether I’m making a song, designing artwork, taking photos, or building a visual concept, I’m trying to communicate something and make people feel something.
My music is rooted in urban sounds, faith, culture, and real-life experiences. Growing up between Puerto Rican culture and Houston, spending years in ministry, and developing creatively in different areas have all shaped the way I see the world.
I also want my music to have a purpose beyond entertainment. I want to give back to my community and use my platform to talk about things people are actually going through. Even something like what’s happening in Puerto Rico right now, where people are still struggling to have consistent access to water, is something I feel strongly about. That’s home for me, so when I see things like that happening, I don’t just see it as a headline. I think about the people there and the communities I came from. Those are the kinds of things I want to be able to speak about through my music and, hopefully, one day be in a position to help with.
What I’m most proud of is that I’ve built a lot of this from the ground up. I’m largely self-taught, and I’ve had to figure things out through trial and error, make mistakes, and keep going.
I think that’s also what sets me apart. I’m not just making music, I understand the visual side of the artist, too. I can think about the sound, artwork, photography, branding, and story behind a project as one complete picture.
At the end of the day, I want my work to feel honest and have a purpose. I want people to hear or see something from JOVA and feel like there’s a real person behind it—someone who cares about where he comes from, what’s happening around him, and what he can do to make a difference.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
There are definitely a few things I use all the time. For music, I’m a Logic Pro guy. That’s where I record and work on my music. For video, I use DaVinci Resolve, and for design, I’m pretty much living in Procreate and Adobe Illustrator. Those are tools I genuinely love. I can sit down with an idea and lose hours just creating.
I’m also really big on learning as I go. I’m mostly self-taught, so YouTube, tutorials, other artists, designers, and just messing around with things have taught me a lot. A lot of times I’ll see something and think, “How did they do that?” and then I’ll spend the next few hours trying to figure it out myself.
As far as books, The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin has been a big one for me. I really connected with the idea of not forcing creativity and just being open enough to recognize an idea when it comes.
Right now I’m finishing War Against All Puerto Ricans by Nelson A. Denis, which has been really interesting for me because of my Puerto Rican roots. It’s given me a different perspective on parts of Puerto Rican history that I honestly didn’t know much about.
I think that’s probably the biggest thing for me: staying curious. I’m always trying to learn something, whether it’s music, design, history, or just something completely random that catches my attention. I think that curiosity is a huge part of how I create.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dondeestajova?igsi=cjdqM3ZpNmp0cXpq&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19XmY3YSkj/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@quienesjova?si=rnKydT_5V_ltPxvX
