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Justin Maki is a multi-facetted artist, musician, and creative entrepreneur. He was born in Japan and lived there for 8 years of his life. There, he was immersed in the local culture, which conditioned him to adopt traditional Japanese values, such as discipline, hard work, diligence, and studiousness very early on. This obsessive pursuit of excellence and perfection would grow in him for years to come, starting at the age of 5, when his mother, Patricia, took Justin to karaoke for the first time. Within that environment, Patricia taught Justin how to sing both melody and harmony to the North American hits she grew up loving.

 

Patricia saw a passion and propensity for music in her son, and upon moving back to Canada to a small blue-collar town, named St. Thomas, she enrolled Justin in a rock school, called Studio Arts. Justin also took up guitar and singing lessons. He played in 3 bands at any given time, often filling the role of the frontman. He also wrote his first song at 11 years old called "Why?" after waking up in a cold sweat with an unshakable concern for the environment he could only express in song. 

 

By the time Justin entered high school, he joined every music ensemble available. He played tenor saxophone, guitar, bass, drums, sang, and he couldn’t get enough! He was even reprimanded in English class for tapping his foot too loud and too often: it was a compulsion that he found difficult to stop, as music was always running through his head. Justin continued to improve his craft, taking classical voice and guitar to refine his technique and expand his musical vocabulary. 

 

He chose to follow his passion for music in his post-secondary pursuits, leading him after high school to Western University, where he studied Popular Music Studies. Here, he learned pop-music history, production, songwriting, critical thinking, critical listening, and musicology, all the while playing multiple gigs per week in his local London/St. Thomas scene. As an extracurricular challenge, he mustered up the courage to compete in the campus Battle of the Bands and Western Voice, which he won in 2015 and 2016 respectively. 

 

Justin graduated with a gold medal from his program and soon after succumbed to a period of dark aimlessness. He was suddenly overcome by the paralysis of too many options. Weeks of depressive self-pity ensued. Justin’s passionate compulsion for music was still there - just attenuated. With a loving nudge from his father, Justin handed out resumes and landed a job selling cars at a Toyota dealership in the neighbouring town of London, ON. He played and wrote music outside of working hours, but the job took up much of his time and energy. He embraced discomfort, learning how to talk to people and how to sell. Justin balanced 2 full-time careers for 3 years.

 

By 2019, he was ready to get out. As such, one cold Saturday in January, Justin sat down at his kitchen table and asked himself a very important question: "what do I REALLY want to do with my life". The answer was clear, but he had been too scared to admit it until this very moment. He determined that he wanted to do music full-time and make a plentiful living doing so. Accordingly, he committed to a singular focus: inspire joy through music performance and creation. 

 

Serendipity would have it that the COVID-19 Pandemic of that defined much of the following year, and the associated restrictions, necessitated Justin’s lay-off from his job. Justin took the opportunity to lean into his music career. While live shows were hard to come by, Justin learned to video edit, improved his production skills, and experimented with social media. He also read up on the music industry constantly. 

 

In the following 5 years, Justin has successfully transitioned to doing music full-time. He has a sizeable clientele; 2 Forest City London Music Awards; a massive touring resume spanning Prince George, BC to Halifax, NS, The Netherlands, Nashville, and Mexico; and opening slots for The Sheepdogs, Neon Dreams, Measha Brueggergosman, and Monster Truck (among others). Justin has released 1 album, 2 EPs, a selection of singles, and is in the process of dreaming up the roll-out strategy for his next album, "Technicolor Dreams". Justin writes in a style he likes to call “Flirtatious Jazz Pop”, a style he describes as Pop forward music with undertones of R&B, Soul, Funk, & Jazz. Imagine the sound of Allen Stone meshed seamlessly with that of Bruno Mars, Justin Timeberlake, and John Mayer. Follow him @justinmakimusic on all social media platforms and find his music on the streaming or downloading platform of your choice! 

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© 2025 Justin Maki

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