Joel Cintrón Arbasetti was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, in 1985, and raised in the rural town of Naranjito. In 2006 he moved to San Juan, where he studied journalism and communication theory. He has participated in the San Juan underground music scene as a DJ, producer, experimental musician, photographer, and writer. In 2016 he published his first book, the chronicle El Local. Since 2012 he has worked for the Center for Investigative Journalism. In 2020 he founded the editorial Antípoda with support from the Beta-Local Serrucho scholarship.