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Music

Is Jai Paul's Debut Album Coming Out Later This Month?

Or a new song, at least?
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

If you’re the type of person who digests music like it’s a life necessity, then you’ve probably heard of Jai Paul. If you haven’t, then go take a listen…NOW.

Back in 2010, his debut track “BTSTU” left the panty line of the internet soaked with anticipation. In 2012, he followed it up with “Jasmine”, a track so mind-bendingly gorgeous that if it were possible, I’d wrap it up and carry it around in my trousers to be with me always.

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Since then, though, we’ve heard barely anything from Rayners Lane’s greatest export, leading many to ask: "WHERE THE FUCK IS JAI PAUL? WHEN IS HIS ALBUM OUT? AND, SRSLY, WTF IS GOING ON?" We’re not any closer to a definitive answer. But, like North Korea and a nuclear war, we’re either slowly starting to tread the line between something massively world changing happening or munching on a platitude of hype till we get old and die.

Since I was born in the 1990s which means that I can’t do anything of worth besides spending all day on the internet, I decided to do a bit of research. Let’s take a look at the few snippets of information that I found.

WIKIPEDIA LISTS THE RELEASE DATE AS APRIL 2013

If, like me, you were born into the warm bosom of the web, then you probably spent the majority of your school years lifting information from Wikipedia and passing it off as your own. And if you did, then you were probably told that it was wrong to use Wikipedia as a source of information.

Either way, Wikipedia suggests that Jai Paul’s debut record Rayners Lane should be hitting shelves sometime in April. Because this isn’t school, and because a new Jai Paul record is akin to the holy grail of modern music, I needed verification. So, I searched through reams of unchartered webspace, like Tom Hanks looking for Private Ryan. But, sadly, finding a source for this information was literally impossible. Still….

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ALL HIS OTHER RECORDS HAVE COME OUT IN APRIL

Well, all two of them. "BTSTU" was officially released on 21 April, 2011 while Jasmine saw an official release on 9 April, 2012. Do you notice a trend?

In late 2012, an unofficial demo of a new Jai Paul track, titled “Flip Out” hit the internet. While not fitting in with the April release scheme, the track can be discarded as an official release because it’s not listed on Jai Paul’s Soundcloud page, nor has it been given an official release by XL records, suggesting that the track was leaked earlier than Jai wanted anyone to hear it. Either way, we’re a couple of weeks into April now. Jai, can you help us plz? We’re dying out here.

A MIXTAPE CAME OUT IN FEBRUARY

Because I’m not very good at adult things, like paying bills or being nice to people in person, I spent a lot of February silently ghosting my way through forums. As we’ve already established, I grew up sucking on the neatly arranged teat of Google. Anyway, while on my travels I came across a mix tape from Jai Paul titled Everlasting. Obviously, because I’ve been meandering through life for the last two years waiting for a slither of hopeful MP3s from Jai Paul, I was pretty fucking excited. I slammed my keyboard down, forcefully typing to all my musical friends on Facebook about the discovery that I’d made. I felt like Jesus giving bread and fish to the hungry, but with MP3s to the blog thirsty hypebeasts. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Everlasting wasn’t an official mixtape from Jai. Instead, it was simply a collection of everything that he’d released on to the Internet so far. Still, the tape has pretty much been deleted from the majority of sites that originally uploaded it, suggesting that something exciting may be bubbling beyond the surface. That, or the fact that Jai is a perfectionist and probably never wants us to hear anything by him ever again.

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The ten track mixtape tracklisting is as follows:

-Jasmine

-Feist Beats

-Flip Out

-Baby Beats

-BTSTU

-100,000

-Str8 Outta Mumbai

-Chix

-Genevieve

-Emiliana Torrini – Jungle Drum (Remix)

RADIO ONE HAS STARTED PLAYING HIS SONGS AGAIN

Sometimes I like to take a bit of time out of my day to lie down on my bed, stare at the ceiling and fantasise about making love to Anna from the hit American TV series The OC. It doesn’t really mean anything. But I do it because it’s fun and I enjoy it. This is probably the same. Except, because it’d be totally weird for radio DJs to spend their studio time whimpering about the cult TV shows of tomorrow, they’re playing records that they like to listen to instead.

Still, I’d like to imagine that this means something. Has there been a push from the record label for more airplay in anticipation of a future release?

HE’S GOING TO RUN OUT OF MONEY SOON

This is probably the most important point. While Jai has probably made enough money from collaborating with Big Boi, providing samples for Beyonce and making Drake listenable to last him several years, his bank account is probably going to run dry soon. And, just like my Mum says, you can’t sit at home doing nothing forever, even if nothing means making incomparably incredible music and wanking over internet message boards set up in your name.

So, he’s going to have to go out and get a proper job, or, get over his perfectionisms and release an album. I’m going to go for the latter, because, while it’s easy to see Jai only making music for himself, can you really imagine him supersizing your fries at McDonalds?

Follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanBassil