North American / Puerto Rico / Puerto Rico

Jay Ruiz is the stage name of Jonathan Camacho Ruiz, a singer-songwriter born in La Sultana del Oeste, Mayagüez, but raised in the Pueblo de Rincón neighborhood, the westernmost municipality of La Isla Del Encanto.

Among his ancestors, Jay Ruiz, highlights his paternal grandfather Antonio Camacho who was a musician and troubadour, in his native Rincón.

Jay Ruiz’s musical beginnings date back to his short 5 years, when he sang in the choir of the Presbyterian church he attended. However, he would later become involved in sports, which would keep him away from music until he was 11 years old, when at the middle school where he was studying, the teacher promoted him as a soloist in a 24-member choir group.

He also stands out as a percussionist, performing skillfully on the bongo, the congas and the drums; instruments that he would learn to play by ear when he was 8 years old.

When he turned 12, the guitar and the bass would be the instruments that would captivate him and to which he would dedicate his time.

When he turned 15, he decided to form his own Christian music group: this is how the New Creation group was born, in which he developed as a drummer and singer.

A year later, while he was a member of the baseball team that represented Puerto Rico, he was about to be signed by the University of Cleveland, but in the process he was diagnosed with neck and throat cancer.

He traveled to Maryland to undergo exhaustive examinations at the John Hopkins Hospital, the same ones that would determine that he would undergo six months of chemotherapy and subsequent radiotherapy, treatments that he would receive at the San Jorge Children’s Hospital (Santurce, Puerto Rico).

Before the radiation treatment he was warned that he would lose 85% of his vocal abilities, however, the story was different: August 12, 2001, he would finish the treatment for his illness and five days later, for his birthday, he meets in his town -Rincón- to the entire community in a musical activity in which he would play, sing and give testimony of his case.

Thinking about his future, he studies at the Interamerican University, San Germán Campus, where he obtains a bachelor’s degree as a Physical Education teacher for children with disabilities.

The illness of his father, who lived in New York, forces him to cross the pond to take care of him, until his death, five years later.

In 2011 he returned to Puerto Rico, and enrolled in the Ponce Paramedical College at the Mayagüez Medical Center, to continue studying Physiotherapy, however, he became involved again in music participating in the famous franchise IDOL PUERTO RICO, ranking among the 32 last finalists. He continues his academic life and at the same time, works as a chef in a restaurant, a situation that would lead him to serve a musical entrepreneur based in New Jersey (United States) who was visiting the island, and with whom he would start a friendly relationship first, that would turn into work a few months later, when the businessman invited him for an audition in the neighboring municipality of Cabo Rojo.

After that meeting, in 2014, Jay Ruiz would pack his bags again to settle in Newark (New Jersey, USA) from where he would launch his career as a performer of the bachata genre, and that he would have on the songs “Ven A Mí , Girl” and “Culpables” two singles of wide diffusion and consideration in the international radio circuits, to the point of having disputed with the last mentioned cut, the category of Favorite Tropical Song of the Latin American Music Awards between great personalities of the music like Víctor Manuelle, Prince Royce and Gente de Zona (feat. Marc Anthony).

In 2017 he becomes independent, returns to Puerto Rico and decides to promote his career, but this time as a salsero, recording the single “Lo Sé”, of his own, under the production of maestro Nino Segarra.

Two years later, he brings us this new single, of which he is also the author, both of the lyrics and the melody.