INTERVIEW | INTRODUCING JAYQ THE LEGEND

JayQ The Legend writes fiercely cre­at­ive music that fuses the worlds of hip-hop, afro-beat, dance­hall and pop, draw­ing inspir­a­tion from sources as diverse as Bruno Mars, Bob Mar­ley and Madonna to craft a fresh sound that’s turned the heads of Grammy-win­ning pro­du­cers. His debut EP, “JayQ 4U”, fea­tures pro­duc­tion from OBA and cel­eb­rated hit-maker SOKO7, who pre­vi­ously worked on Beyoncé’s world­wide smash hit “Drunk In Love”.

 “Body Talk (Remix)” is an explos­ive new track from a genre-bend­ing artist ready to share his raw tal­ent with the world. Fol­low­ing May 2019’s “Body Talk”, a blind­ing suc­cess of a debut single that’s since racked up over 2.5m views on You­Tube and entered the Music Week Club Charts.

We catch up with him to find out more! 

Hi JayQ, thanks for speak­ing to us today. Firstly we want to ask about your back­ground, how did you get into music and what are some of your biggest influ­ences?

 It is my pleas­ure to speak with you today. I always had a deep love for music, since I was a 12-year old singing in my church choir. Everything grew from there, my vocal skills and per­form­ance abil­it­ies. My influ­ences are very diverse, from Bob Mar­ley to Michael Jack­son. I also love Bruno Mars, Madonna, & Ush­er.

You dropped ‘Body Talk’ earli­er this year and very recently dropped a remix ver­sion with Jamaic­an dance­hall queen Hood­Celebrityy. What was the pro­cess behind mak­ing the track ini­tially?

 Hood­Celebrityy is an amaz­ing tal­ent. She felt the music and she did her magic very quickly, in about a day. She brought her bril­liance to the remix, no doubt. Our voices sound amaz­ing togeth­er.

 It was great to see Hood­Celebrityy hop on the remix, how did you two end up work­ing togeth­er?

 I don’t know, man. Our man­age­ment teams con­nec­ted. His­tory happened from there. We were lucky that she had a win­dow to work on this pro­ject. I don’t think any­one could have done it as well as she did.

The videos for both ‘Body Talk’ and the remix are very high qual­ity in terms of pro­duc­tion, as well as fea­tur­ing some great dan­cing! What was the pro­cess behind shoot­ing these videos?

It always starts with a story and a great pro­duc­tion team. My CEO is an expert in music video edit­ing and style. That helps my end a lot.  Both Hood­celebrityy and I are “crazy crazy crazy” into dance. There was no ques­tion the remix would have dan­cing. The Body Talk ori­gin­al music video has more of the hip hop com­mer­cial dance style, while the remix is focused on the Afro-Carib­bean style of dance.

 What would you say is the main concept behind the single?

 Ah, rela­tion­ships. How to man­age the bal­ance of power in rela­tion­ships and how to respect one another’s needs. I was try­ing to con­vey that open and hon­est com­mu­nic­a­tion is vital for rela­tion­ships to work. Oth­er­wise, mis­un­der­stand­ings escal­ate. The song runs the jour­ney of a rela­tion­ship.

The pro­duc­tion on the track is really dis­tinct­ive and unique. Did you work with any par­tic­u­lar pro­du­cers on this one?

 Yes. I had an incred­ible team. The beats came straight from South Africa from a tal­en­ted pro­du­cer there. Grammy win­ner, SOKO7 lead the pro­duc­tion and writ­ing team. He has a Grammy for “Drunk in Love”,  Bey­once and Jay‑Z’s song. I also worked with an amaz­ing

up-and-com­ing pro­du­cer & song­writer, OBA.

 What’s next in the pipeline for JayQ?

 So much is in the pipeline, music is com­pleted all the way out until next sum­mer. I have three music videos that will be com­ing out this fall. One was shot on a gor­geous yacht on the French Rivi­era and the streets of Cannes, France. I am also doing a hol­i­day movie that will be released in time for this Christ­mas. It is in pro­duc­tion now. In Janu­ary, I will be releas­ing an incred­ible song that I did with Joelle James and 1500 or Noth­ing. It blows my mind every time I hear it.

 What’s one thing people wouldn’t expect about you?

 That I fly com­mer­cial jets. One thing or two? Anoth­er is that I am lit­ig­at­or and yes­ter­day got a young cli­ent the non-guilty ver­dict for 2^nd degree murder.

 Where can people find you online?

 I can be on Ins­tagram, FB, Twit­ter, You­tube, Sound­cloud, & Spo­ti­fy @JayQThe Legend. You can also find me on my label’s site www.BreakOutMusic.com

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds

Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

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