|
Antonio A. Serrano Jr., more commonly known as T.J., started singing at the age of five in church. His parents, having always loved music, incorporated music into virtually every aspect of T.J.'s life. Consequently, he spent most of his childhood singing and acting in schools, church and for various other audiences. Ever since he found his love for performing, he was inspired and determined to become a professional gospel singer. His determination continued until rumors of intimate relations with his at-once long time girlfriend spread and resulted in his removal from ministry and church related activities. Further, these rumors served as a means in which the church attempted to remove his father as presiding Pastor of the church. As a result, his family was forced to leave behind everything that had become deer in their lives. T.J. had been crushed, bitter, broken, and never wanted to have anything to do with singing and music ever again. He had felt as if God had turned his back on him.
Within after a year of having moved into their new home and neighborhood, T.J. came into contact with a high school chorus teacher named Mr. Ambrosio (or as he liked to call him, Mr. A.). To fill education requirements, it was mandatory that T.J. participate in chorus. When it came time to place T.J. into a section of the chorus, Mr. A. had to audition him. Mr. A. was taken back and very impressed at the singing and musical ability of T.J. He immediately asked T.J. to join "Swing", an elite group of choral singers from within the high schools. T.J. started to view Mr. A., not only as a teacher, but also as a close friend. After a few weeks of contemplating his options, T.J. joined "Swing". Through "Swing" T.J. amassed popularity and respect from within his new town and was quickly becoming a local sensation. Local newspapers began writing about him as many people rushed to see him perform. It was this time that well-known salsa legend, Jose Lebron discovered T.J. started to sing with him and various other Latin performers.
On his way to success, everything transformed itself while attending Five Town College for the Performing Arts. It would be at Five Towns that T.J. and long time musical partner Majic would at first meet him and begin their musical journey together. Now with his album done and already experiencing some early success, T.J. is ready to share his happiness, pain, and mind with the rest of the world through his music. His music display a variety of different sounds and styles to fit his voice, which can be explained nest by his musical partner Majic who had said; T.J. is not one style of singer because he wasn't raised on one style of music. He's R&B, he's rock, he's pop, he's rap, he's salsa, he's gospel. He's a melting pot of all these things and its evident when he sings. I can honestly say that, in my opinion, there is no one out there that sounds like him."
T.J.'s love for his family, along with his love and faith in God has amazingly gotten stronger through all his experiences. T.J. describes this experience, the making of his first album, as an "album about your everyday person: ups, downs, happiness, sadness, pain, failure, triumph, losing and then finding himself again; it's everything that I've been through and that everyone else in the world has gone through or is still going though. I just want to connect to them and I hope that they connect to me"
Leif Erikson
|
