We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jorge Costa. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jorge below.
Jorge, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
In July 2021 – right in the middle of the pandemic- I moved from Mexico City to Phoenix, AZ ( a city I had never been to), to take a tenure-track Assistant Professor position at Arizona State University to develop their Producer / Engineer specialty in their new Popular Music Program and to be the chief engineer at their state of the art recording studios. Since the borders were closed in both land and sea and I only had 3 weeks from the time I got the offer to my first day at the job, I had to get rid of everything I owned -with the exception of 3 suitcases and my cat- and start from scratch! Two and a half years later I can confidently say the the risk paid off: My wife and I are loving life in Arizona. I am grateful to have the opportunity to help build something very special with my colleagues at the University, as well as making wonderful new friends and growing as a human being.”
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have been a music maker my entire life, primarily as a recording / mixing engineer and record producer, but also I have worked as a songwriter and performer and artist. In that capacity I’ve had the chance to work with some incredible artists like Korn, Dr Dre, Agnez Mo, Wiz Khalifa and Carl Verheyen and film composers like Richard Gibbs, Sonya Belousova and Alex Wurman. In the past few years I have focused on working with independent artists and I recently hit a major career milestone: my work has generated well over 1 Billion streams.
In 2017 -almost by accident- I got involved in education and started teaching record production and sound engineering at REC Musica music college in Mexico City. I loved it so much that education has become an important part of my professional life and led me to my current position at ASU. I take pride in seeing my students -both former and current- succeed: some of them have already become Grammy-winners!
Community building is at the core of everything I do and my mission is to use music as a vehicle to improve people’s lives: Creating the right team and environment for an artist, co-writing and co-producing and teaching my students how to work as a unit and focus on the human element of music creation.
This guiding principle is also at the core of my two most recent ventures:
– Renewal Music Collective: an artistic project I started with my fellow music maker Juan Carlos Sardaneta focused on the idea of collective music creation, equity and equality. We have released two singles (with 3 more in the pipeline) and we have had the opportunity to create with an incredibly diverse group of wonderful people.
– Last but certainly not least, I am currently building a community-driven, technology-based music startup called Through The Noise with an incredible group of partners in Silicon Valley. The company focuses on harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence to empower music makers by removing obstacles and allowing them to spend more time being creative.
On a personal note, I am married to Dr. Alma Ramirez, the most amazing life partner I could have dreamed of and we have an 8-year old cat named Tiramisu. My favorite things to do when I’m not working are roadtrips with my wife and Scuba diving.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I would like my students and young artists I collaborate with to have a better music industry -and why not a better World- than the one I have been part of for the past 25 years. I strongly believe that striving for social and economic equality is the way to achieve that. It is extremely hard to be creative when you are being discriminated and struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over your head.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
Without hesitation, mentors have been my greatest resource for for growth. I have been very fortunate to find mentors through my journey who have impacted every aspect of my life: my creativity, work ethics, entrepreneurship and philosophy have been informed, expanded and stimulated by wonderful people who were generous with their knowledge and experience. Nowadays I try to do the same for my students and collaborators who are at an earlier stage in their own journeys.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://throughthenoise.io/
- Instagram: @jcostamusic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jorge-costa-producer/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@RenewalMusicCollective
- Other: https://credits.muso.ai/profile/4a19d61b-4c5b-4058-a5bc-fd8f607cee35