Jay Sean released “Down” 15 years ago, and the singer reflects on what it took for him to reach that level of success in the American market as a South Asian singer. He shares how he created “Piche Piche,” his aim for South Asian representation with his new label, 3AM, the spread and appreciation of Punjabi music, his new album in the works and more!
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00:00I got to grace the biggest stages on planet earth and I still do. I get to do you know chats like
00:05this for Billboard. I have a platform where I get to shine and I get to now allow my culture
00:14and my people to shine. Yo what's up everyone I'm Jay Sean and you are watching Billboard News.
00:202024 marks the 15 year anniversary of Down. Do you have a favorite memory or performance
00:35attached to the song? Man first of all that's wild isn't it? Crazy. And it's one of those songs that
00:40obviously it changed my life but I think has been a part of a lot of my fans journey. It's just like
00:47it's ingrained in their cells at this point and I think you know when I think back to the
00:53performances of that song one of the most epic ones must have to be it was probably Madison
00:58Square Garden the first time I did it. So I did MSG two or three times but the first time ever
01:03for a Brit from a small town in England called Hounslow to be gracing that stage is just wild
01:10and then to have 20,000 New Yorkers sing back every word to you.
01:21You know I mean I think that was something that I'll always remember. Absolutely you know I
01:26remember listening and dancing to Down when I was a kid and still doing that today so like
01:3115 years later how do you assess the impact of such an iconic song? I could delve deep here about
01:37the impact but I think again a song has the ability to take you back in time. You know
01:46exactly where you are. I bet you could remember where you were when you were listening to all
01:51of that and you'd be in the back of a car maybe on the way to school and it would be on the radio
01:54it would be on Z100. It transports you back into time. It's the same with fragrances it's weird
01:59right like a smell you're like I remember I wore that in so and so like it just has this amazing
02:04ability to do that but I also do think that the music that we were writing back then because it
02:09was on radio so much a song like Down was played over a billion times on radio. Crazy. So whether
02:16you couldn't escape it even if you wanted to it was just on it was on all the time on every radio
02:23station so it gets ingrained in you yeah right so what happens with that is that kind of song
02:31then will end up becoming a classic. I bet you know every single word to Lil Wayne's verse on
02:40that too. Every day we rapped it. Right. That was just the thing. So I think those songs just become
02:45classics. Absolutely. You know this year you launched your own record label under Virgin Music
02:50Group called 3am Entertainment. What was the impetus for this venture? I'd have to go back
02:5520 years first to talk about how 3am came to be. First of all I'm South Asian a lot of people
03:02still don't know that. Crazy. You know when I came here from England people were speaking to me in
03:07Spanish a lot because they thought I was Puerto Rican or Dominican I had the shaved head there
03:12yeah buzz cut and I very quickly learned no hablo espanol and then what they didn't realize was
03:18is that I'm South Asian and the first ever South Asian in history to have had a number one Billboard
03:26record. When I was coming up and I would tell people I want to do music they were like are you stupid
03:32look around you bro do you see anyone do you see anyone like you on stage with Justin Timberlake
03:38and Usher there's no brown dude. So I took it upon myself to be able to provide a platform
03:44for our people because we're the largest demographic on planet earth why aren't we taking the scene over
03:50yeah you understand what I'm saying so that's why I set up 3am so I can provide that infrastructure
03:54for us. That's incredible. Tell me what it's gonna be right now
04:02Feature Feature is co-written by grammy nominee Eric Bellinger and co-produced by Sean Cook who
04:06also worked on Shabuti Zabar's song. How did those two collaborators help you blend Punjabi,
04:10Hindi and English together into one really sexy slinky R&B track? I was born and raised in England
04:17but my you know I'm like I said my roots are Indian so my parents were born in India
04:21came over to England so as a British born first generation British born Indian that means your
04:27influences are mom and dad are playing Bollywood music at home because they're watching the movies
04:32we're going to weddings we're playing here in Punjabi music and dancing to Punjabi music we're
04:35eating Indian food but we're also going out and having pizza and Nando's in England was one of
04:41our favorite restaurants I still don't know why it hasn't come over here we're going to R&B clubs
04:45we're going to hip-hop clubs we're going to usher concerts we're going to you know Neo and all this
04:49stuff but we're still Indian kids yeah now in 2024 lots of people are getting excited about
04:56Punjabi music and maybe some people are hearing Punjabi music for the first time which is
05:00obviously beautiful because this was all I ever wanted for people to hear our music our scene our
05:06culture when I did songs like Pitcha Pitchin Heartless it's very easy for me to do that
