We recently connected with Miguel Rivera and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Miguel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

Yes. To be honest it was by pure chance and luck. Before I started doing music full time I was a Public School teacher for 2 years in Newark, NJ. I taught Pre-K to 8th grade music. Even while teaching, I was still gigging, producing and trying to make something happen with my music but eventually it became too much. I decide to quit being a teacher to pursue my dream of becoming a full time artist-producer in late 2019, early 2020 – right before the pandemic hit. After struggling for majority of 2020, living in my car for about 2-3 months, and my older brother passing away, I finally got my break in August of 2020.

A talent scout for this Swedish Music Tech company, Rayko Laza, Dm’ed me on Instagram saying that he enjoyed my work. Specifically, he spoke about a video I did on IG where I performed for stuffed animals a couple months back, mid pandemic. He told me he wanted to pitch me to Epidemic Sound to become a writer/singer for the company. Within 2 months I was signed to Epidemic Sounds and it turned my life around. By May 2021, I had become one of their front line artist for Latin Music in the US. I was producing for myself as well as other artist within the company. Eventually, I was making enough money to become self-sustainable and invest more into my craft, becoming the full-time artist I set out to be after leaving my career as a public school teacher.

As far as speeding up the process knowing what I know now, there really isn’t any. It was pure luck and pure determination. I still have the mentality I did back then, which is to work harder than everyone else and never give up no matter how hard it may get.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I kind of fell into this profession by accident. Right out of high school I went to school for archeology & anthropology. I didnt really enjoy it as much as I thought I would so I dropped out of college (twice) until I decided to return to school later in life once I figured out what I wanted to do. When I was 17 I picked up drums as my first instrument but it was more of a hobby. Right after I dropped out of college I was approached by a buddy of mine to join his hardcore -metal band and play drums for them. I had no prior experience with making music, collaborations or just being in a musically creative setting. I ended up joining the band and remained with them for 3 years until we broke up due to personal reasons.

I ended up being the only one to continue the pursuit of music and when I was 23-24 years old I went back to school to study music. I went through several different facets of studying music. Everything from music theory, audio engineering, entertainment law and business, music education, performance, producing and songwriting and so on. It was a long, long journey before receiving a Bachelors degree in Pop Music studies and Music Business at William Paterson University.

Right out of University I got my first “adult job” as a music teacher for Park Elementary school in Newark, NJ. During my time as a teacher, I was still pursuing a career in the music industry. I had my first real world music industry experience when I signed up for a songwriting competition in NYC called iStandard, which was a community of producers and songwriters throughout the country that allowed artist like myself to compete in front of music entertainment execs within the industry. I placed 2nd place during my first competition and that gave me the encouragement I needed to pursue a journey in songwriting and producing for other artist, which i did for about 2 years.

My specialty was arranging and composing/producing music for other artist. The genre that I eventually got really good at was Latin music and multiple sects of the genre. My style can described as very experimental while taking influences from EDM, Hip-Hop, R&B and even Rock from my metal background. Nowadays, my work mainly focuses on songwriting, producing, composing/arranging, performing Latin music in most genres for myself as well as other artist. I also write music to pitch to labels, TV/Movie media and synch opportunities in hopes of getting my music placed.

I’m most proud of my own personal work with my music as an artist. Being given the opportunity to do music full-time has allowed my skills and style to grow exponentially and each day, the possibility for something new and different is infinite.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A big lesson I had to unlearn was the idea of ego being everything in the creative and music space. It’s a difficult concept to grasp because most of the music industry is based around ego and putting yourself on a pedestal so that people can SEE you, in whatever capacity that may mean.

Going into school as new music student, around multiple other musicians who have been taught music since they were kids was humbling as hell for me. However, because of my arrogance and sometimes ignorance, I always felt like I can do whatever these other guys can do. Be on their level, if not better than them. Whenever I received praise by my peers, I would let it get to my head. Winning competitions, playing flawless shows, writing out of the box music, etc. It just fueled my ego in a way that was just unattractive in retrospect.

In a room full of so much talent, I always sometimes felt like I was better than most just because of my personality, my arrogance and my pure ambition. Eventually, I went down a path of ego death. Unlearning all that arrogance was the best thing I could of done because it taught me that I am nothing if not equal to my peers in terms of the pure art form. We are all trying to accomplish something here and instead of thinking one person is better than the next, my whole philosophy is to just support others that share my art form and treat each other like human beings trying to navigate and understand this world through an artistic lens.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I want to win a grammy. haha To be honest, I just want respect. I could care less about fame and being noticed. I just want to be able to continue making a living making music and letting that be the what keeps a roof over my head and food in my fridge. Thats what I currently have at the moment and I already feel like I won in life. My ambitious nature however, wants the respect of the industry and I feel like working towards a grammy will grant me that wish. When people hear the name Lawd Ito, I want them to be like “Oh Lawd Ito? Now that dude is cold! Respect” I also want to work with as many people as possible in the industry and make some dope shit that has the potential to be timeless.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lawditomusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawdito/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LawdIto
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lawd_ito
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lawdito

Image Credits
For the Kimono photos – Jimmy Love For the white backdrop photos – Phillip “Zain” Dias