Before Hanumankind started making waves on the Billboard Hot 100 with his Kalmi-assisted “Big Dawgs” (No. 23), Jay Sean was making history for South Asian artists on Billboard’s marquee singles chart.
In 2009, Jay Sean (born Kamaljit Singh Jhooti) topped the Hot 100 with “Down,” his Lil Wayne-assisted debut single. The achievement helped Sean become the very first South Asian artist to top the Hot 100 and helped kick off a fruitful pop career that includes Hot 100 hits like “Do You Remember” (No. 10, with Sean Paul and Lil Jon), “2012” (No. 31, with Nicki Minaj) and “Hit the Lights” (No. 18, with Lil Wayne).
15 years later, Jay Sean is back with a new album and an exciting new venture that he detailed for Billboard staff writer Kyle Denis on the latest edition of Billboard News.
“First of all, I’m South Asian. A lot of people still don’t know that. When I came here from England, people were speaking to me in Spanish a lot because they thought I was Puerto Rican or Dominican — I had the shaved head then,” Sean quips. “[They didn’t realize I was] South Asian, and the first-ever South Asian in history to have had a No. 1 Billboard record.”
The genre-melding singer continues, “When I was coming up and telling people I wanted to do music, they were like ‘Are you stupid? Look around you bro, do you see anyone like you onstage with Justin Timberlake and Usher? There’s no brown dude.’ So, I took it upon myself to create a platform for brown people. We’re the largest demographic [on] planet Earth, why aren’t we taking the scene over? That’s why I set up 3AM, so I can provide that structure for us.”
Co-founded by Sean, The Heavy Group’s Jeremy Skaller and Range Media’s Jared Cotter, 3AM Entertainment aims to support artists from the South Asian diaspora as they work to break through global music markets. The record label will operate under Virginia Media, with big releases from both Sean and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan already available.
Over the summer (June 28), the actress dropped “Shoes… More Shoes,” a campy novelty track produced by New York DJ Ellis Miah. Proceeds for the song were donated to two LGBTQIA+ charities: Not A Phase and the Trevor Project.
Sean has already launched two singles under 3AM previewing his forthcoming new album. “Heartless,” which features Punjabi hitmaker Ikky, is a guitar-inflected trap&B banger, while the Jai Dhir-featuring “Piche Piche” effortlessly blends Punjabi, Hindi and English into a smoldering R&B groove. The latter track also features a team of A-listers behind the scenes; it was co-written by two-time Grammy-nominated R&B maestro Eric Bellinger and co-produced by Sean Cook, one of the minds behind Shaboozey‘s historic smash “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” Both “Heartless” and “Piche Piche” will appear on Last Call, Sean’s forthcoming new album, which is due in 2025.
“When I did songs like ‘Piche Piche’ and ‘Heartless,’ it was very easy for me to do that because I live and breathe that,” he explains. “I speak Punjabi, I can sing in Punjabi, I can also rap and sing in English, it’s all very natural to me. To work with Eric TKTK — who’s obviously such an OG in the game — I’ve got so much respect and love for him. It was just great to work with an R&B legend like that. And Sean Cook is my boy. The whole album is basically me and Sean.”
Although he’s putting out a major project of his own next year, Sean remains focused on uplifting and highlighting rising South Asian artists and making sure that the door he cracked ajar with “Down” remains open.
“I hope that I can look back and say all the years that I dreamt of this happening have finally come true,” he muses.
