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• Artist To Watch

MAKJ Shares His Experience With Legendary DJ AM
By: Andrew Lazar

Can you tell us about your time in china as a professional race car driver?

I learned a lot of patience and things you don’t really get to learn or experience in high school. I was learning in real life and living by myself at the age of 15 in a foreign country without the comfort you usually receive from living at home with Mom and Dad. That really affected me because I was really young, but it taught me a lot about life.

What was the defining moment when you decided to pursue DJing and producing as a career versus continuing with the professional driving?

The only reason I stopped driving was because I was too tall and I did not fit in the cars properly. My arms are really long, so when I’d turn the steering wheel my elbows would hit my torso. That’s why I stopped. I ended up going to college at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and after that I fell in love with DJing. I started getting paid to do edits on a site called Crooklyn Clan. I thought, “This is cool, I am making a little bit of money here and there.” I started sending tracks out to some of the bigger named DJs. I didn’t really know anything about electronic music at the time. I only knew Hardwell and Tiesto. After that it was a snowball effect once I started doing originals.

How did living abroad at such a young age and being exposed to different cultures affect your outlook on life and do you think that this was in any way a defining factor in your career choice and the direction you decided to take in life?

Yeah, it goes back to when I was living in China by myself and I just learned the basics to survive. Some people in America don’t really appreciate the way other people live in the world. The majority of general public just knows one way to live and that’s the typical go to high school, your parents support you, and they pay for your college tuition. It’s kind of by the book here in the US and living elsewhere in the world taught me a lot about poverty and the experience of having to live off a dollar a day. It was an experience I would never take it back and I wouldn’t be the same person without it.

To read the full interview with MAKJ and get even more exclusive content check out the magazine now. This article can be found in Issue 8 of EDM World Magazine! Download the app for free. Apple users click for access on your iPhone or iPad. Android users click for access here.