Jhoni The Voice, born Johnathan Ramos, is a Dominican singer, songwriter, producer and recording engineer. He was born in Santiago, raised in New York from the age of six, and works now out of Miami, signed to Roc Nation Latin.

Learning the room, then the desk

He was singing for family before he was old enough to know it was a skill, and by eleven he was writing and producing his own material. The unusual part is what came next: instead of pursuing a record deal he went to Orlando and took a degree in recording arts.

The route is a rare one for a Dominican singer, and it shows in what he is hired for. His label describes him as known for vocal production, which is a specific craft — deciding how a voice should sit in a record, how many takes to stack, where the emotion actually lives in a performance.

He is a multi-instrumentalist on piano and guitar, and he is a self-taught singer. The engineering is the part he was formally trained in.

Opening acts and features

The early years were spent as the other name on the poster. He opened for Romeo Santos, Don Omar, Daddy Yankee, Juanes and Juan Luis Guerra 4.40 — five acts that between them cover most of what Latin music was selling that decade — and half of one of a duo, LD & Jhoni, before going solo.

Hasta En Tus Sueños, with Henry Santos, is the clearest Dominican credit he has: a bachata on the deluxe edition of an album by a founding member of the group that rebuilt the genre for an American audience. He has also cut records with Poeta Callejero and Messiah.

The catalogue under his own name

His first EP arrived under his own name and the singles kept coming: Bonita, Heroé, Farolito, Dime, El Narrador, Frágiles — the last with a Colombian guest on the remix. Heroé turned up on the soundtrack of an American television drama, which is the kind of placement that pays a songwriter properly.

He works in English too. Look at You and Can’t Get Enough Of You are his, and he has debuted singles on American radio in both languages. Sin Escaleras, U Found Me, Se Supone and Desnúdate are more recent.

Palms N Wavs

The imprint on his current releases is his own: Palms N Wavs. Sabanas Mojadas came out on it with the group Bachata Gang, and MORENA, from the JTV EP, is filed as afrobeat — a Dominican in Miami making West African-derived pop in Spanish, which is where a lot of Caribbean music is currently heading.

His own summary of what he does is one word: kingmaker. It is a producer’s word rather than a singer’s, and it is the honest description of a career spent making other people’s records sound like themselves.