Meet Papa J Ruiz of The iii in South East Aurora

Today we’d like to introduce you to Papa J Ruiz.

We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born in 1990 on Feb 27th In Glendale California in a Los Angeles County. I was born into a family of 3 That came from South America in Bogota Columbia.

My mother and father came to America in 1979. My mother was granted a Visa because her older brother and it up in America and slowly was bringing his siblings and parents to the States. My mother or father got married and by default my father was blessed with the opportunity to have a Visa and come to America where to this day he’s the only one from his family still out here.

My 1st 2 years of life we moved around a lot from Burbank to Glendale to nor Hollywood eventually ending up in a situation where my father didn’t have much work in California and we ended up losing our house my father Was blessed to be given a call from an old friend named Fred who happen to move to Colorado in the Park Hill area and told my father that he had plenty of work for him out here in the he should pick up and move. Show at the age of 2, almost three we picked up and moved to Colorado live in his basement and slowly getting our feet on the ground.

Eventually, we migrated to the South East area of Aurora Colorado will my father Got our 1st apartment. Slowly we move to the crossings of Iliff & Buckley Which later molded me into the man I am.

As I grew Up, I found love with hip hop and before hip hop always had a love for music and making money if you asked my parents today the always tell you that I used to sell my toys. At the age of 9, I said I wanted to be a rapper and I started to have a love for it.

Growing up in Aurora was great and in my household it was nothing but loving great family like Colombian food cooking That taught me great discipline honesty and to never give up on myself. As I grew up I would hang out with the kids that lived on the same block as mine And that taught me so many things from how to be a good friend and being informed on the disadvantages that other kids had that I didn’t Like the absence of their fathers or mothers I learned about gangs I learned about entrepreneurship and being tough.

Once high school passed and I was able to get my diploma after many obstacles such as fights be and expelled For selling weed I graduated with a 4.0 Blessed because of a nice school program shut out to Mr. Abraham At rangeview high school.

After nice school, I want to take rapping serious I had met the love of my life and all I was doing was working a job wasting my time with Individuals that I no longer bonded with.

I lock myself away among mothers 2nd floor and just made beats with all programs and a keyboard and my father by me and at the age of 21, I said I needed leave So I went to California with the faith of new beginnings.

During that time even I met a good friend by the name of Chad MarshallAnd I became a part of a rap collective called organized threat and in that new beginning I was expose to new ways on how to release my music deliver my music so that the people could connect with me I too learned how to maintain a career independently from that point on.

From 2012 to 2015 I was releasing music releasing videos building up my core fan base and after Release in my project [HR 1955] I started [The iii] brand Releasing more new music more videos as well as a clothing line.

And that brings me from 2015th to today where I have been working very hard on a vision And understand that inspiration and motivation is much more important when creating a legacy that you want to live forever without allowing the materialistic were financial gain to distract you.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has not been a smooth road there have been many struggles and many obstacles from losing friends losing funds As well as not having any kind of industry push or any reach into the industry is an obstacle but it’s a perspective and I have learned to look at it and understand that there’s more to gain by organically building a core following them being manufactured as artist.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about The iii – what should we know?
The iii Brand Specializes In creating music That resonates with the listener soul To help them feel inspired and motivated to push themselves in a direction to propel into greatness.

The iii brand also specializes in creating visuals to go along with the music so the listener can understand the anything is possible because they live in the same dimension is the creator in front.

We also specialize in making clothing for the people with bold statements And in A innovative direction, So the consumer understands that this brand Is a representation of themselves in the mindset of endurance and never given up.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
A lot of people deserve credit for my success starting with my mother my father my wife my kids every single individual and brother that you see in my videos Every single fan Definitely to Dev, Poe, Chris & Slerm. As well as a big mentor is my older cousin, Javier Quiz always pushed me and I would have to give a lot of credit to the late great nipsey hussle Because without a lot of his knowledge in his interviews or music he would have been much more difficult to find my way out of a maze-like this.