Jai Paul made a lot of waves across the music industry when he released his debut single BTSTU back in 2010. Following a two year absence, he then followed that up with a slow groove in Jasmine last March, but again went silent. With some rough recordings finding their way onto Bandcamp this weekend, what is going on?
In the last few days, Noisey predicted that he would finally be releasing his debut record called Rayner’s Lane, noting that the BBC had started playing his previous releases again possibly in order to start the hype machine.
Then on Sunday, Josh from music blog Crack in the Road spotted the familiar image of Jai Paul (above) during his regular Bandcamp trawl, seemingly unearthing a release that had been completely under the radar with no press or comments from Jai Paul or his label XL. Were these 16 untitled tracks Jai Paul’s debut album? Why did they appear with no word from the man himself or his record label XL? Were they just some early demos that had been released to generate hype for the upcoming record? It was a mystery.
The Jai Paul Bandcamp were selling the tracks for £7, so orders flooded in, with the news spreading through blogs and established sites such as Pitchfork which heralded them as his new record. But until midday Monday there was still no official word from the artist or label and things were looking ever more suspicious.
Then Dazed Digital music journalist Owen Myers tweeted that he had got a message from Jai Paul saying that the release was an “illegal leak” with the music coming from a laptop rumoured to have recently been stolen from Jai Paul.
Then came a public statement from Jai Paul confirming that he hadn’t uploaded the tracks to Bandcamp
Since that message the supposed Jai Paul Bandcamp has been taken down, and anyone that purchased the download from there has been refunded their money. The pirate does not appear to have received any money for their illegal distribution, which is at least one good outcome.
With the lack of any more complete statement from Jai Paul or XL, however, rumours that this “illegal leak” is all an elaborate marketing ploy refuse to die. There is no doubting the hype that this mysterious leak has generated, but could that be the case? Or is this just the depressing future of online piracy where stolen music is sold for profit?
Oddly, with the Bandcamp page having been removed, you can still hear the streams from the embedded player, so if you haven’t had a chance to hear these mysterious tracks then you can still hear them below, until they disappear too:
