Jai Paul is an English producer and songwriter, born in London in 1988, whose leaked 2013 demos became one of the most influential documents in modern R&B. XL's official 2019 release Bait Ones formalized that material — pair it with the singles BTSTU and Jasmine and you have the whole legend. Explore Jai Paul vinyl, CDs, and reissues at Wax Trax Records.
Jai Paul was born in 1988 in Rayners Lane, London, the son of Indian immigrants. He began uploading material to MySpace in 2007 and signed with XL Recordings, releasing the singles BTSTU (2010) and Jasmine (2012). In April 2013, demo material believed to have been stolen from him appeared on Bandcamp under the title Jai Paul, which he disowned. He retreated from music for years, with the eventual 2019 official release of Bait Ones (Leaked Recordings 2007-2013) on XL formalizing the leaked material as his official album. He released two new singles (Do You Love Her Now and He, both 2019) but has remained private since. His work has been widely cited as a foundational influence on contemporary alternative R&B, including extensive influence on artists including Drake, the Weeknd, FKA twigs, and others.
Jai Paul's sound combines alternative R&B, electronic, art pop, experimental pop, and contemporary R&B with extremely distinctive dense production aesthetics, fragmented vocal arrangements, and chopped sample-driven approaches drawing on classic R&B alongside experimental electronic production. His work is widely considered one of the most influential contemporary R&B production templates.
XL Recordings pressings of Bait Ones have been issued in standard and color variant editions with collector demand.
Listeners new to Jai Paul typically start with Bait Ones (Leaked Recordings 2007-2013) (2019), along with the BTSTU and Jasmine singles.
