By Stevie Connor. Photo Credit: Jackson Ducasse
GRAMMY®-nominated and multi-platinum selling producer Jax Jones releases uplifting autobiographical track, “Me & My Guitar” combined with the afro-pop cadence of Nigerian singer-songwriter, Fireboy DML.. On his most personal release yet, the track explores Jones’ journey to discovering music and sees him sing for the very first time showcasing his versatility as an artist, beyond the DJ decks.
The official video for “Me & My Guitar” was shot in London and features Jax and Fireboy soaring above the clouds of the London skyline. The video closes with a shot of a young Jax and Fireboy watching the sunset, feeling empowered and hopeful about their futures. Directed by the esteemed KC Locke (Ed Sheeran, David Guetta, Aitch).
Jax says: “This record is the first time I’m putting my own story in my music and also the first time I'm singing on a song as I want to find new ways to connect with my fans. Being an artist and having successful music for the last 10 years, it’s important to me to try and push myself creatively.
I’ve been using classical guitar to write songs for 15 years and that’s what the song is about - a young Jax Jones trying to achieve my dreams. When I sent the song to Fireboy, he connected straight away and brought an amazing and authentic energy to it. My stepdad is Nigerian, so being able to connect with the song ethnically with Fireboy has been great.”
Jax has come a long way since setting up in a friend’s garage and navigating the world through his love for making music. The generosity of a teacher gifting him a guitar at a council-funded weekend music school was the catalyst of everything that followed, inspiring him to write, record and release hit after hit, which would eventually cement him as a mainstay in modern British music. “Me & My Guitar” follows Jax’s contagious high-energy single, “Whistle”, which is currently spending its 19th consecutive week in the UK Top 40 and boasts over 54 million streams on Spotify alone.
Dominating the dance music scene, Jax continues to deliver electro-pop earworms while collaborating with everyone from Whitney Houston, Mark Ronson, Ed Sheeran to Mabel, RAYE and Stefflon Don. With 6 UK Top 10 singles, 8 UK platinum singles, and over 8 billion global audio and video streams, Jones’ career shows no signs of slowing. It’s no surprise his 2022 track, “Where Did You Go?” with MNEK was the second biggest song of 2022and his BRIT and Ivor Novello Award nominated album, Snacks, became the UK’s best-selling dance album of 2019 and 2020 and was certified platinum in 2021.
Jax is also an ambassador for the Princess of Wales’ Shaping Us campaign, supporting the development of young children and increasing the public understanding of the importance of the first five years of a child’s life. Jax, a recent father, wants to help shape the experiences of the next generation; like his music teacher who gave him his own lifeline.
Meanwhile, his own record label, WUGD, sees Jax actively guide artists including Hannah Laing whose single, “Good Love” is currently at number 7 in the UK Singles Chart.
Jax Jones is a multi-Platinum selling artist with over 60 million single sales and more than eight billion combined global streams. Honored with multiple GRAMMY, BRIT, and Ivor Novello nominations, he has become a mainstay in modern British music and continues to create genre-defying music for both the charts and specialist dance scene, working and collaborating with artists including Demi Lovato, Ed Sheeran, Bebe Rexha, Diana Ross, Joel Corry, Mark Ronson, Mabel, Years and Years, Martin Solveig, RAYE and Stefflon Don. His last album, Snacks, was the U.K.’s best-selling dance album of 2019 and 2020 and was ceritified Platinum in 2021. With his record label, WUGD, in partnership with Polydor Records and Astralwerks, he continues to release and support music from developing acts.
Dubbed the ‘future’ of Afrobeats, Fireboy DML first emerged on the Nigerian music scene in 2019 with the re-release of his breakout single “Jealous” which was originally a part of YBNL’s 2018 collaborative album, YBNL Mafia Family. On June 14, 2019, he followed up “Jealous” with the explosive romantic number “What If I Say” and later that year, on the 29th of November released his debut album, Laughter, Tears and Goosebumps. LTG had no features for a debut album and amassed over 100 million streams by January 2020. The album maintained the #1 position across the Nigerian charts for over 12 weeks with ‘Jealous’ becoming one of the most played songs on African radio stations that year.
Building on the success of LTG, Fireboy followed up his debut with an inventive sophomore project, Apollo. It received a whopping rating of 8.3 on Pitchfork, amongst other accolades. In 2021, Fireboy released his biggest single yet, “Peru”. The single would go on to feature Ed Sheeran in an explosive remix peaking at No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart and garnering over 20.6 million Spotify streams, earning it a hallowed place as the most streamed song in Nigeria in early 2022. His newest album, Playboy, sees the sensual, sweet-natured artist shift gears into a confident, self-possessed bad boy persona resulting in a Pitchfork review of the album, which got a 7.4 rating. He has been nominated for a number of awards including the Best International Act award at the 2022 BET Awards, where he became the first Nigerian artist to perform on the BET stage and the NAACP Image Awards in 2021, amongst others. Fireboy remains one of the leading Afrobeats talents reinventing a wholly global future of the fast-rising genre.
FOLLOW JAX JONES
FOLLOW FIREBOY DML
Comments