The art of interviewing is a skill that takes time to perfect, but Jazlyn Guerra a.k.a. Jazzy’s World TV makes it look easy. The 11-year-old reporter from Bushwick, Brooklyn, went viral a few weeks ago after she shared a clip from an interview she did with none other than Jay-Z. Prior to that, she has been sharing clips to YouTube and Instagram of her one-on-one conversations with some of the biggest names in sports and entertainment—and each one is better than the next. The young reporter is so sure of herself, witty and sharp with her questions, that her subjects often give her way more time than they would give to an average reporter.
Guerra’s skills and charm have helped her gain more than 62,000 followers on Instagram, and that number keeps rising. Any music fan and any reporter knows that landing an interview with the 23-time Grammy winner is a career-defining moment, but getting a compliment about her confidence from the legend himself is an even bigger feat.
During their conversation, Jazzy made sure to get some tips for success directly from one of the most accomplished men in the entertainment world. “Believe in yourself, even before anyone else believes in you. Have ultimate confidence, like you do, you’re very confident,” he said. “Just believe in yourself.” When Jazzy asked what kept him motivated to stay on his grind in his career, the rapper complimented her for the question. “To represent for a whole culture of people,” he said. “It’s bigger than myself. I know every time I open a door it opens the door for someone like yourself to be successful.” With a co-sign like that so early in her career, there’s nothing Jazzy can’t do.
Complex reached out to her soon after the interview and she spoke about what chatting with Jay-Z meant to her, how she has mastered her interview skills in just two short years, and what she thinks is in store for her future.
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“It felt special to me because I had an opportunity to interview Jay-Z, even though not many people get to have an opportunity to interview with him. I thought that was just very cool that he stopped for me and he took time out of his busy schedule just to talk to me,” Jazzy told Complex of her chat with the music mogul. “It was really great, he was really respectful and he’s really nice too, and he also gave me some great tips.” Stars like 50 Cent, Jay, and Nas have all commended her for being intelligent, confident, and having great interviewing skills—Steve Harvey called her “one of the biggest superstars in the making”—and it takes someone special to impress people who’ve accomplished as much as they have. “It is amazing, actually. It’s special to me because not many people get an opportunity to talk with them, and I feel like I’m lucky to get to be called confident by them,” she says.
Jazzy revealed that her calm demeanor doesn’t always come naturally before she approaches them, and she sometimes has to give herself a pep talk to get into the right state of mind. “Before my interviews, while I’m walking up to them, I don’t want to get nervous at times, but I have to breathe in and breathe out, and I tell myself, ‘Jazzy, you can do the job, you can do it!’” she shares. “And then I use that nervousness and I turn it into excitement, and that’s how you could see my charisma in my interviews because I’m usually turning my nervousness into excitement.”
Her father, Luis DeHoyos, is behind her every step of the way, and together, they are creating some standout content for their channel, Jazzy’s World TV. They started just two years ago. While her brothers were simply trying to meet their favorite sports stars, Jazzy envisioned something bigger. “Me and my brothers wanted to go get autographs from their favorite athletes, and I decided to do something constructive with our time since we had a mic and I had great speaking skills, and I was very confident in myself,” she tells Complex. “Also, I loved learning more information about people and talking to different people. I used what I had and, when we went to go get autographs by these athletes, I just asked them the questions that I thought in my mind. And it seemed like they really had fun with it, at first. I just found my YouTube camera and it escalated from there.” She started to do this for fun but quickly started gaining attention from thousands of viewers after talking to celebrities like Antonio Brown, Dwyane Wade, Ric Flair, David Beckham, Derek Jeter, and Jake Paul. She has also chatted with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rick Ross, and recently got a personal shoutout from legendary Canadian interviewer Nardwuar.
“I’m really surprised how big I blew up, especially on Instagram because every single second, I’m just getting, ‘Something, something liked your post, something, something liked your post,’” Jazzy adds. “I think that’s just really cool.” People in her Instagram comments section (myself included) are curious about how she’s able to land these interviews, but she’s not ready to reveal her tricks just yet. “Well, that’s my secret recipe. I can’t tell you that,” Jazzy says. “All I can tell you is that I’m at the right place at the right time, I get the job done, and sometimes I have to go to events in order to get these people.”
