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  • safe 🪩
    Aug 4, 2020
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    edited

    The Internet & How it Helped to Cultivate Jai Paul's Legacy

    A Brief History

    In 2007 Jai Paul, 19 years old at the time and living in Rayner’s Lane, London wrote and produced a song called Back To Save The Universe. The demo took him about an hour to make and he uploaded it onto his myspace. He didn’t care to show anyone or to promote it. He just liked making music.


    A screenshot of Jai Paul’s Myspace circa 2010. Note his description of himself

    3 years later, by chance someone found the song and shared it onto their blog. The song grew like wildfire and a bidding war erupted. Jai chose not to sign with the major labels promising him supeom, instead choosing to sign with a small independent British label XL Recordings. He released an adjusted version of BTSTU with the label and despite rumors circulating of a debut album titled Bait Ones, it wasn’t until 2 years after signing that he released his second single, a song called Jasmine (Demo) onto Soundcloud. The song exploded getting half a million plays in just two days. Pitchfork named it Best New Track just an hour after release and NY Times described it as prince-esque.

    In 2013, on the 13th April with no warning an album was uploaded to Jai Paul’s bandcamp. The album was self-titled and contained no track names. Tracks were unstable, glitchy and often cut short. The next day Jai tweeted.


    Jai’s first and only tweet – until June 2019

    A statement never followed.

    It was 6 years before Jai Paul’s name appeared on music again – contributing production and backing vocals to his own label’s artist’s debut single Fabiana Palladino’s Mystery. While A.K. Paul (Jai’s brother) started to become more prolific in the years of Jai’s disappearance, rumors constantly circulated about Jai, the nature of the album release and whether he would ever return.

    On June 2 2019, Jai tweeted for the second time ever. He directed fans to a new website where he had officially released the leaked album. The purchase for the album included a statement. It described how Jai had been emotionally destroyed by the leak and it had taken years of therapy and reclusiveness to start making music again. That music came in the form of two new singles ‘Do You Love Her Now’ and ‘He’. The 500 copies of the vinyl sold out in minutes and the vinyl initially listed for £7 now resells on ebay for over £200.

    Do You Love Her Now was named Best New Track by Pitchfork. A week later the other single ‘He’ was named Best New Track. Jai is currently 4/4 on Best New Tracks for official singles

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020

    The Internet

    The internet is the key framework to understanding Jai Paul’s entire career. Every defining moment in his career and his legacy has been shaped by the advent of the internet and in every respect, he epitomizes the internet-age artist. Despite using a***og synthesizers, not knowing what iTunes is and barely using social media, the internet has always been Jai Paul’s platform.

    This began with the Myspace demos. Jai is the perfect example of how the internet can create a platform for discovery. He didn’t care about showing his music to other people. He just viewed it as a hobby. And yet someone by chance stumbled onto his music and from just one song he became a star and signed a label deal.

    It was the internet that was his initial platform for music releases but it was also the internet that led to his success. Jai rose to fame at the height of the blog era. Blogs and internet magazines like Pitchfork and Dazed Digital were driving forces behind his early acclaim and success. It was through these blogs that BTSTU and later Jasmine took off.


    Jai Paul promoting BTSTU while unsigned

    The internet has consistently been the platform for Jai’s music. Initially it was Myspace but it quickly turned into Soundcloud for Jasmine’s return and then Bandcamp for the leak. Even the leak that turned his career upside down was only possible with the internet. His return took place on the Paul Institute website and then his own website. Twitter was his only source of communication with the world as rarely as that occurred – he only ever did one interview.

    He has never sold physicals in store always opting for online releases. Songs this week premiered early on the Paul Institute site before an Apple Music radio show played them and they released onto streaming.

    Even Jai and A.K Pauls talent development/record label the Paul Institute owes much to the internet. Jai Paul found Fabiana Palladinos SoundCloud and messaged her out of the blue to invite her to collaborate. HIRA was found by A.K Paul on Bandcamp and Ruthven posted his music on KTT.

    When he returned in 2019 Jai released an AI version of Jasmine online. The track can only be accessed online and uses Bronze AI to generate a unique and endless version of the song.

    More than anything the internet has allowed for Jai to stay a cultural phenomenon despite his reclusiveness. Before Frank Ocean, Jai Paul was the artist who fans waited hours to hear rumors about and speculated about. The KTT thread for the Paul Institute and Jai Paul totals 1.2M replies and was frequented by Jai and other Paul Institute members. From just two official songs, Jai Paul had become one of pop’s greatest mysteries and it was because of the internet.

