| Birth Name: | Justin Stein |
| Origin: | Chicago, United States |
| Occupation: | Singer – songwriter |
| Website: | https://justinjesso.com |
| Years Active: | 2016–present |
| Instrument: | Voice, guitar, piano |
Justin Jesso (born Justin Stein) is an American singer and songwriter.[1] He has written songs for Hrvy, AJ Mitchell, The Backstreet Boys and Armin van Buuren. He was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards for co-writing Ricky Martin's single "Vente Pa' Ca" (2016).[2] He is a co-writer and featured artist on Kygo's "Stargazing" (2017).[3]
Jesso grew up in a northern suburb of Chicago. As a youngster he wrote his own songs and also performed on stage in various theatres across Chicago performing his breakout hit, "Lose Control." In later life, he studied songwriting at the Clive Davis Institute in New York.[4]
Jesso has written for many artists, including HRVY, The Backstreet Boys and AJ Mitchell.
In 2016, he co-wrote the Ricky Martin song "Vente Pa' Ca" featuring Maluma, which was nominated for Best Song at the 2017 Latin Grammy Awards. It lost out to "Despacito".[5]
In 2017, Justin co-wrote "Stargazing" for Kygo with Stuart Crichton and Jamie Hartman. In 2018, he supported Kygo on his sold-out arena tour in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.[6] More recently, he co-wrote "The Way It Was" for The Backstreet Boy's latest album DNA.[7]
Jesso released an EP, Let It Be Me in December 2018. The lead single "Getting Closer" was written after he toured with Kygo, and was about the loneliness of life on tour. The video, which was directed by Kyle Cogan, shares real footage of Jusso's time spent on tour.[8] The song was popular in Europe, and was a top ten radio hit in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. It also charted at 11 in the German iTunes chart.[9]
In February 2019, Jesso supported Tears for Fears on the European leg of their Rule The World tour.[10] Jesso embarked on his first headline tour in North America in April 2019, where we played to venues in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
In June 2019, he released the title track, "Let It Be Me", a duet with Scottish singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt.[11]
In March 2022, he was announced as the representative of Illinois for the inaugural American Song Contest, set to begin later in the month.[12] He competed in the fifth episode and did not qualify for the live semi-finals.
On Saturday, January 29th 2023, Justin sang the National Anthem at Gulfstream Park before the three Pegasus Stakes races.
| Title | Year | |
|---|---|---|
| "Lovin' You" (Glowinthedark ft. Justin Stein) | 2016 | |
| "Better" (Atomic ft. Justin Stein) | 2016 | |
| "Stargazing" (Kygo ft. Justin Jesso) | 2017 | |
| "My Body" | 2018 | |
| "Stitch Em Up" (Frank Walker ft. Justin Jesso) | 2019 | |
| "Getting Closer" | 2019 | |
| "Let It Be Me" (with Nina Nesbitt) | 2019 | |
| "As Far As Feelings Go" (Alle Farben ft. Justin Jesso) | 2019 | |
| "Bigger than" (Seeb ft. Justin Jesso) | 2019 | |
| "If you're meant to come back" | 2020 | |
| "Best of us" (as part of the artist project WIER) | 2020 | |
| "Too good to lose" | 2020 | |
| "The End" | 2020 | |
| "They don't know me" (Papa Zeus ft. Justin Jesso) | 2021 | |
| "Spinnin'" (Lovra ft. Justin Jesso) | 2021 | |
| "Under" (Sebastian Fitzek ft. Justin Jesso) | 2021 | |
| "Clarity" | 2022 | |
| "Come clean" (Adventure Club & Prince Fox ft. Justin Jesso) | 2022 | |
| "400 Trillion" | 2022 | |
| "Lifeline" (for American Song Contest) | 2022 | |
| "Lose ya" | 2022 | |
| "I'll be there" (Andrea Berg ft. Justin Jesso) | 2022 | |
| "Me without us" (Matisse & Sadko, Raiden ft. Justin Jesso) | 2022 | |
| "Time Machine" (Petey Martin ft. Justin Jesso) | 2023 | |
| "Beautiful World" (Michael Bolton ft. Justin Jesso) | 2023 | |
| "Sound of Freedom" (Sound of Freedom Soundtrack) | 2023 |
| Title | Artist | Year | |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Vente Pa' Ca" | Ricky Martin ft. Maluma | 2016 | |
| "Batman & Robin" | Cazzi Opeia & Jin X Jin | 2017 | |
| "Critical Beauty" | Pentagon | 2017 | |
| "Frontiers" | The Rampage from Exile Tribe | 2017 | |
| "I Don't Think About You" | HRVY | 2017 | |
| "I Won't Remember You Tomorrow" | Alli Simpson | 2017 | |
| "Say Hi" | Codeko & Austin Mahone | 2017 | |
| "Somebody Like You" | In Real Life | 2017 | |
| "Stargazing" | Kygo ft. Justin Jesso | 2017 | |
| "Summer Something" | Carlos Marco | 2017 | |
| "Weigh Me Down" | Matt Terry | 2017 | |
| "Crazy 4 U " | Taemin | 2017 | |
| "What U Do?" | Exo | 2017 | |
| "Convince You" | Dominique | 2018 | |
| "Getting Closer" | Justin Jesso | 2018 | |
| "Got A Little Drunk" | Madcon | 2018 | |
| "I Don't Want You Back" | AJ Mitchell | 2018 | |
| "I Will" | Justin Jesso | 2018 | |
| "My Body" | Justin Jesso | 2018 | |
| "One Good Reason" | Justin Jesso | 2018 | |
| "Let It Be Me" | Justin Jesso & Nina Nesbitt | 2019 | |
| "Phone Down" | Armin van Buuren & Garibay | 2019 | |
| "Stitch Em Up" | Frank Walker ft. Justin Jesso | 2019 | |
| "The Way It Was" | Backstreet Boys | 2019 | |
| "Cause It's You" | 2022 |