Joel Simeon Massicot, raised on the beautiful island of St.Croix, V.I, grew up amongst a family of musicians.  His father, a bass player, and his mother, a singer, Joel was given his first little Casio piano at the age of 7 and taught himself to play by ear.  He soon began to play the trumpet and taught himself how to play the sax and drums as well.

As a sophomore in high school, he joined the junior ROTC program; he also learned Tae Kwondo, graduating high school as a green belt.  Raised up around Hispanic friends, it wasn’t long before he fell in love with Latin music: the music was heaven to him.  As long as he was a part of it, listening to it and pushing himself to learn more about it, he felt as though the music and dance were a part of his own roots.

After graduating from high school, Joel combined his military training and music as a career and joined the US Army National Guard in 1996, becoming a part of the 666th Army National Guard Band.

In 1997, he transferred to the army band in Washington, DC., and started school majoring in Jazz Studies at Howard University.  He played in various jazz combo and quintet bands, working under three record labels.  He visited the Jazz, Latin Jazz, and salsa clubs found in Washington to observe, listen, and even dance to the music.  This is how he joined the D.C. Salseros dance company and the band Orquesta La Romana, considered by many DC salsa music lovers as Washington’s premier salsa orchestra.

Joel performed around the D.C. metropolitan area with La Romana playing piano and soon gained the name “Masacote”, a Cuban word which signifies the merging of different rhythms, as was the correlation between his music and dance.

Joel transferred to the Marine Corps in 2000 and was stationed in Camp Pendleton, CA as a combat photographer.  During this time he became a member of the Seaon Stylist Dance Company, which he remained with until 2002 when he moved to Okinawa Japan.

There is where Joel co-founded Masacote Entertainment, a music, dance, and multimedia company, with his wife, Ana.

Since then, Joel’s various talents have grown to include video and scuba diving.  Previously a green belt instructor for the Marine Corps martial arts program, he has also started learning Shorin Ryo Karate under the guidance of Supreme Grandmaster Fuseikise.

Joel teaches Salsa On 1 and Mambo On 2 and is excited to be working with the team at Masacote Entertainment to merge the music and dance into an artform known as Masacote.