Jiwanta

Jiwanta is a Nepal-born, Dallas-area rapper, producer, and songwriter whose music reflects the intersection of different cultures, influences, and personal experiences. Raised around the sounds of Bollywood before developing an interest in American hip-hop, he began making beats on a laptop while still in school and gradually developed a style combining trap production, adaptable flows, melody, and the perspective of a first-generation immigrant building an identity of his own.

His early career was built independently through writing, recording, producing, and steadily releasing music online. That persistence helped him grow from experimenting in his room to developing a wider audience and collaborating with established producers. Throughout that growth, his work has continued to draw from ambition, self-belief, cultural identity, and the pressure of proving that an unconventional path can become something real.

I met Jiwanta through a music-video production directed by Keaton D. Jones for his song “Culture.” Keaton directed and edited the finished film, Thomas Blanks served as cinematographer, and Babyave created the visual effects and sound design. Released in January 2024, the official video became one of the most widely viewed visuals on Jiwanta’s channel.

My role was to document the production through behind-the-scenes photography. Rather than creating the principal moving images, I focused on preserving what happened around them: Jiwanta’s performance between takes, Keaton directing, Thomas shaping the cinematography, the crew working through setups, and the smaller interactions that reveal how a finished music video is actually built.

The experience gave me the opportunity to document an artist whose story moves between Nepal and Texas, personal identity and public ambition. The photographs preserve both the confidence Jiwanta carried in front of the camera and the collaborative process surrounding a visual created to represent where he came from and where he was headed.