With his ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ on the way to 60 million streams, one would almost forget that MKJ releases music again! ‘Like A Psycho’ is his second single of the year, with ‘The Night’ already scoring 100,000 streams in just two weeks. This time, the Texan producer is joined by YOTO and Aurila from Germany. The singer and songwriter duo delivers a warm but fierce vocal on this deep house tune. It’s MKJ’s chillest in a while, but still featuring his signature bass line at its heart. Catchy and cool, ‘Like A Psycho’ is ready to enhance your playlists!
MKJ is a dreamer. He had to be in order to survive. At the tender age of six years old, he found himself living in a tent as a war refugee with his family. The young Kurdish boy dreamed that he would one day move far away, to the world he saw in Hollywood movies and TV shows. Surrounded by war and turmoil, the dream seemed impossible, but after years of practice and producing beats on his computer, he relocated to the United States at the age of 22 and began pursuing his music career in earnest. In 2017, an unofficially released track by the DJ/producer called Time made its way from MKJ’s SoundCloud page to the greater China region, where it became a meme and viral sensation. With its signature saxophone dance break, the song has spawned around 4 million TikTok videos, over 500 million streams, 210,000 NetEase comments and held the #1 on Shazam China charts for three weeks. All this led to worldwide touring opportunities and an exclusive distribution agreement with the China music tech giant, NetEase Cloud. A new vocal version of the track from the eclectic artist’s follow-up EP Time After Time topped at #2 on NetEase’s viral chart, while follow up singles brought him into the top 100 of most-streamed western artists on NetEase Cloud. From 2020 on, MKJ is signed with Soave Records with ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ as his biggest hit so far.
YOTO is a Berlin-based producer and songwriter with an extensive background of working for other artists, most recently credited as co-writer on songs such as ‘Far From Home’ by Timmy Trumpet or ‘So Done’ with Blinded Hearts. His own sound resists clear labeling into just one category, as it weaves his capacity for writing radio-ready hits together with his past as the guitarist in an indie band. These different backgrounds inform the stylistically varied sound of his releases, which can draw inspiration from 80s synth-pop as well as deep house.
