How Mk.gee, a South Jersey native, has caught the attention of Frank Ocean, Eric Clapton and Justin Bieber

Since starting a band with some classmates at Belhaven Middle School in Linwood nearly a decade ago, Michael Gordon has been described as a "musical prodigy" by Dazed magazine and a "guitar god" by the New York Times. He's also caught the attention of some of the music industry's biggest stars, including Frank Ocean, Eric Clapton and Justin Bieber. 

Known by the stage name Mk.gee, the 27-year-old who released his debut studio album, "Two Star & the Dream Police," in February has been making waves with his experimental style, culminating with last weekend's appearance as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live."

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Mk.gee – pronounced "McGee," a play on Mike G. – was born and raised in Linwood, a small Atlantic County town located next to Somers Point and Northfield. He began studying piano and composing music at the age of 5, the Press of Atlantic City reported. After taking guitar lessons as a kid, he pursued an interest in jazz as a teenager and graduated from Mainland Regional High School in 2015. Gordon's grandparents ran a jazz society in Somers Point.

Despite his musical talents and connections, Gordon told the New York Times he was a "corny kid" and felt out of place in a town full of jocks. He also opened up about the fish-out-of-water feeling to Dazed.

"It was never considered cool to be doing music when I was growing up," he told the magazine in September. "There wasn’t really a huge culture for music. There was a respect for music, for sure. But this crazy idea of becoming an artist? That wasn’t really a thing."

After high school, Gordon attended the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. He dropped out in 2016 and began releasing music, including his first single, "I Know How You Get," in 2017. An EP he released in 2018, "Pronounced McGee," was featured on an episode of Frank Ocean's "Blonded Radio," bringing a new fanbase to his music. He really began finding his abstract sound in 2020, when he wrote the earliest songs for "Two Star & the Dream Police."

Regardless of Gordon's relocation to the West Coast (he currently resides in Los Angeles), he told Dazed he appreciates New Jersey residents' "deep, mad sincerity" and that the only movie he watched while making his latest album was "Wildwood, NJ," a 1994 documentary about the lives and dreams of women in the titular shore town.

"Two Star & the Dream Police," an independently released 12-song album, mixes sounds of indie-rock, pop, lo-fi and electronic. It received widespread acclaim, landing on Pitchfork's "100 best albums of the 2020s so far" list. Praise for the album, paired with a sold-out spring tour and notice from industry greats like Eric Clapton – who compared Mk.gee's innovative guitar-playing style and presence to a young Prince – has led to Gordon's star rising. He had a sold-out tour in the spring, and is on a world tour that's heading to Australia next month.  He made his live TV debut on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in April, and on "SNL" he performed "Alesis" off the album, as well as his latest single, "ROCKMAN," which dropped last month.

Gordon told the New York Times that he's been writing and recording music with an unlikely collaborator in former teen heartthrob Bieber, whose last studio album came out in 2021.

"Anything that comes out of his mouth: That’s pop music," he said. "You can really do pretty wild stuff behind that, just because it represents something."

Along with potentially aiding in Bieber's pop music return, Gordon said he plans to continue leaning into the "weirdness of the times" with his own music.

"For me, as time goes on, I don’t want things to sound better," Gordon told Dazed "I don’t want it to sound like I’ve been tweaking a bass drum for four weeks. That’s not what music is to me. I want the spirit to get much larger. And the idea is just to become crazier. Because if you have the spirit, then you can pull anything off, and the ideas will get stranger."