JayO is an explorer. Whether it be his literal location, his sound or his style, the 24-year-old singer, songwriter and producer is not interested in being stuck in one place. “I try and do everything, try and see everything,” the North London artist explains. Accordingly, the British-Nigerian artist’s output is hard to pin down under one specific umbrella; since his teen years, he’s been uploading tracks and tapes to the internet and teasing songs on social media over the years, trying his hand at everything from grime, hip-hop, house, R&B and Afrobeats. These days, it’s the latter two genres which take centre-stage in his sound. JayO’s first official releases, ‘XO’ and the aforementioned ‘22’, have had an especially huge reception – the former a slinky, humid track; the latter, a sexy number laden with sultry clouds of piano and sweet, delicate vocals. In the summer of 2023, he performed at the Black British cultural moment that was Stormzy’s This Is What We Mean Day. But, as JayO puts it: “I feel like I’m just at the beginning of my journey.”
Inspired by a youth spent running around in church, or else visiting family in Nigeria, listening to Afrobeats and old school R&B at parties there, the unifying factor for JayO’s music is a desire to recreate the feeling those spaces gave him: “That feel-good music that you can still hit play on at a party even forty years later? For me, my music is an interpretation of that feeling…I make music that makes people feel good.” It’s a multi-genre sound he’s been honing since being a kid messing about on a laptop, alongside trips to his local youth club, getting behind the mic in the studio space there. To this day, many of the early takes of his music are made in his bedroom, singing into a mic with his laptop perched on his legs. It’s perhaps this which lends JayO’s sound a particularly warm sense of intimacy.
On his forthcoming music, JayO is building on that gentle feel-good vibe. He may just be getting started, but his journey is already one filled with tantalising promise. This is music that brings to life the exciting caress of connection, the heady, nocturnal locking of eyes with someone at a party, the heat of what is left unspoken. Like the artist himself, this is a sound that reverberates with the exploration of possibility.
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