A Grand Prairie man has gone from parking cars at a Dallas hotel to making a music video with Lil Jon and Flo Rida.
“It’s like a dream come true,” Nate Ontiveros said. “I’m just so lucky and happy and blessed to have this opportunity.”
Ontiveros’ story starts more than a decade ago when he attended South Grand Prairie High School. He said he has been doing video editing and dreaming of a hip-hop career since then.
“You work hard and you hope someone would notice. I have been doing this for a long time now,” Ontiveros said.
He said he would have never imagined his big break would come thanks to social media.
He posted his hip hop song “Take A Shot and Make a TikTok” on the video-sharing social network. The response has been overwhelming. The 15-second video has already been seen more than 100-million times on the platform.
TikTok gained immense popularity via its fun, goofy videos and ease of use, and has hundreds of millions of users globally.
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But its Chinese ownership has raised concerns about potential censorship of videos, including those critical of the Chinese government, and the risk Beijing may access user data.
Even more of a reason Ontiveros said he’s just happy he got his viral moment before all that.
“It was crazy. My manager called me and basically said Lil Jon was interested in being on the track. It’s actually a crazy story. They were flying me and my family and my friends out to Miami and before we got on the plane they called and said Flo Rida would be down there and wanted to be in the video too,” Ontiveros said.
As they say, the rest is history. He’s gone viral before for music parody’s he has done, but nothing like this.
Ontiveros said he is now in talks with major record labels and other hip-hop artists and DJs are excited about possibly collaborating with him in the future.
He said he just hopes his story inspires others to stick with what they love.
“I just stuck with it and stayed true and focused on my goals. I didn’t let anything block that out or distract me. I never compare my success or my story to anyone else’s, because I feel like everybody has their own time. If you’re consistent with it, things will happen,” Ontiveros said.