Her love for pop culture and sports helps her when it comes to coming up with questions, but it also takes a lot of effort and due diligence on her part to prepare for each conversation. “I have to research a lot. I have to search on Google, I have to go on Wikipedia, and I have to go to different websites to learn more information about these people, and I also use my prior knowledge about these people and I add that to the questions.” DeHoyos is also in charge of figuring out different ways to help improve his daughter’s communication skills and public speaking skills. “I get her prepared. I always tell her to research whoever she has to speak to, because it’s usually anticipated where I’m like, ‘OK, we have to go meet up with this person at this time,’” he tells Complex. “The day before, we’ll develop questions together, and I have her practice in front of a mirror. I have her practice her verbal skills.” One way she strengthens her reading skills and her vocabulary is by reading the dictionary for 15 minutes a day. They also practice positive self-talk in front of the mirror, which is probably key in helping her feel so sure of herself in front of the world’s biggest stars. She credits her older siblings for helping her build the confidence she has at such a young age. “I don’t really realize it, but sometimes I take their confidence or I take the way they speak, I use that and I don’t really see it for myself, but I started noticing that I’m starting to be as confident as them and I’m starting to act just like them, and I guess it’s imitating them.”
Jazzy doesn’t know if this is something she wants to pursue as a career when she gets older, but she does have pretty clear-cut goals in mind for herself for the near future, including maybe being a part of Complex’s staff. “For right now I want to be a host of my own kids show, where I get to talk about topics like entertainment or sports. And I want to give a platform to kids where they get to share their opinions and they get to have a safe space to talk about their opinions and they can talk to other kids, too,” she said. “Yeah, and who knows, maybe one day, Complex would have a kids show and I can be the host of it.” Her dream is also to interview Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama—and from the looks of it, she’s not far from reaching that goal. “I want to use my interviews to inspire many kids around the world, or around America, just to follow their dreams and to work hard to be successful,” Jazzy adds. “But I want to use my interviews to also build up my brand so that I can have my own kids show.”
Hearing Jazzy speak is like having a conversation with an adult who has a decade of experience under their belt. She is so assertive but still has that childlike excitement and innocence to her, despite her incredible level of maturity. “I give it to my dad because he teaches me, he helps me with my vocabulary so that I can talk even more professionally than I already talk. He teaches me new skills in order to be the best reporter that I can be. But I also give credit to the interviewing experience. There are certain times when things don’t really go my way and I’m not just going to sit and cry about it. I’m just going to try again and again, until I get the person I really want to get and if they don’t stop, it’s OK, that’s what happens sometimes,” Jazzy tells Complex. “They’re celebrities, they have busy schedules, I get it. So it’s OK, I’ll come in the next week or in the next two days to see them, to follow up with them and see if they want to do an interview with me, and if they don’t, it’s OK, that’s on them, it’s OK.”
Exposing a child to social media at such a young age can be tricky, but DeHoyos is constantly impressed by his daughter’s thick skin, and she sometimes deals with the naysayers even better than he does. “Nobody posts their failures on social media, they only post their success. Jazlyn has moments that things don’t go very well for her as well. We work on those things to improve her skill set in the future, and she goes through struggles like any other kid does. We take everything day by day,” he says. “Jazzy just amazes me. I’ll go on social media sometimes. And I’ll be like, ‘Look at this idiot that wrote this on the page.’ And she’s like, ‘Bro, what’s wrong with you? You know the No. 1 rule. Don’t read the comments!’ She’ll say those things to me and her maturity as a professional just amazes me sometimes. That’s something that you would hear an adult say. And here she is, an 11-year-old telling a 36-year-old, ‘Don’t read the comments.’”
In one instance, DeHoyos said one social media user made an assumption that Jazzy was a “celebrity’s kid” who grew up privileged and that’s how she had access to famous people, which Dad says is far from the truth since he says they live right in front of the projects in Brooklyn. He says networking has helped him connect his daughter to these stars and he hopes that this journey and everything she is learning now prepares her to be successful in any profession she pursues in the future. “Whether she wants to be a dentist, whether she wants to be a school teacher or whatever, you have to network, you have to have positive public speaking skills. You have to be on your grind and you have to work hard.”
Jazzy also has some valuable wisdom to share with kids like herself, or even adults, who are following a similar dream. “First of all, be confident in yourself because confidence is key and that’s the only way you’re going to be successful if you’re confident in yourself,” she says. “Another key thing will be to practice, because practice makes perfect, and also to research. You have to do your research in order to learn more about that person that you’re going to be talking with. If you don’t research, then it’s not going to work out. Nothing’s going to work out the way that you want it to work out, and you’re not going to be ready.” While other people would feel a lot of pressure or nervousness now that so many more eyes are on her, Jazzy doesn’t see it that way at all. “It makes me even more excited for what’s to come because what’s the point of being nervous?” she says. “I mean if you’re nervous, you just turn it into excitement. That’s the best thing you could do with your nervousness.”
