Cash Money's Jay Sean Gets 'Down' Stateside
Lil Wayne and Drake may be receiving all the attention, but there’s another member of the Cash Money/Young Money family who’s primed for the spotlight.
He’s already a star in the U.K., but British-Indian singer Jay Sean is now conquering the U.S. with his hit single “Down.” The Lil Wayne-assisted song is currently No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. Sean spoke to staging-rapup.kinsta.cloud about what to expect from his U.S. debut and third overall album.
“The whole Cash Money family is on the album,” he reveals. “This album is so tight and I’m not just saying that from an egotistical point of view. I’m saying it from a place where I’m so proud of the body of work that it is. I did not wanna make an album where you’ve got four or five hot joints and the rest are just fillers.”
Sean has been called the U.K.’s answer to Ne-Yo, whom he admires. “To be honest, this new album is very Ne-Yo-esque in terms of the writing, in terms of the pop, R&B. And I look up to him as a songwriter like crazy, so it was a huge compliment.”
His first single is burning up the charts, but he hasn’t selected a follow-up yet. “There’s a few candidates. ‘Ride It’ is floating around and wasn’t supposed to be a single. It might kick off and there’s going to be another feature on it.”
Just because he’s signed to Cash Money, don’t expect the usual names on this album because he’s already done that. “At the moment, the producers I’ve worked with, they’re not big names. I did the big producers on my last album,” adds the 26-year-old. “I had my own record company and I couldn’t afford to buy a $300,000 song from Timbaland out of my budget. Timbaland actually called up my CEO of Cash Money and was like, ‘Yo, who’s this dawg, Jay Sean? I wanna work with this cat.'”
Jay Sean’s U.S. debut is scheduled for a November 24 release.
–Reporting by Rajul Punjabi