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020
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    edited

    Legacy

    Jai’s music was absurdly fresh for 2007 and remains forward-thinking to this day. His musical influence is incredibly pervasive in modern music from huge artists to tiny left-field artists. While I could write a significant amount about the nature of his musical influence, I’ll keep it short and rather show where that influence can be found.

    One of Jai’s most commonly imitated styles was sidechaining. Sidechaining is the idea of using one track to alter another tracks volume. This is commonly used for kicks. When a kick drum hits, other bass frequencies lower to give the kick more force and prevent muddiness. This has been common for years before Jai but Jai gave it a different spin. He would often sidechain drums and other tracks to the entire song making the song appear unstable and distorted. Artist Demo Taped writes “I pretty much learned about sidechaining and what it was by typing into Google, ‘What the f*** is Jai Paul doing?’” adds Demo Taped. “I realised it was this thing that people had known about for a very long time, and that sidechain compression has been a thing, but he was using it in a different way. And now everybody is pretty much using it in that way.”

    The song ‘Good Time’ from the leak features this sidechaining heavily. Hear how the whole track shifts with the kick. The original leaked version of the track featured a sample from Harry Potter The Prisoner of Azkaban*

    More of Jai’s influence stemmed from his bitingly heavy a***og synths, his whispery often inaudible vocals on the tracks, his embrace of global music both from his own cultural identity and beyond and his bizarre and rare samples stemming from pop culture and beyond.

    Another major part of Jai’s music legacy is his use of silence. Jai regularly uses silence and drops throughout his tracks to give the appearance of glitchiness and to even create percussion from silence. Note his use of silence here at 0:19 to add emphasis to the drop, the brief silence at 0:29 and 1:47 and throughout the track.

    Electronic artist Flume has made this technique his staple pushing it even further. Note how he uses silence and ‘glitches’ to add depth and faux-percussion to the drop on his most recent track here – a remix of Eiffel 65’s ‘Blue’. Check out 0:40 onwards.

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020
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    edited

    So who has Jai actually influenced?

    It’s easy to dismiss Jai as a minor artist whos influenced other minor artists. This is patently untrue. I took a few minutes to make a list of some of the artists who have directly credited Jai in some capacity. This list largely ignores artists like Ben Khan and Tom Tripp who have directly used Jai’s sound and are obviously influenced massively. Same goes for artists like Nao and Mura Masa.

    Lorde - tweeted this in 2015

    This was during the making of Melodrama leading some to believe Jai had a role in the album especially considering the samples found in Homemade Dynamite
    ‘Homemade Dynamite’ from her 2017 album directly samples several Jai Paul songs leading many to believe that Jai had an uncredited role in its creation. It uses the snare from BTSTU, the guitar from Crush and samples from Str8 outta Mumbai.

    Drake - Drake sampled Jai Paul’s BTSTU for his 2011 loose track ‘Dreams Money Can Buy’. He posted Jasmine (Demo) onto his Instagram story in 2019 and tweeted it earlier and his Beats 1 Radio Show OVO Sound Radio has played multiple Jai, A.K and other Paul Institute songs throughout its history.

    Dreams Money Can Buy – the vocals at the start are Jai Paul’s from the intro to BTSTU

    Ed Sheeran - Ed Sheeran directly sampled and sung the Jasmine hook on Rockie Fresh’s song ‘Are You With Me’ in 2016.

    Ed Sheeran playing Jasmine and singing the hook

    A tweet from Ed Sheeran prior to his fame

    Kenny Beats - he’s a massive Jai/Paul Institute stan. He’s discussed how he wants to produce an album for D’Angelo and Jai and is currently an active member of a Jai Paul discord where he discusses how Jai achieves his sounds.

    Flume - credits Jai as one of his major inspirations


    Flume posted this on his Facebook. The Toro Y Moi song is also incredible

    Childish Gambino - Jai helped produce ‘Time’ on his most recent record

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020
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    1 reply

    Beyonce - Sampled BTSTU in her 2012 song ‘End of Time’

    Big Boi - has the only official Jai Paul feature in existence

    This song released on Big Boi’s deluxe version of his 2012 album ‘Vicious Lies and Danger’

    The Weeknd - played Jasmine during his memento mori set

    Miguel - worked with AK Paul on his song FLESH. Took a picture with Jai and AK here

    This was one of the first images of Jai to surface after the leak and many believed it would mean he was working with Miguel

