One of Ma's earliest memories of dabbling into music is when his parents took him to a Filipino store in a nearby mall to sing into their karaoke machines. As a child, Ma enjoyed Disney film soundtracks, especially the High School Musical film series. The series in turn encouraged his fascination for performing and competing in school events to make his own high school experience a musical one too. As a preteen, Ma found himself a fan of Justin Bieber during his RNB-inspired pop My World era. As an early teenager, Ma found himself to be a fan of the country-turned-pop icon Taylor Swift, during her Red era. He attributed his own showmanship to that of Swift's, which was a key factor to his 1st place for performing his lively rendition of her song "Stay Stay Stay" in his school inter-house singing and dancing competition at age fourteen and a 2nd runner-up for his theatrical rendition of the song "Blank Space" in his school inter-school talent competition at age sixteen. As a late teenager, when Swift took an extra year off since the release of her 1980s synth-pop driven 1989 album, Ma found himself indulging in 80s-pop inspired work from another pop artist Lady Gaga. Inspired by Gaga's vocal delivery and bravery, he attempted to tone down the theatrics and explore the darker tones in his voice in his next performance, which earned him his 2nd champion in his school inter-house singing competition at age seventeen. When Ma picked up the guitar after he graduated from high school at age eighteen, he attributed his guitar-playing to Swift by learning to play and sing to all of Swift's discography on guitar. When he started busking for a living, he had "always had (his) eye on Mr. Wally," a Japanese busker in Hong Kong. It was "because of him that (Ma) was inspired to explore (his) alter egos and express all sorts of different sides to (him), dress the way (he) wanted to, no matter how weird or so-called 'childish' it was, and sing the songs (he) wanted to, regardless if it was not the usual Cantonese or Mandarin songs." He also found street performing videos of Allie Sherlock, an Irish street performer, from her YouTube channel, who inspired him to start his own and post his street acoustic live performances too.

Due to various song requests by passersby during his street performances throughout the years, apart from the above mentioned artists, Ma also found himself inspired by the likes of Christina Perri, Ellie Goulding, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Ava Max, Idina Menzel, Jessie J, Meghan Trainor, Jason Mraz, Bruno Mars, Maroon 5, One Direction, Avril Lavigne, Imagine Dragons, Green Day, Ash, Luna Halo, Plain White T's, Earth, Wind & Fire, Toploader, Grace Vanderwaal, Emilia Rydberg, Elvis Presley, J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie, Eartha Kitt, Ariana Grande, Mariah Carey, Wham!, Jule Styne, Gene Autry and the Cass Country Boys, James Lord Pierpoint, Bobby Helms, Nos Galan, Thomas Oliphant, Isaac Watts, Lowell Mason, Joseph Mohr, Franz Xaver Gruber, Irving Berlin, Ernst Anschutz, Melchior Franck, Arthur Warrell, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Fool's Garden, Bill Withers, John Denver, the Carpenters, the Beatles, ABBA, Oasis, Coldplay, Keane, Randy Newman, Ben E. King, Lenka, Elton John, the Shirelles, Phil Collins, Frankie Valli, Nat King Cole, Daniela Andrade, Sam Smith, John Legend, James Arthur, Stephen Sanchez, George Benson, Eric Clapton, Shane Filan, Shania Twain, Kacey Musgraves, Bradley Cooper, Bryan Adams, Robbie Williams, Richard Marx, Westlife, Calum Scott, Air Supply, Journey, Aerosmith, Radiohead, James Blunt, Passenger, Hugh Grant, Haley Bennett, Bob Dylan, Lewis Capaldi, Adele, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Madonna, Cher, Cyndi Lauper, Beyonce, Madonna, Katy Perry, Hayley Kiyoko, Mad Tsai, Troye Sivan, Conan Gray, Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish and Lily Allen, enough to cover at least one song from each of them on his YouTube channel.