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I remember hearing Jay Sean for the first time – the radio was on Choice FM and the song had a whole Bhangra “poppy” rhythm going on, fused together with some smooth, flirty vocals and an energised chorus. At the time, I had no idea who this ‘Jay Sean’ guy they were on about was. Of course, the song playing was the infectious summer hit ‘Eyes On You’ and Jay Sean was the mastermind behind 2004’s whole redefinition of urban music. West London’s Jay Sean began rapping at the age of 11 in a group called Compulsive Disorder, before pursuing a career in medicine. He then attended and subsequently left Queen Mary’s College, effectively leaving behind that potential occupation as a doctor to be one of the UK’s biggest urban talents. “Things started kicking off with the music when record companies started taking an interest, and when I got the record deal from Virgin that was enough for me to give up medicine,” he explained. “It’s not often that you get the chance to live out your dream – there are so many people who want to get signed; I would be stupid to turn down a deal like that.”
Of course, back then Jay Sean had no idea of how big he would blow up in terms of mainstream music here in Britain, and it was quite a risk to take. “Nothing’s written in stone. I could get into medicine and fail my finals, so for me I thought, I wanna have a go at it and I wanna enjoy myself while I’m at it,” he said. “This is what I’ve always loved doing and that’s what I’m going to carry on doing regardless of what happens.” Jay Sean got his record deal in July 2003 and debuted with the album ‘Me Against Myself’ in November. “When ‘Dance With You’ came out, everyone then expected me to drop an album, but that only came out because it blew up on the underground and got so much heat.” He continued, “I had to make sure that what I wanted to write about was not rushed. At the end of the day I could have easily put together 17 B-rate songs which were lying around, which is something I didn’t want to do. I took my time and I think people appreciate that.” When listening to ‘Me Against Myself’, I found such a diverse variety on offer. There’s R&B, Bollywood, soul, and then there’s songs where he sings and ones where he raps. He genuinely said, “I love doing both [singing and rapping]; for me I can’t choose between the two. There’s times when I just freestyle in the car, I’ll just be rapping away, and there’s others when I’ll be singing.” Let’s face it, the R&B and hip-hop industry is mainly black-dominated, so you’d think Jay Sean feels the need to prove something. “To be honest with you, people look at you harder, they analyse you deeper, they criticise you further. You hang a note and they’ll listen to it harder than they will if it’s sung by a black guy or a white guy,” told Jay. “I don’t really see it as pressure.” “You’re never going to appeal to everybody. There’s always going to be someone who will say, ‘What’s he up to? He should be singing bhangra and dancing like a chicken’. I’ve stopped trying to force people to listen. This is what I love doing, this is what I’ve been doing my whole life and if you’re with it, wicked, and if you’re not, then I can’t please you. That’s the best I can do.” Just like Rishi Rich stresses on the album’s introduction, Jay Sean agrees that UK R&B doesn’t sell. “In all fairness, we have to understand and appreciate the fact that when it comes to UK R&B, it’s nothing compared to America. They do that best; it’s as simple as that,” he admitted. “We do pop best, we’ve got Robbie Williams – no-one can kiss that. Our music industry here doesn’t support urban music as much as America does… it’s disappointing. Who is there? There’s Lemar, there’s Jamelia, there’s me… Dizzee Rascal’s doing really well, but what a lot of people don’t understand is it’s not about singles, it’s about album sales. It’s hard for urban artists to shift as many records as Girls Aloud here – it’s an entirely different market. That comes down to the fact that people play safe in media, radio plays safe. They wanna go with a record that is guaranteed to appeal to the masses – and that’s a pop record, out and out. The bands which work here are guitar-based bands and pop bands, and if you’re urban you can represent on Channel U and you can represent on MTV Base, but are you gonna get MTV Hits and VH1?” He continued, “Of course I’m trying to go beyond that; I’m always aiming as high as I can.” After a largely cameo-less debut album, Jay Sean is proving to stake his ground in the urban scene – he and Rishi Rich recently worked with the hot American Chinese rapper Jin on a new track. “It’s called ‘This is What Happens When Chinese Meets Punjabi’. We’re putting that out this year.” On the topic of other collaborations, he revealed, “I’m doing a collaboration with Musiq Soulchild on ‘One Minute’ from my album. We sent that over to Musiq and he loved it so we’re going to have a little duet. That track’s got a bit of a neo-soul vibe.” Talking about how fans react to him, he said, “I was in Southall the other day and it kinda kicked off. I think it happens like that in some heavily Asian populated areas. It’s mad, but it’s nice because the majority [of the Asian community] are happy and proud of what’s happening. It’s just like I was when I saw Sanjeev Bhaskar and that lot on TV and there’s a whole load of white people at school and uni chatting about it and you kinda think, ‘Yeah man, that’s wicked’ – they’re doing something, they’re repping for us.” While fame affects many people for the worse, Jay Sean doesn’t plan to follow suit. “Some people live for fame, and I don’t do that. Some people get a little bit of fame and start wearing sunglasses in clubs and start giving it the large one and rolling around trying to flex with any girl that they can just because they’ve got a name – to me, that’s a bit sad. That’s not the way I go. At the end of the day people see your face on TV a bit more and hear your song on radio and that don’t mean you’re anything special. Some people go on like they are, and I think those people that [fame] affects, that’s when they lose their real friends and perspective of who they are. Me, I’ve still got the best mates that I had before and it don’t mean sh*t to me.” In Jay’s short period of time in the spotlight, he talks about his career highlights to date. “There’s been a lot of stuff. Top of the Pops – being on that three times… Being on it once was amazing enough and then to go on three times was mad – it’s something all people dream of if they want to go into the music industry. Supporting Busta Rhymes was crazy. I love Busta and to support him was mad. Internationally things have really started to kick off. Doing the MTV Immie (Indian Music Excellence) Awards – that went out to 160 million people… If you think of it like that, that’s an amazing opportunity. I’ve enjoyed everything that’s happened to me while I’ve been in this and I think that’s the most important thing to just appreciate where you’re at and to enjoy it.” “I’d like to write a record and for it to go to all four corners of the Earth,” says Jay about what he’d like to achieve. “Whatever field of work you’re in, you want to excel to the highest point you can. If I had an album which was mega successful around the whole world that would be incredible and for people to understand this Asian kid doing R&B music wasn’t just a little fad and really respected it. To go out knowing that I contributed to some cause, to help Asians further excelling in music or whatever it may be, for me that’s something I’d like to look back at and think I had a part to play in.” As expected, 2005 is going to be a busy year for Jay Sean. “I’m writing on my second album and doing promotional tours around Asia. I’m going to be releasing the album around Europe early next yea,r and there’s going to be another single off ‘Me Against Myself’ coming out in March. There’s going to be a UK tour in about April, and there’s a Rishi Rich Project DVD called ‘Aj Kal’ which is out in stores now.”
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