    Flesh was produced and co-written by A.K. Paul – there was no mention of Jai to many fans disappointment

    Frank Ocean - played Paul Institute’s music during blonded

    Kaytranada - has regularly mentioned Jai and played songs from the leak in mixes

    Anderson .paak - tweeted about Jai

    Virgil Abloh - big Jai/PI stan. Earlier this year paid several hundred pounds in an XL auction


    A rare picture of Jai and Virgil. The date is unknown other than pre-2017

    Dua Lipa - talked about Jai in an interview

    Zayn Malik of One Direction - samples Jasmine on his new album. Severely other tracks are massively inspired. Has talked about Jai Paul off record in an interview prior to this albums making.

    This song samples several parts of Jasmine including the bassline

    Rostam of Vampire Weekend

    Was an early fan of Jai’s myspace. May have been one of the people who kickstarted Jai’s career both blog wise and with XL.

    Daft Punk - put Jai on their Spotify playlist
    ODESZA - tweeted about Jai
    Diplo - tweeted about Jai
    Bon Iver - tweeted about Jai
    Bastille - called Jai an inspiration
    Maxwell - tweeted about Jai
    Jonah Hill - tweeted about Jai
    HAIM - discussed him in interview
    Caribou - made a video about the influence of Jasmine

    Published by pitchfork it discusses how important the song was for him

    Brockhampton - bearface has discussed Jai multiple times and remixed Jasmine. The producers use a Jai sample throughout the saturation trilogy on almost every song.
    Charli XCX - playlisted Jai multiple times
    Wondagurl - playlisted Jai in her influences playlist
    Disclosure - have discussed Jai multiple times
    BBNG - playlisted Jai
    St Vincent - playlisted Jai
    Sam Smith - co-wrote with A.K Paul
    Emeli Sande - co-wrote with A.K. Paul
    Jessie Ware - co-wrote with A.K Paul

    Along with many more who either have utilized his musical ideas or are just quiet fans

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020
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    edited

    Now what?

    Go listen to the new Paul Institute EP! It released yesterday and it’s fantastic. It’s stickied right now! Jai helped produce and contributes backing vocals to Waiting by Fabiana Palladino. In terms of Jai’s own music we know very little. As of June 2019, he’s making solo music again. That’s all we know for now but follow him on twitter and Instagram if you want to know as soon as he says something.

  • Aug 4, 2020

    first page i know its gonna be good

  • eclass ⛓️
    Aug 4, 2020

    huh

  • Aug 4, 2020

    safe threads a national treasure

  • Aug 4, 2020
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    edited

    6/10

  • Aug 4, 2020
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    1 reply

    man I wish he'd release more stuff, I feel like its not gonna happen though

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020

    Jesus i used all 5

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 4, 2020
    jsullivan2413

    man I wish he'd release more stuff, I feel like its not gonna happen though

    I think it will happen

    I wouldn't have said so 15 months ago but im confident we'll get more music from him

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 5, 2020
    ·
    1 reply
  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 5, 2020
    ·
    12 replies

    if you want to be notified when I make a thread similar to this one

    quote this

    and I'll put you on the list

  • PIMP 💿
    Aug 5, 2020
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    1 reply

    you come through with the threads

    what made u make this one?

  • Aug 5, 2020

    LETS GOOOOOOOOOO IN

  • rvi
    Aug 5, 2020
    safe

    @RVI
    @user
    @pimp
    @Failn_chill
    @santi

    in, gonna read later

    Jai

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 5, 2020
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    1 reply
    PIMP

    you come through with the threads

    what made u make this one?

    Jasmine is my favorite song ever so I always wanted to do a Jai Paul thread
    Also see a lot of people discrediting just how influential he has been

    plus his label Paul Institute dropped an EP this morning so I figured now was the time!

  • Aug 5, 2020
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    2 replies

    Big in the game
    One of the bredrin

  • Aug 5, 2020
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    1 reply
    safe

    if you want to be notified when I make a thread similar to this one

    quote this

    and I'll put you on the list

    Elite thread. Str8 Outta Mumbai has an eternal place in my heart

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 5, 2020
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    1 reply
    NBA GameBoy

    Big in the game
    One of the bredrin

    real heads only

  • safe 🪩
    OP
    Aug 5, 2020
    ·
    1 reply
    omorahi

    Elite thread. Str8 Outta Mumbai has an eternal place in my heart

    masterpiece of a song
    never heard so many elements that should be at conflict come together like that