The violent throat slashing that saved Kitchener music entrepreneur’s life
KITCHENER - It wasn't religion or a blinding flash of light that turned Justin Burkholder's life from a downward spiral toward a more hopeful future.
It was a rival musician who stabbed him in the neck.
I owe the guy a thank you," says the 37-year-old Kitchener native, who considers the knife attack a turning point in his life.
If it wasn't for that altercation, I probably would have been dead or in jail ... probably dead."
Back in 2008, Burkholder wasn't the aspiring digital music entrepreneur and family man he is today.
He was a 23-year-old party animal who dropped out of high school to produce local music acts, developed a drinking problem and had trouble reining in his mouth.
On the night in question, he and a group of artists/producers were discussing a proposed compilation album featuring local hip hop artists when a dispute over money led to one of the group pulling a knife and slitting Burkholder's throat.
When I was stabbed and almost dying, it was intriguingly OK," recalls the married father of one (with another on the way), who sports a 15-centimetre scar on his neck.
It was a very weird level of calmness. It was acceptance. Maybe it was welcomed. I was drinking a lot. Obviously something was going on with me being all right with dying at that particular time."
He'd been running with a rough crowd," coasting through high school at what he jokingly recalls as Forest Fights" Collegiate, before dropping out to pursue music, which led to sideline interests in partying and extreme intoxication.
We were all just a bunch of little hooligans," he says of his teenage peer group.
We'd always end up at Driftwood Plaza, a place our parents would have preferred us to not hang out at because we were just skateboarding, loitering and smoking weed. It wasn't the best place to be back in the mid- to late '90s."
At some point, possibly due to drinking, he developed an anxiety disorder, heightened by his parents' divorce, which necessitated the move to a quieter building with his dad and swapping his aggressive punk band drums for computerized hip hop beats.
When things erupted in a haze of ego and alcohol, it was the culmination of eight years of social dysfunction.
It's kind of foggy," he says of the knife attack that saw his assailant serve four years for aggravated assault.
I was hit over a couch and bleeding. My buddy grabbed a towel. The guy fled. Then the police and ambulance came and took me to the hospital. It was kind of crazy."
When he woke up the next day, hung over, with 40 stitches that threatened to burst open when he became violently ill, he realized a crossroads had been reached.
"When I sobered up, the change was instantaneous," he notes. There was a decision - it was like, I'm done with it!'
I just felt like a new person and made the decision to get my life in order."
His first move: enrolling at Mississauga's Metalworks Institute, where he studied music production, developed industry contacts and honed a business sense that would come in handy when - with his victim's comp money - he travelled to Malaysia to meet a singer he'd met online, who would later become his wife.
His five years there were an education: working in a recording studio, building businesses in entertainment and green tech.
Moving back to Kitchener in 2017, he worked odd jobs like painting and driving an Uber, sold office communication systems and, during his off hours, developed contacts to launch his current venture: an indie music company that grants fans exclusive access to celebrities through NFTs - nonfungible tokens that are unique virtual assets.
With partners that include a Grammy-winning sound engineer and multiplatinum songwriter, he launched musicfeast.io a few weeks ago as an interactive music site, label and publishing house with the goal of decentralizing the profit-hungry music business.
Its first big acquisition: rapper/podcaster/radio host DJ Whoo Kid, followed by 10 new musicians.
We built a music marketplace for celebrities and fans that gives the artist the ability to release exclusive merchandise and sell royalties to their songs," says Blake Harden, a Grammy-winning audio engineer who worked on albums with Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott and Katy Perry before joining forces with Burkholder and songwriter Dion Primo.
It's a way for artists to engage with fans more directly, without the noise and bots on social media."
While he and Primo - who has written songs for Wiz Khalifa, Ice Cube and 50 Cent - know the music industry, Harden says the business sense Burkholder developed during his days as an indie rapper have been key to their game plan.
He's the most on-the-ball guy I know - he's held this whole thing together."
Not that he's turned completely corporate.
I guess it's still a way to be rebellious, working on disruptive technologies that are a little against the norm, "says Burkholder of his business model
It's a happy ending, or maybe a beginning, for a guy who always wanted to be involved with music, but started on the wrong foot.
I wasn't sure I was at a point in my story to even tell it, to be honest, because technically I haven't made it' yet," concedes the dogged survivor.
But I want to encourage others to not allow things to defeat them."
Joel Rubinoff is a Waterloo Region-based staff reporter and columnist for The Record. Reach him via email: jrubinoff@therecord.com