John Jigitz used to spend his work days helping musicians promote their art. His own music, however, he kept to himself.

“I took it really seriously, but I never thought it would be an actual thing,” the producer tells Billboard over lunch at a bustling Sunset Strip cafe on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles.

Always interested in music, the Albuquerque, New Mexico native was simultaneously coming at it from a business angle, graduating from Portland State University and later landing a job at UMG — where he started as an assistant and worked his way up to the team at Interscope Records — and then at °1824, the label’s culture marketing and content strategy team.

“The whole time I was making music in the office but not telling anyone,” says Jigitz, who eventually quit the job and moved to

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