On Jay B’s “Tape: Press Pause” Tour, An Artist Experiments.
Credit: Onion Production
There is perhaps no one more productive in music this year than Jay B.
In less than 12 months, Jay B’s released a brilliant solo album, “Be Yourself”, a second EP titled “abandoned love” under his second stage name Def., and orchestrated the most impressive comeback, possibly ever, with GOT7, the group’s first since leaving JYP Entertainment. This winter, Jay B is bringing his music on the road to the UK and Europe with the “Tape: Press Pause” tour. It’s his first solo tour, ever, but he has an arsenal of music to perform for fans.
“I gotta remind myself endlessly/ Stop overthinkin’/ And start dreamin’”, he sings on “holyday”, his favorite off “Be Yourself”. But Jay B’s output is like a frenzied artist excavating years worth of concepts and music. Finally, the music seems to say, you can start to understand the complexities and musical influences of Lim Jae Beom. He can be tautly sexual with tracks like “Switch It Up” or moody on “WHY?”, but “Be Yourself” is the first album where he unleashes true funk. You likely will not find another song where the singer is having as much fun as Jay B does on “go UP”.
“This is how we get funky in Seoul, South Korea,” a voice teases in the first second of the album that serves as an introduction to Jay B’s delicious vocals. He sings sublimely on “Be Yourself” with an ear for the rhythm and blues and the ability to punctuate his words with intensity. The work is an homage to ‘90s American R&B. You can hear the influences of D’Angelo or Musiq Soulchild, but if you can dial it back further in music history, you might also hear the rhythmic expertise of Isaac Hayes from STAX or Little Richard. This sound isn’t gimmicky, though. It’s autobiographical: As a teen, Jay B would dance as a b-boy under the stage name defsoul at train stations across Seoul. The act was rebellious; He started because he failed a school test. When life fails you, Jay B learned, you can turn to music to make sense of the confusion.
At times, Jay B feels to be reaching for generations of influences in music, and for his experiences that gave him the ability to tear up a song. The album is audacious. Jay B is a mad scientist in the studio and no track better formulates this on “Be Yourself” than “Break It Down”, which pulls together country, jazz, and R&B for a track that explodes by the chorus. “Break it down, break it down!” Jay B shouts. “We’re gonna shut it down!”
“I feel pressure because I want to do well and I want to be recognised by the public, but I still try to let it go a little bit,” he told NME this year. “‘Be Yourself’ is a message I want to give myself and the listeners, to take better care of yourself, to look back and just give yourself more time and credit.”
Credit: Onion Production
Jay B was always bigger than K-Pop. In his younger years, he held an edge as the leader of GOT7. In photos he appears brooding, likely because his eyes look as if they are holding on to a secret that only his close friends will be privy to. His personality has always seemed more suited for the wildness that jazz or R&B brings. He’s free spirited, more interested in fishing and camping than appearing on a variety show, and he works best in music that compliments this.
As a child Jay B loved hip-hop. Dance allowed him to tap into emotions; to feel the music and let his body say everything he couldn’t. While performing at the train stations, Jay B was scouted by JYP Entertainment, the juggernaut that debuted TWICE and Rain. “[When] I got signed to my company, I had to start singing,” he told W magazine. “I studied dancing very hard. My grades, maybe not so much. I had dinner with my family, and I had to come clean and say, ‘I want to dance, not study.’
Credit: Onion Production
Jay B trained with JYP for five years before debuting in GOT7, and for the next seven he would play the role of an idol. This was a role, to be sure, that he was excellent at. GOT7 is one of the most popular groups in K-Pop. But his musical inclinations were more ambitious and diverse than GOT7 alone could satisfy.
In 2021 he released his first solo album SOMO: FUME, an album that is fused with hip-hop and music that is best enjoyed late at night. “I was definitely worried ‘Switch It Up’ would be too much of a sexy statement in the early stages as a solo artist,” he admitted to W Magazine. But the song separated what I imagine was a long struggle for Jay B of the difference between his artistry and his image as an idol. “Switch It Up” cleared the path for more experimentation. He also hopped on several collaborations with JUNNY, a Korean-Canadian singer-songwriter, including the excellent “nostalgia”.
This year brings a reconciliation between Jae B’s past, as the leader of GOT7, with the artist he has become: supercharged, innovative, steeped in history and interested in multiple lanes of music. The “Tape: Press Pause” is an opportunity for fans to see the diversity of Jay B’s output in one night, to take all of the pieces of inspiration and fuse them together into something magical.
Onstage at the show in Seoul during “Break It Down”, Jay B was awash in green lights as he stared out into the crowd with a slick smile on his face. He was dressed casually in blue jeans, a plaid shirt and graphic t-shirt. Often he looked so immersed in the music that he appeared in awe. But his quiet energy broke apart when the chorus hit. He yelled, thrashed and hyped the crowd up. “Break it down!” He screamed as he jumped. “Shut it down! Shut it down!”
His performance, full of fury and delight, might feel transgressive for a K-Pop artist. But for Jay B it is a quest for freedom. When Jay B is on stage and loses himself in the music with a broad smile on his face, I catch a glimpse of the teen who b-boy’d at subway stations and failed out of class. As he pushes towards new landscapes in music, he’s also creating space for the kind of artist he wants to be known as.
“I’m not trying to be a superstar,” he told GQ this year. “I’m just trying to be me.”
