Juan Serrano @jotadepaso Gained +30,000 Followers With Simple Instagram Videos

Juan Cruz Serrano is 28, from southern Córdoba, Argentina, and people know him as J. For about ten years he has traveled with music, playing on the street and in small bars across Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil, always with a guitar on his back.

About five months ago he arrived in Mexico. He recorded one simple video in a square, with a phone and a tripod, and his Instagram exploded: in 22 days of posting simple videos, he went from 2,600 to 36,000 followers. We talked with him about the road, what he learned from the videos that worked, and what comes next. You can watch the full video interview, recorded in Spanish with English subtitles, below. The written answers are translated from the Spanish.

How did you start with music?

I started when I was around 15 or 16, with a small keyboard I was given. That was the first thing I learned: some cumbias, some covers. Then, around 18, I got my first guitar, and it was love at first sight. The road has been very long in these last 10 years. Sometimes you lose touch with what you’re passionate about, and I had low points: there were periods when I left music, but always with a guitar on my back.

You started traveling in Uruguay. How was that?

I left on a December 14. On December 24 they had stolen my backpack, my passport, about 3,000 dollars I had saved, and they broke my guitar. The magic of life, all together. Sometimes the people closest to you don’t always support you when you start a dream that goes far outside the normal. There was always this: “You’ll come back in two weeks, they’ll steal everything from you.” It happened. In two weeks they stole everything. So I gathered my courage and said: this is my moment. I found someone who fixed drums, and he fixed my guitar. From then on I started playing in a little bar, a small place, in Uruguay.

And after that, where did the road go?

I went back to Argentina and started traveling again. I went north to Bolivia, then Peru, southern Ecuador, Peru again, and through the Amazon to Colombia. Always with music, together with art. There was a time I did juggling, and a time I made crafts, working with wire. In a more hippie way, as some would say. Or maluco, maluco de BR.

When I went back to Argentina I decided to invest in my first microphone and my first speaker. I bought them in Posadas, Misiones, and started playing in small bars, getting booked. It’s hard to get in the middle of things when you’re traveling, because it’s not the same to be established in one place as to be on the move and find work as a musician.

What did Brazil change?

In Brazil I feel I grew a lot musically. Brazil blew my mind. The level of musicians there is another planet: instrumentalists, singers, the complex harmonies they handle. It gave me my first stages with bands and other experiences in music, with other people, like connecting. Now, with all this virality, most of my audience is Spanish-speaking, but I want to make music in Portuguese too, to share the passion with both.

Why did you start posting videos?

I was always searching for a way to keep growing on this artistic path. I came to Mexico about 5 months ago. I had been stopped with music for a while, and I came to reconnect with it. After a few months I met a great friend from Yucatán who works with artists and labels. He saw me playing on the street and liked what I did a lot. He told me: “Brother, what you do is very good, you should make videos. You can be one video away from your life changing.”

I bought a tripod for my phone and said: I’ll record my first song, without much expectation. I went to the square, recorded the song in a very simple way, and it exploded, it went viral. I couldn’t believe it. My Instagram had frozen. I analyzed a little what I had done, without much awareness though, and I repeated the formula the following days, and it went viral more than the one before. It’s been 22 days of posting videos every day. I went from 2,600 followers to 36,000, in no time.

You can be one video away from your life changing.

Do you make the videos alone? What did you learn about what works?

Alone, with the phone and the tripod. Part of the analysis I made is that the most produced videos, the ones where you try to make people see quality, image, are the ones that worked the least. What people liked the most was simplicity, feeling close, having you in front of them and hearing you sing a song, not something very produced. I think that authenticity and that organic touch gave the videos their push.

It’s very important to keep your essence. Sometimes you see a formula, but when you try to apply it you don’t feel comfortable, you feel like you’re acting. The idea is to be authentic, to let it come out natural.

How did you handle people’s reactions?

Social pressure too. When the videos went viral, people were making fun of me: “Influencer,” “the famous one now.” Things that made no sense, and from people close to me. But you understand that there are many people with a lot of repressed desires, and seeing someone make things real bothers them in some way. Today there are thousands of people commenting on videos and sending me messages, showing me all their support. Our music may not please everyone, but there are people who like it, and those are the people we want to send our music to.

You did a streaming show with tickets. How was that?

It was really cool, really crazy. The videos had gone viral, I had about 12,000 followers, and I said: I’ll do a streaming show for 20 people, with a cheap ticket. I charged 6 dollars. For promotion, I shared it in a reel, I didn’t pay for any advertising. It was really funny because, before posting it, I thought I would sell all the tickets in an hour. Then the fear started that maybe I wouldn’t sell them all. But in the first 24 hours I sold them, all 20. It was a success.

It was my first streaming show and I was a little nervous, a little strange to sing only through a screen. The energy of people’s presence is very necessary, but if you look for it and there is a response on the other side, you can get it through a camera too.

And YouTube, and your own music?

I have YouTube too, it’s jotadepaso1. For now we’re going a bit slow with video production, but we want to put more energy into it. You want everything to come out perfect: good audio, a good camera, a good set. I think, and I’m telling this to myself, that you should dare to make things a bit rawer, a bit more organic, with the resources you have at hand. You can always do it in the most professional way, but when it’s done with the heart, it arrives the same way.

I have my own music and I play it. Now I’m in a process of composing, wanting to invest in this new industry, which in Argentina is a bit of cumbia. I posted one song and it didn’t get much response, but here we go: trial and error.

Any advice for other musicians?

“Advice” is a very strong word. I don’t know if I’m in a position to give advice, but I always say, and I think not only in music but in any part of life: you have to throw yourself into the void, dare to jump into the unknown, leave your comfort zone, try new things. And above all, be very clear about where you want to go, what path you want to walk. When you really want something and look for it, the path aligns, a bit inexplicably, but it works.

May we walk after what we want, may we try to make a difference in our own way, and may everything done with love turn out well. There is no bad that doesn’t turn out well.

---

Follow Juan Cruz Serrano: @jotadepaso on Instagram and @jotadepaso1 on YouTube.