One of the original purveyors of the San Francisco sound, DJ/Producer Jay-J has moved to New York and launched Shifted Music as an outlet for his musical endeavours. With his music being released around the world on labels like Defected, Ultra, Hed Kandi, and Ministry of Sound, Jay-J is often traveling the world DJing to huge crowds. His love of house music is always in evidence, his sets spreading the gospel wherever he goes.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: I heard that you're now based out of New York. What
inspired the move from San Francisco to New York?
Jay-J: There's more music industry in New York. In San Francisco,
there is a great house music scene, but there wasn't a whole lot left
for me to do there in house music.
RS: It's so strange hearing that, since you are so often
associated with the San Francisco sound.
Jay-J: My studio is out there and the people I collaborated with and
worked with created that sound. I'm still bringing me wherever I go,
so my sound is still my sound and it has all contributed to the
creation of the San Francisco sound. I kind of came to this
realization that I'm going to be in the music industry for the rest of
my life, and at that stage I realized that San Francisco doesn't
really have any music industry. How long can I just continue to play
records and have a little house music studio? What am I going to be
doing ten years from now? If I am still doing house music, then
that's great, but if I'm not, there's really no other opportunities in
San Francisco, so I might as well start looking at another place and
start to get settled and then start to think about a long-range plan.
Rather than all of a sudden waking up going, OK now what?
RS: For everyone out there, what exactly is the San Francisco sound?
Jay-J: I define it as a sort of a combination of the music and
vocals of what used to be the New York sound. The more soulful
R&B-styled house music, with the edginess and the sort of drums and
tracky feel from what started off in Chicago, and combining the two of
those together so that it's a little big edgier as well. A little bit
more production in the drums, but still very soulful in the vocals.
RS: What you were just saying about growing for the future and
making plans for the future, is Shifted part of that plan?
Jay-J: Yes, definitely. When I made the move to New York, I launched
Shifted Music as a future record company. I still haven't released
anything on it yet but I've been building the brand slowly but surely.
A couple of songs were released and co-branded as Shifted Music and
my Connected CD came out as Defected by Shifted music. Three singles
on Ultra that were sold for Latrice's album and used for Latrice's are
also coming out as Shifted and Ultra. Ultimately I've just been
building the brand and looking forward to releasing more music through
that avenue in the future.
RS: You're also partnered with Defected, aren't you?
Jay-J: No, I'm not partnered but I've done a lot of work for them
through the years and two compilations, two or three singles, and at
least five or six remixes, so we've done quite a bit of work with
them.
