Quickly rising through the ranks of the EDM world is MAKJ, a 23 year-old producer who started mixing tracks when he was only 15 and living overseas in China. Though he was originally building a career for himself as a race car driver, Mackenzie Johnson quickly found an interest in making music. At 17 he headed back to the States and enrolled in classes to learn all he could about production. He was also fortunate enough to receive mentorship from the legendary DJ AM.
Now, several years later, MAKJ is making a name for himself in the industry, having toured all over North America and Europe as well as hopping on stage at major festivals like Coachella, Ultra, Tomorrowland and TomorrowWorld. He’s also received support from and worked alongside some of music’s hottest names, such as Hardwell, Tiesto, Afrojack, Avicii and Lil Jon.
At TomorrowWorld 2014, which took place this past weekend, I was fortunate enough to land an exclusive interview with MAKJ before he went on the Anthem stage for his set. We spoke about what it’s like playing at an ID&T festival, what he’s got coming up in the future, how he went from driving race cars to making music and much more.
Check it out in the video above, and enjoy! And apologies for all the chatter in the background. The interview took place in the artist area and there were a lot of people walking by (thank you Dillon Francis for yelling near the end). That being said, we did our best to reduce the background noise as much as possible.