By Raymond Tham • UrbanWire
• email reporter • email story • printer friendly version

He may be miles away from India but one young man is keen to fuse Bhangra music and Punjabi lyrics into modern RnB and Hip Hop.
Born and bred in England, Jay Sean left medical school last year to pursue a career in music. His decision has been justified with his first single ‘Eyes on You’ gaining rave reviews and finding its way to a top 10 spot on Perfect Ten’s chart.
Drawing inspiration from performers like Eric Benet, Boyz II Men and Notorious BIG, Jay’s breakthrough came when he sent a demo tape to producer Rishi Rich– who has worked with the likes of Britney Spears, Craig David and Ricky Martin.
The track that resulted last year from his collaboration with Rishi Rich and Juggy D, ‘Dance With You’, reached a respectable 12th spot on the British chart and heralded the arrival of a new sound for R&B music, one with a distinctive Asian flavour.
In anticipation of his debut album’s release on Oct 25, UrbanWire and sister publication Hype magazine spoke over the phone with Jay, to check out how this Asian is surviving in a Western-dominated music industry.

You’ve been born and bred in the United Kingdom (U.K.), how Asian do you see yourself?

Jay Sean: “I see myself just as much British as I am Asian. I have grown up in different ways definitely, but I haven’t let go of my Asian values and traditions. Ultimately, what it comes down to is a right balance between the 2. I don’t want it to be that somewhere down the line, my culture doesn’t transcend and I just lose the value in the next generation. …it’s very hard living in England, man. When you’re away from your motherland, it becomes very easy to lose those Eastern ways. So for me I always make a conscious effort to practise those very traditions that make me who I am, because ultimately that’s my identity.

With Deepavali coming up, how do you celebrate the event in England?

Jay Sean: “Deepavali is basically the festival of light so it is celebrated by fireworks; it is celebrated by candles around the house and great family reunions. The extended family will all come together in 1 household, and have a massive dinner and then we will all just go out and set fireworks at a local park or at our own back garden. it’s just a time when the community comes down to celebrate and more so than anything it gives us an excuse to get together once in a while cause it’s very hard, everyone’s very busy.”

Apart from Bhangra sounds and Punjabi lyrics in your album, what sets your music apart from the mainstream acts?

Jay Sean: “The thing is that I try to concentrate on just being a bit innovative and a bit creative and lyrically I’m trying to be more interesting than just your normal, “Hello Girl, You’re so beautiful, I love you”, you know what I mean? So I talked about some things that I see around me in day-to-day life, things that I experience myself, my journey through music… just different kinds of topics… I also talked about what it’s like being an Asian guy trying to do Black music in a predominately White country and that wasn’t easy for me so I wrote a song about it called ‘You Don’t Know Me’
In terms of production, I wanted to fuse R&B music with different sounds, and give it more craves, and so we used some songs there which had a bit of an Indian influence in them, there are songs which have got a bit of rock influence in them, there are some songs where we’ve got some soul in them, a new soul type of vibe, and some songs with some hip hop influences.”

What are the stereotypes placed on Asians in Europe or in the U.K.?

Jay Sean: “There’s quite a few, man. At the end of the day with South Asians or Indians, there’s this very obvious one that we make great corner shop owners, we run petrol stations, and we make great doctors and engineers and lawyers. That’s what most people think the Indian community is about and I don’t blame them, because there’s a lot of us doing that kind of stuff, but the thing is what happens is that the mainstream audience, the black and white community, only have a very small window through which to see our culture, because they don’t see Asians on television. It just doesn’t happen. Here in England… if you were an alien, and you came to planet Earth, and the only way you could see what the world was like was through TV, you would think that the only people who lived here were black and white, because you wouldn’t see any Asians on TV, until recently. So now a few more Asians have come onto TV, and you know, we are starting to expand in the media. There are a lot more people doing music, doing acting, presenting, and stuff like that.”

Then are there any stigmas attached to being an Asian musician?

