Dion Baez Reflects on His Path to Becoming SoundCloud VP of Community: 'I Was in the Right Place at the Right Time' - INTERVIEW

For Dion Baez, working in music was always a dream.

Born in the Dominican Republic, his parents moved to the United States with the intention of giving their newborn son a better life. They arrived in New York City, where Baez and his family, like many immigrants before them, worked to pursue the life they had come to build.

New York City offered Baez a mix of cultures and experiences that began shaping his interests. His passion for music and his drive turned that dream into reality, ultimately leading him to his current role as vice president of community at SoundCloud, a music streaming and sharing platform that aims to empower independent artists and connect them with their fans.

In an interview with The Latin Times, Baez spoke about his journey, his commitment to helping a new wave of artists break through the ranks, and his passion for music, a path that has taken him from the streets of New York City to one of the most important streaming companies in the world.

When asked how he ended up where he is today, Baez said he is still unsure how he managed to do so.

"Sometimes I don't know. It's a dream to still be working in music at the level I've been able to operate in," Baez said. "When people ask me, 'Hey, what do you do for a living?' it's a really weird question for me because I feel conflicted. I still consider myself the guy who passes out flyers, that's how I started my career."

Baez noted that growing up in New York City was difficult, first because it was a new place for both him and his parents. Born in a very traditional Dominican household, he said speaking English was considered disrespectful. But the city was also a melting pot of cultures and music, which eventually helped shape who he became.

"New York at that time had a very heavy hip-hop influence, a heavy Jamaican influence, so growing up I had a different identity than even those people who were just a bit older than me and had come here from the Dominican Republic," Baez recounted. " As I grew up, music was always an important part of our family, it was the way we connected. A lot of merengue, a lot of bachata, a lot of Vicente Fernández, a lot of Marco Antonio Solís. I always thought about music as a career, but coming from a family of immigrants without a lot of means, it didn't seem real."

While in high school, Baez became a DJ because it was the "most economical way to get into music." While DJing at parties and clubs, he also worked as a promoter for local merengue bands, passing out flyers on the streets, giving him his first real taste of what working in music was all about.

"I loved passing out flyers, telling people about the dopest new songs, going to parties I had no business being in, standing outside of clubs late at night, throwing my own parties. That always stayed with me, it was a seamless connection back to culture."

Baez recalled that his life changed when he had the opportunity to meet the son of David Maldonado, a music promoter who worked for Fania Records, a New York-based label that represented major artists and emerging talent in Latin music.

"Fania Records was the home to Héctor Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, and David was the manager of Héctor Lavoe for a while. So I got to soak up game from people who had seen a wave of Latin success in music. I was getting an MBA in the Latin music business from Puerto Ricans who had pioneered this thanks to their ability to travel back and forth to the United States. They were the first people outside of Cubans to have some level of success. Dominicans hadn't been there yet. All of that was very inspirational. It was right place at the right time, with the right mentors around me."

From finance to marketing and everything in between

Before serving as SoundCloud's global platform architect and its vice president of community, Baez wore many hats at major tech companies. He spent time at Meta, YouTube Music and Uber.

When asked about his journey and what it means to now be back working in the music industry, Baez said: "I feel immense gratitude for all the people who tried, succeeded and did it just because they had the courage to do it. And that doesn't just mean people in tech."

"My mom came here and worked at a sweatshop. An immigrant gave her that job in Queens, but if it hadn't been for that immigrant, I wouldn't be here. That's why I feel immense pride," he added.

Incubating new artists and content creators

A major part of Baez's role at SoundCloud is fostering new artists and helping them connect with their communities to build strong bonds with their audiences.

"As the VP of Community, what that really means is helping artists to build a relationship with fans that goes deeper than just listening to a song gain something much more meaningful," Baez said. "If I have a community of 5,000 people, that might mean more on SoundCloud than it would on another platform. Those 5,000 people listen more, they buy my merch, and suddenly my dream of being an artist can be realized because I don't need millions of streams. Maybe I do, but this core community gets me — they understand me."

"Think about who just performed at the Super Bowl," Baez noted, referring to Bad Bunny's performance at Super Bowl LX. "A kid working as a bagger at a grocery store. He has no business thinking he's going to be the biggest artist in the world — but he believes it. He uploads something and it resonates with users. Then they talk to him right there. On other platforms, the barrier is that I don't know who is actually listening. But on SoundCloud that barrier is removed, I have a direct connection."

Baez said his role is to help foster and incubate communities of creators so they feel they are not alone. For him, it doesn't matter how many streams a song gets, what matters is its appeal and the passion new artists bring to their music.

"I've worked on big campaigns. I worked on The Beatles' last song, I worked on a Juan Luis Guerra album, and those experiences were beautiful," Baez said. "But the magic of this platform is that people are always looking for the next thing. You could have five streams on a song and someone in the office goes, 'Have you seen this?' as if it just hit a billion streams. We're a platform that tries to give people their first billboards, even if they're brand new with just a demo."