TAKING NOTES X

As creative director of the Miami-based label WK Records, Anita Tillero has worked with some of the hottest names in Latin music, helping artists like Maluma, Wisin, and CNCO hone their creative concepts. “When I listen to music, I find colors. When I listen to lyrics, I find a story,” Tillero says. “That’s how you find a concept with an artist. You listen to the music with them and [you] start thinking about the colors and stories you’re going to tell.”

Fernández. The following year, Universal Music Group hired Tillero to work with Colombian singer-songwriter Feid.

“When I was working at Universal, Feid was just a new artist, and right now he’s on top,” Tillero says. “The most important thing he used to do is be consistent—he never stopped. He was always creating new music, always creating new videos, always creating acoustic versions, always writing, always producing. ... That’s key for new artists.”

BY JESS SWANSON

Growing up in Venezuela, Tillero dreamed of working with musicians and obsessively watched MTV reality shows Making the Video and Making the Band. She studied advertising and marketing, with a focus on photography and videography. However, while she was documenting the 2014 student protests in her home country, government forces destroyed three of her cameras. During a 2015 trip to Miami to visit her cousin, she applied for political asylum.

Initially, Tillero worked jobs at a restaurant and a gym to make ends meet. “When you come here, you have to do what you have to do to survive first,” she says. “Then you start knocking on doors to find new opportunities.”

Those new opportunities came in the form of a graphic design job at Seitrack US, an artist management agency in Miami Beach repping such legendary Latin music artists as Luis Miguel, Los Ángeles Azules, and Alejandro

Her successes caught the eye of Latin music mogul Walter Kolm, who hired Tillero to create content for WK Entertainment. Although her schedule was already chaotic, she picked up a side gig at WildHouse Pictures, producing music videos for artists like Nicky Jam and Marc Anthony. “You have to be learning every single day,” Tillero advises. “The music industry is passing through a new era.”

When Kolm launched the independent music label WK Records in 2020, he named Tillero its creative director. She’s since moved away from her role behind-the-scenes and now directs all the creative content and marketing strategies for more than 30 signed artists. But, she says, she’s still connected to the music.

“You have to have a connection with your artist and understand what they’re thinking and what they want to do. If they’re not in love with the concept and the project, then nothing’s going to happen—they have to feel the passion for it. That’s what I try to do every single day: Make them feel passionate about what they are doing.” «