Get to know incredible Tanzanian artist, singer-songwriter, actor, and model Jay Melody, whose recent single “Nitasema” is the new cool! Authentic and emotive, the song will have you feeling bittersweet, in love and yet unable to speak. In other words, you’re guaranteed to love it! Check out the song below and find out what Melody had to say about the single!
“Nitasema” is the new cool! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed this new track of yours! Tell us more about its creation process and what message it carries.
Nitasema beat was produced by GeniousjiniX66, who has been producing most of my songs some of them being “Nakupenda”, “Huba hulu”, “Najieka” and other unreleased projects, at the time he sent me this beat I had other beats, but I found this different and I liked it most and decided to do it first. This song was not a priority in the release schedule because I had so many other songs that I was hoping to release first. After I did it I said to myself this song will stay as a reserve and then after giving it a second thought I decided to record it.
I wrote about “Nitasema” because I have witnessed in our society, people who happen to love someone and yet fail to tell them, so the aim of this song is to give hope to such people that one day they will have the guts to say that they are in love.
Let’s talk about the program UNI FRIENDS you’ve founded for college students. What does it involve and how does it assist students in finding their talents?
Uni-friends tour was a project that we designed specifically for university students because we have witnessed them being so busy and sometimes failing to have time for refreshment due to their timetable, geographical locations and financial factors. We initiated this so as to follow them in their respective places (universities) with the aim of educating them, entertaining and providing them the opportunity to discover their talents. We managed to see talents like, graphic designing, style, musicians, actors, music managers, event managers and much more.
Where do you get your daily dose of inspiration, especially when you don’t feel particularly excited to create?
When I am off mood and I need to record, I usually listen to classic music (music from previous generation – 1990 backward songs) and also, I used to listen to music from outside our country boundaries and also from my musical brothers like dully Sykes, q-chief, alikiba and diamond, I listen to a lot of genres like Indian and Latin songs, I even listen to taarab (the most popular genre in coast region).
Tell us a bit about your childhood and adolescence years and how you began singing, performing and writing music.
I knew that I was talented from a very early age. There was a brother in the street where I grew up, who knew that I sing so most of the time he used to call me and gather all the other kids and tell me to sing for them. I do still remember this moment because it was among my best childhood moments. It happened when I was four to five years old by bad luck I forgot the name of that brother.
I used to sing every new released song by that time and I used to love Indian songs a lot. I used to sing Indian songs at school, in the street though I was not revealing myself as an artist to them, I was confident that I know lots of Indian songs more than anyone in our street. I got exposed to different music genres because at home everyone had preference for a certain genre; my brother loves reggae music, my father loved Congo /Lingala music and my mother loved Taarab and I Indian music.
I grew up listening to all those different genres and that is what made Jay Melody today. When you listen to my music you will hear compositions of those named genres. After my form four I decided to do music and learn more about it and that is when I joined Tanzania House of Talent (THT) and I managed to compose a song “Kivuruge” that was performed by Nandy and from there I release my first single “Goloka” and that marked my journey.
Who is your number one fan/supporter?
I have friends who are supportive of my music career but there is one special person who is really supportive and always gives me courage and advice, though he has never done music but he is a good listener and that is my father, he used to call me and give me courage whenever I have any release he usually tells me to keep doing a good job and through his blessings and prayers as a parent that is one of the reasons that my music is doing good.
What is the most exciting collab you’ve had so far? Who would you like to collaborate with in the future?
The best-featured collab, for now, is “Puuh” by Billnass’ the song is currently number one trending in the country. My audience loves singing along to it as well. For now, I want to have international collaborations. I aspire to have a song with Fireboy, Otile Brown, Burna Boy, Davido & Aya Nakamura, I want to have collabs with globally performing artists.
