Jay Sean was obsessed with hip-hop from when he was 10 or 11

Indian origin British singer Jay Sean says he was fascinated with hip-hop from an early age. He recalls being obsessed with the genre from when he was 10 or 11.

Nov 10, 2020, 10:29 am ISTNewsIANS

Jay Sean was obsessed with hip-hop from when he was 10 or 11.

Indian origin British singer Jay Sean says he was fascinated with hip-hop from an early age. He recalls being obsessed with the genre from when he was 10 or 11.

"My avenue into music was actually MTV. In England we only had four channels. When cable came about, we suddenly got access to American networks, which is how I started listening to a lot of American music, especially rap music," he said.

"There was a show called 'Yo MTV Raps', I used to watch that religiously. That's how I got my knowledge of hip-hop, so a lot of that hip-hop which came from America was never played in England, and so I was fascinated with hip-hop from the very early age, from about 10 or 11, I was obsessed with hip-hop, which is then what got me into writing raps, mimicking raps, beatboxing," he added.

His single "Down" put him on the global map, scaling number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 2009.

"Apart from the desis, apart from the NRI community, a majority of America hadn't heard of me as Jay Sean. So 'Down' was the first song they ever got and it was straight to no.1 and I remember going back home saying that 'hey man I didn't even think how I was gonna get a chance to even make a small dent in America'," he said.

"You know it's so hard out here. Underneath me there was Rihanna, Kanye West, Jay Z, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and there's this little Indian voice staying right there. It was an amazing, amazing moment," he recalled on JioSaavn Podcasts' "Talking Music".

The singer is also known for hits like "Eyes on you", "Stolen" and "Dance with you".