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
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