Jaxstyle’s (@jaxstyle1337) past couple of years look clean from the outside: a viral record, a Spinnin’ Records run, millions of listeners, a path from gaming and livestreaming into dance music, and enough traction around “Turn The Lights Off” to make “What Are We Gonna Do” feel like the next logical chapter.
But his answers here point to the less polished part of the story. The part where a career can look like it is moving while the person inside it is dealing with broken relationships, legal problems, and the fear that the thing they built may not survive the people they built it with.
That is what makes this interview more interesting than another “gaming creator becomes DJ” angle. Jaxstyle is not talking about success like it happened because one track caught the algorithm at the right time. He keeps coming back to the people close enough to tell him the truth, make the call he could not make himself, and protect the person behind the artist when the artist project starts moving faster than expected.
For someone whose career now sits between music, livestreaming, gaming culture, radio-facing dance records, and international audience growth, that kind of team matters more than the public usually sees.
“What Are We Gonna Do,” his latest collaboration with Jon, also arrives inside that context.
After the global run of “Turn The Lights Off,” the pair returned with a new Spinnin’ Records release that reworks The O’Jays’ “Now That We Found Love” into a speed-garage-leaning, dance-pop crossover record built for radio, festivals, and the streaming audience Jaxstyle has carried over from the digital world.
In the interview below, he talks about his manager, trust, status, honesty, why newer artists should not build alone, and why the right people around you can change what feels possible.
Interview With Jaxstyle
Looking back, which relationships have had the biggest influence on where you’ve ended up?
Meeting my current manager.
I remember being in such a weird period of my life, where I was ending relationships with a lot of people I worked with that sadly ended up in legal conflicts. At a time where I thought everything I had worked for could be for nothing, and I might never get to enjoy the things I really like to do because of some stupid decisions I made when I was younger.
My current music situation wasn’t even realistic two years ago, but this last year has proved that everything is possible with the right team who believes in you and takes good care of the person behind the artist.
Have you had mentors or friends who opened doors that your music on its own couldn’t?
I think a lot of the things I do now, and am able to do today, are because I always try to surround myself with people who are better than me, so I can rise to their level.
Even if you produce great music, you need the people around you who believe in you and your vision to make that phone call that you never had a chance to do yourself.
Do you think artists sometimes overlook how much real relationships shape their path?
I can’t speak on behalf of other artists, but from those I know very well, it is clear to see that it has been important to have a team around them who believed in their talent and mission.
Those who believe that something greater can be achieved, even when you don’t, are the ones that make the difference between good and great for an artist.
What do you look for in people you choose to work or build with?
Honesty and constructive criticism are the most important things in my working relationships.
I don’t want yes men around me who tell me things are great just because they want me to be happy.
Many projects and ideas will fail if the people you work closely with are not able to speak honestly about what could be done better.
How do you keep things genuine in spaces that often reward status over connection?
I try to distance myself from those kinds of spaces.
Luxury lifestyle and great Instagram photos look cool to the outside world, but most people living that life can’t afford it, and it will never be where they find true happiness.
As a rule of life, I try to focus on enjoying things in their simplest form. Holding hands and spending time with someone you love is free, and nothing I ever bought for money has been able to beat that feeling.
What would you tell newer artists who believe they have to do everything on their own?
Find people who believe in you. Maybe it is your best friend, your partner, your parents or your boss.
Try starting your project together and don’t be afraid to let someone in on your journey.
If you live your life being afraid that people might take advantage of you, you could miss out on experiencing working with people who actually care about you.
Closing Thoughts From The Editor
The most revealing part of Jaxstyle’s answers is not that a manager helped him.
That happens all the time.
The real point is that he talks about management as something that protected the person before it scaled the artist. That distinction matters because a lot of young acts only start thinking about team when they need someone to make deals, pitch records, book shows, or turn attention into money. Jaxstyle is talking about something a little more basic and probably more important: finding people who care enough to keep the whole thing from breaking when the public version looks fine.
That connects with Mike Lisanti’s interview on what makes an artist ready for management. Lisanti talked about managers helping an artist scale something already in motion, but also paying attention to consistency, communication, work ethic, and whether the artist has built real connection rather than just a single reacting audience. Jaxstyle’s situation feels like the artist-side version of that same truth. The music opened doors, but character, trust, and the people close to the project decided what happened after.
The gaming and livestreaming part of Jaxstyle’s story makes that even more relevant.
Digital audiences can make a rise look fast because the numbers are visible before the foundation is obvious. Monthly listeners, YouTube views, Twitch followers, viral charts, and algorithmic lift can all make a project seem inevitable from the outside. But none of those things automatically give an artist a grounded team, healthy working relationships, or people willing to protect them from bad decisions.
There is also a link to The Checkup’s interview on creative relationships and house music. That conversation was about house, dancefloor instinct, Brazil, collaborators, and people who expand your path without turning every connection into a transaction.
Jaxstyle says it more directly: you need people who believe in you enough to make the call you could not make yourself.
His answer about status is probably the most human part of the interview.
The luxury lifestyle and Instagram version of the music industry can make connection feel like branding, and branding feel like life. Jaxstyle cuts against that pretty cleanly. Holding hands with someone you love beats anything he has bought.
That might sound almost too simple, but it is also the kind of sentence artists often only get to after living around the opposite for long enough to see how empty it can become.
For Jaxstyle, that seems to be the lesson behind the numbers. “Turn The Lights Off” may have made the rise look sudden, and “What Are We Gonna Do” may give the next release cycle a bigger platform, but his answers make the career feel less like a viral accident and more like a reconstruction. The right people got close. The wrong people had to go. And once the team changed, the future started looking possible again.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