Jay Sean: “There are not plenty of us, actually. There’s me doing R & B here in England, there’s Jin who is this Chinese rapper based in America, and there’s a few other names such as Asian Dub Foundation and Babylon Zoo…but the kind of stigma we get is that we are all [fads], that we’re not going to last because our sound and our music is just a trend and it will die out soon. My goal is to show people that longevity is possible if the artist is good enough, not necessarily just in terms of skills, but do you stand for something, do you deserve to be where you are?”

So what you think an Asian has to prove to succeed in the music industry, given those conditions?

Jay Sean: “The main thing we have to show is that [even though] our skin colour is different, and our cultures are slightly different, that we are ultimately all the same. I always say that, you know what; I do the same things my black and white friends do. I go home, I get on the phone with a girl, we’ll go out, we’ll have a little drink… we do the same old thing, we’re not that much different man, we eat the same food, we watch the same TV programmes, we go out to the same places and we aren’t that different after all… Ultimately we shouldn’t be closed out to the same opportunities that our black and white counterparts have simply because of our skin colour or our race or religion.”

Are there any artistes based in Asia that you really admire?

Jay Sean: “Yeah, man. In India, there’s a singer called Adnan Sami [helpfully spells out his name], and he’s a great vocalist. There’s a lot of passion in his voice and I love what he sings lyrically so I look up to him and there’s also a composer called AR Rahman, he’s another one whom I find inspiration from.”

Your album will be launched on Oct 25, what have you been doing to prepare for it?

Jay Sean: “It’s basically been interviews, interviews and interviews from all around the whole world, man. It’s kind of crazy when you just think: ‘Oh my god, right now I am talking to someone from Singapore and an hour later I will be talking to someone from India, and after that I’ll be on the phone with someone in Germany and after that I’ll be going to do an TV interview somewhere else.’ So it’s been getting kind of mad, but yeah it’s pretty enjoyable.”

So what is it like getting in touch with so many people around the world?

Jay Sean: “It’s amazing for me, man, because you know what; the thing with me is that I love talking to people on the whole. Unfortunately, in a situation like this the only thing I talk about is myself. It’s a bit of a one way conversation. But when we go out on tour, that’s wicked for me, ‘cause I love going abroad, I like that and I’m very keen on travelling the world because I’m fascinated by culture and I love different cultures. I love expanding my general knowledge and it gives me the opportunity to meet people from different walks of life.”

You’ve been busy promoting your album, so what do you do for leisure?

Jay Sean: “(laughs) I don’t know what that word means anymore, man. For me, yes I am very busy, but I still do the stuff that I’ve done before. I still hang out with the same friends and do the same things, eat at the same restaurants, go and watch movies at the same cinema, and go to the same bars. It’s the same old things for me, man, because the thing is, I don’t want my life to change too much. Ultimately, yes I do realise that there are certain places that I can’t go to anymore because it can get crazy at times. But you know what? It’s cool though because I appreciate that it comes with the job.”

Singapore has a pretty loyal following for Bhangra music, is there any possibility that you may drop by soon?

Jay Sean: “I should hope so, man, I really hope so. I’ve been told that South-East Asia is a big target area for us, so I will be hoping that we’ll be able to make it to Singapore and Malaysia and Hong Kong and India and all those places, but we’ll see.”

So what have you heard about countries here in South-East Asia?

Jay Sean: “To be honest with you, the only time[s] I have heard about Singapore and Malaysia and all those other areas are from my friends who go there and make me very jealous of their photos, you know what I mean? So that’s why I have said that even if I don’t come down on tour, I would want to go there on holiday.”

Finally, what are your hopes for the future?

Jay Sean: “Basically I hope that in 5 or 10 years’ time I can be pretty settled in my finances, in my life, in my lifelong partner, meeting her and falling in love… and hopefully I can stay in the music industry and I can reflect on the last 10 years of my life and think to myself, yeah man it’s been wicked.”