Justin Nozuka

Having written songs since the age of 12, Justin Nozuka is something of an old hand at songwriting despite his tender age. In fact, some of the songs that featured on “Holly”, his 2007 debut album, were written when he was just 15. Wisely, he never rested on his laurels, and was always looking for a way to improve as a musician and songwriter, and this lead to him attending a song writing workshop in the mid-2000’s. While he was there he struck up a friendship with the Canadian pop singer Damhnait Doyle, who introduced him to a Universal Records talent scout by the name of Allan Reid. This lead Nozuka recording a three track label try-out for Universal with Bill Bell as their producer, and although Universal were interested, Nozuka wanted to be free to express himself the way he wanted to, and turned them down.

He recorded the album independently, and released “Holly” in 2007 on Coalition Entertainment in Canada and Glassnote in the United States. Ever since then, Nozuka has remained one of the most critically acclaimed artists in Canada’s famously thriving indie rock scene, with two other acclaimed albums released in 2010 (“You I Wind Land And Sea”) and 2014 (“Ulysses”) respectively. He even caught the ear of the Wu-Tang Clan’s very own RZA, who took an unreleased song of Nozuka’s called “Gone”, sampled it and turned it into a tribute to his dearly departed Wu-Tang bandmate Ol’ Dirty Bastard in 2011. He’s a musician in the truest sense of the word, one who has been creating music for longer than he hasn’t, and for that, he comes highly recommended.