At 50, Fredericksburg reggaeton artist Little Big Man is proof that you can pursue your dreams at any age.
For nearly a decade, Joseph Oliveira has called the region his home, making it the launching pad for his music career. A native of Panama, Oliveira moved to the U.S. when his mother’s position with the United States government relocated to Miami.
As a Panamanian, Oliveira grew up on 1980s reggaeton, a genre that combines Jamaican reggae with Latin American hip-hop. Little Big Man (or, LBM for short) said reggaeton and artists like Jamaica’s Shabba Ranks and Buju Banton heavily influence his personal style.
“That was huge in my country (Panama) in the 80s and 90s and then eventually Puerto Rico started using beats that they started calling Dembow,” he said. “From there, Puerto Ricans started calling the music underground, and it became what is now the current reggaeton.”
His dream of being a musician started at 16 when he began singing his poems against music on the radio. One poem he wrote was dedicated to a girl he knew as a teenager.
“My mother had picked me up from work one day and an underground song with a dembow beat played on the radio,” he recalled. “For some reason, the poem came into my head and I started flowing with the poem over the beat. I’m like ‘Holy smokes, what just happened?’”
Another powerful influence in his life was his father, who was a singer in the 1970s. One of his father’s favorites, “Solamente Mia,” was such a staple that Little Big Man released his version of the song in 2021 in tribute to his father.
Oliveira said he adopted the moniker Little Big Man because throughout his life he was told he couldn’t do what he wanted to. Early in his music career he was told he was “too white” for reggaeton. The persona of Little Big Man allows him to be outgoing and do and say things that he may have normally felt too introverted to try before. Oliveira said that these days Little Big Man is “Joe turned up with a little louder volume” and the two personas have become more integrated over the years due to life experiences.
Early on, he didn’t have the money to record his own albums but would get approached by record labels. Those labels, however, tended to specialize in hip-hop and didn’t really know what to do with reggaeton. In spite of this, Oliveira recorded with Universal Music Group under a different name.
But with a wife and kids on the way, Oliveira gave up on his music dreams and decided to join the U.S. Navy in order to support his growing family. After his deployment from the U.S. Navy Reserves, where he served for almost 20 years, Oliveira got a position working for the federal government and moved to Fredericksburg.
During the pandemic, Oliveira began releasing his self-produced music and was performing as soon as the quarantine was lifted. He said that he was able to rely on the continuing development of Fredericksburg, consistently bringing in new people.
Oliveira’s first performance at Adventure Brewing Company was nerve-wracking; he wasn’t sure how he’d be received. But he found the city’s diversity a good opportunity to offer reggaeton to new crowds.
“It was a little odd. Typically you don’t expect that the community would be there for the genre,” he said. “That first time I performed it was cool. The crowd was following me throughout the songs which I taught them to do. It was such a great reaction, I went back two or three times and people would recognize me and I realized that this has legs.”
Whiles the reggaeton scene is still catching on in the region, Oliveira said there are venues where he thinks it can take root, such as the El Paraíso Nightclub & Restaurant in the city.
Oliveira also credits Woodbridge-based singer Shaboozey — who was featured on Beyonce’s “Cowboy Carter” album — for proving that there’s musical talent in the region. He also sang the praises of Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny for bringing more attention to the genre.
“It’s cool to see someone who has worked his butt off who started out as a bag boy,” he said. “I think it’s an example to everybody, whether you like the genre or not, that hard work can lead to success. Seeing someone who has struggled and become this global superstar, that resonates with me because that’s a lesson for everybody: don’t give up on dreams.”
His latest song “Terremoto” was recorded at the Arlington-based Caribbean Yankee studios and produced by Chino Stringss, who was nominated twice for the Soul Train Awards. Currently, the team has several songs in the works that will lead to a full album down the line.
“Terremoto” was a late-night revelation for Oliveira; the song took just 15 minutes to create. Terremoto is the Spanish word for earthquake — the inspiration for the song (listen here) was imagining beautiful dancing in South Beach that causes an earthquake. LBM said he’s proud how catchy he says it is.
“It’s the people just energetically dancing, being a feeling of Little Big Man’s music in causing the terremoto,” he said.
