We recently connected with Juelz Velasquez and have shared our conversation below.
Juelz , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
I’ve been in the military, had jobs in hospitality, customer service, security, food delivery and right now a side hustle as a tour guide. Let me tell you none of those made/make me as happy as doing what I do as a creative. Plus being my own boss is pretty cool! Is it difficult? Absolutely, ESPECIALLY as a startup. Im losing more money than anything, but not only do I know it’s only for a moment, but I love what I do so much it doesn’t really bother me. I’m also learning to deal with poor behavior from time to time because at the end of the day this is customer service/hospitality and if you’ve worked any of those you know how people can get…haha I’m going on 8 years in the comedy game, 7 years with my production and 4 on producing comedy shows. Aint no giving up for me. I’ve never been this committed with anything besides my tattoos and my pups. ha-ha Being able to bring people together for laughs and a good time in a world so cold I’ll take that any day. Of course, extra funds would be nice, but I like not answering to anyone and if anything goes wrong, I know at the end of the day it’s on me. Sometimes I think it would be easier settling for a 9-5 because with my work ethic I know how quickly I can go up the ladder, but I wasn’t made for that life. No disrespect to anyone doing 9-5. Like I said right now I have a side hustle, so I get it bills have to be paid and its difficult in its own way BUT taking a chance on your dream(s) is a wild gamble and I have all my chips on the table. I believe in myself, my loved ones who’ve passed away believe in my success and that’s enough for me to know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. (Bars haha). But yeah I’ll take what I’m doing any day. I love what I do. The amount of lost and still trying to figure how to make things better is a certain kind of love.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Good morning, well depending on the time you’re reading this good afternoon, good evening. My name is Juelz Velasquez I am an Entrepreneur/Comic from The Bronx. If we start from the beginning of this entirety, we’d be here forever so we’ll just start from the beginning of producing my own shows. October 2019 I had directed a play (Commencing by Jane Shepard) at a Film school I attended as an alumnus. The turnout was great and had me thinking two things well damn I can produce my own comedy shows since I have a production. My other thought was how a friend of mine who passed, isn’t here to do what he loves so I should stop playing and put my all in. By November/December I had three jobs and already started asking comics and friends if they were down for a 420-comedy show. I figured its perfect 4/20/20, gives me plenty of time to prep and then we all know what happened covid 19 aka BIG OL CORONA was happening. There was NO WAY I was going to cancel the show all together. Instead, we did a zoom show with all the comics and audience in their homes. A friend at the time let me and handful of friends post up at her place for the zoom. Even though it didn’t pan out the way I wanted to. It was great and there was no stopping from there. Since 2020 BX92 has produced over 25 comedy shows, 6 photoshoots, 6 open mics, a mini short and curated 2 art shows.
At Bx92 productions we provide a few services such as comedy shows, shooting short films, networking and headshots/photoshoots. What makes our production different, is we are 420 friendly. My goal is to destigmatize the image of a “pot head”, showing that marijuana is just an excuse for peoples lack of drive and ambition. Our shows/work isn’t just for the 420 crowd but for everyone; toker or not (18+). We’ve had plenty of guests who don’t smoke and had a great experience with BX92. Another one of our goals is for our work to be an experience for our guest. Life is already complicated and if we can bring some joy into peoples lives for X amount of hours, we’re doing our job correctly.
I’m EXTREMELY proud of working with what I have and MAKING IT WORK . As a New Yorker it’s what we do, we always find a way. I don’t make a lot of money and we might not be a “big” or “famous” company but EVERY show there’s been at least a handful of people who enjoyed themselves so much, they were generous enough to donate and let us know to keep doing what we’re doing. That means a lot to me especially as someone who moved here in 2017 with less than $200.00. I think I’m doing okay and only getting better in every aspect in my life especially with my production.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The laughs, smiles, connection. We all know the world’s a dumpster fire but man going into any BX92 production let that be our comedy shows, photo shoots or our zoom network meetups, just for a small amount of time we get to let go and enjoy while the dumpster on the other side is still on fire. There’s a certain awareness still of the dumpster fire that goes into play too. It’s hard to explain you’d have to follow us to see what I mean. ha-ha Yeah it’d have to be the smiles. laughs and connection the bonus is when our photographer (Love) catches it. It’s beautiful especially because there’s a lot of sadness in the world so to be able to get people to AT LEAST smile and pausing the moment through lens…priceless.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My ultimate goal is to take bx92 globally. I am a Navy veteran and made some great bonds while I was in. Unfortunately, most of these bonds are all over the world and I would love to not only visit them but bring a piece of what I love to where they are. I’d be killing a few birds with one stone, visiting new places, seeing old friends, working on what I love, broadening our audience and bringing on comics from those particular places. With social media its actually pretty easy to find comics from all over! How cool would that be? A BX92, Secret Comedy Show in Japan with comics who live out there, 2 comics from out here in LA being flown out with the BX92 team, with old friends AND the locals as an audience. That would be great! We’ve done Vegas and a cross over show between New York and LA. Sounds confusing? I’ll help you out, we did a show with comics in NY and LA at the same time with a live audience from both coasts. If you were in LA you can see the NY comics from a projector and if you were in NY you watched from a device. So we’re working our way to global but right now our goal is to get bring smiles live Nationally. We’re getting there little by little. Hopefully we can catch you tuning in a show live/zoom or even catching one of our zoom events for our fellow introverts! Haha Feel free to follow us on Instagram for future events/updates at Bx92productions
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