Justin Roberts

Born in Des Moines, Iowa, and long-time resident of the Chicago area, Justin Roberts has since the late 1990s developed a repertoire between pop rock, folk, and children's music, with writing drawn from the American song tradition and a marked taste for direct melodies. Before this shift, Justin Roberts started in the Minneapolis indie scene within the group Pimentos for Gus, formed in the late 1980s and active during the 1990s. His stint as a Montessori kindergarten teacher then led him to write his first songs for young audiences, the starting point of his first album Great Big Sun in 1997. Accompanied on stage by the Not Ready for Naptime Players, Justin Roberts over the years has built a regular discography where pop energy, observations of everyday childhood, and acoustic or electric arrangements intersect without excessive sophistication. Among his albums are Yellow Bus (2001), Not Naptime (2003), Meltdown! (2006), Pop Fly (2008), Jungle Gym (2010), Recess (2013), Lemonade (2016), Wild Life (2020) and Space Cadet (2022). His trajectory sits both within the American family circuit and in an indie rock culture in which he maintains the sense of song format and clear choruses.