Juan Hidalgo, from San Francisco de Macorís, is a Dominican record executive and music publisher, president and co-founder, with Nelson Estévez, of J&N Records — the most successful independent Latin record company to come out of the Dominican Republic.

From a record shop in Queens

He and Estévez started small, selling LPs and cassettes out of a shop in Queens, New York, before turning to production. Their first two records sold to almost no one but themselves; signing Ramón Orlando gave the label its first real hit and put it on a footing to sign Los Toros Band and the merengue orchestra La Artillería.

«Cachamba», and a shark

Under Hidalgo’s direction the label built a catalogue that would eventually run past 35,000 recordings. Kinito Méndez’s «Cachamba» sold more than a million copies, and Proyecto Uno’s «El Tiburón» carried the label into the merenhouse and urban crossover of the 1990s, the same decade J&N became one of the first Dominican-run labels to sign Puerto Rican urban pioneers such as Vico C, Lisa M and Fransheska.

The roster

J&N went on to record Zacarías Ferreira, Monchy & Alexandra and dozens of other bachata and merengue names, including Rikarena. Under Hidalgo’s presidency the company also expanded into radio (the Rumba stations in the Dominican Republic, Yunque 92.9 FM in Puerto Rico), its own EMCA recording studios, and film, producing Mexican and Puerto Rican features through a partnership with Televisa. During the 2020 pandemic it produced the tribute album «Billos Legendarios», honoring the Venezuelan-based Dominican bandleader Billo Frómeta with singers including Carlos Vives, Óscar de León and Wilfrido Vargas.

Ralph S. Peer Award

In October 2025 the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame gave Hidalgo and Estévez, as J&N Publishing, its Ralph S. Peer Publishers Award, presented by the organization’s president, Marti Cuevas — recognition of a catalogue that by then ran past 20,000 published works.

Legacy

“We started with a $13,000 investment,” Hidalgo has said of the company he still runs — by his own account the only major independent Latin label left free of the industry’s larger conglomerates after more than four decades.