05:11because that's I live and breathe that yeah I speak Punjabi I can sing in Punjabi I can also
05:17you know rap and sing in English and did all of this stuff was very natural for me but to work
05:23with Eric who's obviously such a OG in the game yeah and you know I've got so much respect for
05:29him so much love for him it was just great to collaborate with an R&B legend like that
05:33you know and Sean is my boy Sean Cook man we've done a bunch of songs in fact the whole album
05:38is basically me and Sean wow I'm so happy with you know for him with Shaboosie and everything so
05:43man it was just it was organic and natural yeah so then your album's called Last Call
05:48what can you tell us about this new project I think if I had to sort of describe it it would be
05:53you know forward thinking in the sense that you know we've got this fusion stuff going on and
05:58like I said without sounding arrogant this comes very natural to me yes because I think that what
06:04what happens is people see a style of music popping off they're like oh we've got to jump
06:09on that because it's hot you know and so we've seen it with Afrobeat and stuff there's some
06:13people who've done the Afrobeat thing nice and easy and organically and other people you like
06:18that sounds forced I never make forced music I don't do that I'd rather make no music
06:24then do something that is contrived and not organic
06:27so for me the whole album is giving you a vibe of everything that I am
06:37which you describe with Afrobeats I feel like is happening a little bit with country right now
06:41is that a fear of yours going into this new project that maybe in a couple years Punjabi
06:46music might suffer the same fate stage side with people hopping on it because it's a trend and not
06:50because they want to authentically engage with the music I remember talking to Sean Paul about
06:53this when Dancehall was blowing up and everybody was I was like how do you feel about that do you
06:57feel like it's been you know are people sort of appropriating your culture he's like listen man
07:02if it's done well it's actually respect it's like yo our music is being heard by the masses yeah and
07:08I think I feel the same about Punjabi if people take the time to understand the nuances of Punjabi
07:14music and and to do it well and to do it with some love and attention and care and respect
07:19I think it's only gonna help elevate our scene even more
07:28now what's happening is this new generation and I'll be real with you Gen Z
07:33is a lot more open to a lot of stuff yes okay now when I was in a kid
07:40truth be told there were times we had to hide what we were listening to we had to
07:44wash off the smell of our curry from our clothes because we'd get teased yeah because we want to
07:49make friends and we want to assimilate but they didn't understand our culture
07:54so we hid behind it you know understand what I'm saying and we couldn't show off proudly
07:59but my daughter she's 11 and she feels no way she goes to school and she's telling people about what
08:06Bollywood movies should they should be watching and playing them songs and does dances at school
08:11for Diwali and makes me so happy because it took this long for us to get to this point final
08:18question for you by the end of the decade what's one major benchmark you want to reach with 3am
08:23my whole mission with 3am is really to provide an environment where artists feel understood
08:32and they feel like it's a safe space to make and release their art yeah okay being a creative first
08:40I am never going to walk in the room and say hey what about this this wear those jeans wear this
08:47that's not my job my job is to hear them artist to artist to understand them artist to artist to
08:54relate to them artist to artist and to be able to whatever their desires are for their art and
09:01their work to be able to try to facilitate that through the platform I now have and platform that
09:06it's taken me 20 years to get here you know and regardless of genre like hey they could be a
09:13techno dj they could be a country artist they could be you know whatever r&b I want to give
09:18them a chance to shine and I hope that I can look back and say that all the years you know that I
09:25dreamt of this uh happening uh has finally come true it's beautiful man yeah absolutely beautiful
09:32thank you brother let's try is it a rapid fire thing it is so in this game you have 60 seconds
09:38to answer the questions in rapid fire style your goal is to answer the most questions in 60 seconds
09:43okay are you ready let's go start that timer london or new york london singing or dancing
09:50definitely singing sweet or spicy spicy down or do you remember down hits or deep cuts
10:01oh that's a tough one because then there's an artist only interested in hits
10:05but then the the other one is deep I don't know hits man come on we've got a record company now
10:10past or present always present podcasts or series series 2012 or 2024
10:19here and now man 2024 let's go going out or staying in
10:25I do still love to go out and about and explore the world okay party I don't know about party
10:30but definitely like I like to get in the mix with uh with culture and exploring places
10:36coffee or tea oh coffee text or facetime text 2000s or 2010s
10:462010s is a great era
10:49got it yeah you got it how many were left damn I told you I'm crap at this rapid fire shit