Jojo Mayer began playing drums as an autodidact, and had his first public performance at 2 with his father's band.
At age 16 he dropped out of school and went to music school. One year later, Jojo dropped out of music school to go on the road in Europe with Monty Alexander, backing up Jazz legends like Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone.
In NYC, he worked as a sideman in the 90s before starting to explore the area between human performance and robotization in music. He pioneered reverse engineering programmed drumbeats on acoustic drums in realtime. The seminal work with his band NERVE further translated the mostly premeditated syntax of electronic music into an improvisational format and influenced a whole generation of bands.
Besides performing, Jojo is also a speaker, producer and educator. His tutorials on drumming and product design for musical instruments are award winning international bestsellers.
