Positivity, ambition, creativity, and passion are the words that describe Matt U Johnson

BY JONELL PANTLITZ

“You can do everything and anything that you put your mind to.” Matt U Johnson

A few months ago we featured Matt U Johnson as our Classic Man Feature.

Matt U Johnson is of Jamaican descent born and was raised in Staten Island New York. At the tender age of thirteen, he decided to pursue a career in music. His father, who was a spoken word and reggae artist, heavily influenced him. All the concerts that he attended had an impact on his sound and love for music. He then joined a group called Mixed when he was fifteen years old; The group was musically and ethnically diverse, they did shows around the city but Johnson eventually would outgrow the group. His reasoning was to pursue his musical career more seriously.

That is precisely what Johnson did later in his career. He has made appearances at the Madison Square Garden’s film festival, the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem and MTV’s total request live show. Apart from that, Johnson had the opportunity to open for artist Buju Banton, Lil Wayne, Hip Hop artist Man, Cash Out and Pop/EDM group the Cataracs.

“I just wanted to be independent because a lot of people didn’t want to be locked down to a 360 deal, or they didn’t want to be locked down to a label, telling them what to do. And I kind of said, you know, what? Let me start my own thing and see how it takes off. And maybe I could just get distribution to a bigger company,” and that is exactly what he did.

Johnson has now released his first single for 2020 called “Gwan Get It” the single features multi-platinum Juno winner Choclair and Latin Grammy-nominated Sito Rocks. The song is now sitting at almost 100,000 streams on Spotify.

Johnson writes all of his songs; he explained the process to Toronto Caribbean Newspaper reporter, “I always start with writing the chorus first, because the hook is the most important part of the song, and then I go into the verses. I always like to take from personal experience and things that are going on, around the globe, like, you know, certain events. I key these events in.”

He is currently working on an album and an EP for year. One of the producers he is working with worked with six-time American singer-songwriter Grammy Award nominee Khalid. He is definitely an artist we have to look out for in 2021.

Matt U Johnson is sponsored by local Toronto international black-owned brand SDHtoronto. According to Matt U Johnson, “I just wanted to support the black community by helping her and I love her clothes, her clothes are awesome.”

Johnson most recently started a web-series that is available on his YouTube channel. He explained how the series came about. “So, it came about with just me wanting to bring the Jamaican American culture to El Paso because I was living here for around eight or nine years before I left to come to Toronto.

When I went to Toronto, I was like, you know what, I have to bring some of that cultural, the Caribbean cultural vibes back. What better thing to do than create something that shows my music and also the acting side.” Johnson is now using his platform on YouTube to spread awareness about the Coronavirus.

Johnson’s overall goal is to become a household name, make his mark in the world, and to be someone in the music industry that spreads positivity and ambition.

You can find Matt U Johnson’s web-series on YouTube at Matt U Johnson aka MUJ and check out his website at mattujmusic.com.