Nelson Estévez is a Dominican record executive and producer. With Juan Hidalgo he founded and has run J&N Records for more than forty years — the J and the N of the name are Juan and Nelson.

The label

J&N is the most internationally successful record company Dominican music has produced. It built its catalogue in merengue and bachata and carried both out of the country at a moment when neither had a route to a foreign audience except through a Dominican label willing to do the work.

The company operates out of Miami as JN Music Group and marked its fortieth year in 2021 with Latin Grammy nominations. Zacarías Ferreira, Monchy & Alexandra and Xantos all recorded for it, along with a long list of others.

Behind the catalogue

Legacy

Estévez has spent four decades making those decisions, and a large part of what a Dominican audience can now hear from the eighties and nineties exists because J&N put it on tape.