At first glance, Jamie T appears to be just another British musician crooning with a thick, sometimes indecipherable and always pretentious London accent. But when with the bass and drums swelling, he suddenly explodes and drops the verse: “Better the devil you know/Confess, I guess I was the lesser of two evils/Convalesce about the stress the test caused/Had me up on the board/Now I’m chairman of the board/I’m coming back for sequels.” Suddenly, he becomes much more interesting.
After all, Jamie T isn’t your typical artist. He drops as many verses as he sings and sometimes he does both simultaneously. He dabbles in hip-hop, pop, punk rock and even reggae, just to name a few. It shows in his albums: the songs are eclectic and the rhythms are hardly ever the same.
Still, while he might be a bloody mess when it comes to categorization, Jamie T has become a distinct entity by transcending the outlines of musical genre. “I like to do whatever I want,” Jamie T said in an interview with Observer Music Monthly. “I’m not watching anyone else, I’m not trying to fit into any box.”
Born Jamie Treays in 1986 in Wimbledon, South London, he made a splash in Britain’s music scene when he won the 2007 Best Solo Artist Shockwave NME Award, beating out Lily Allen, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Having released two albums, Panic Prevention and Kings and Queens, since his win, music critics and fans alike have hailed him as the poster child of the post-millennial, bedroom-based hit maker.
This year, he beat out Lady Gaga and Julian Casablancas to take the Best Solo Artist award at the Shockwave NME Awards.
His wins are deserved. Like the Arctic Monkeys, his lyrics are haunting and vivid, yet coarse. His rhythms, like The Clash’s, are unrelenting. In Kings and Queens, Jamie T drifts from the serious “Bullets flying overhead/hear them through the walls as you lie in bed” in “Hocus Pocus,” to the light-hearted “He’s dizzy for Lizzy, I’m dizzy generally/scapegoated by a girl befriended me” in “Chaka Demus.”
In 2007, Jamie T’s first album, Panic Prevention, was nominated for the Mercury Prize. In “Sheila,” one of the standouts in the album, he explores the lives of drunks, addicts and gangsters. Even when the song ends, the line “I say giggidibigidiup just another day/another sad story, that’s tragedy/paramedic announced death at 10:30/rip it up kick it to spit up the views” lingers in the back of the mind.
The 24-year-old still lives near his parent’s house in Wimbledon and collaborates with Ben Bones, a friend’s brother. His life peeks through in his songs, like on “Sticks and Stones,” a track reminiscing on childhood friends. His passion for music, in fact, started in a friend’s flat. He hides little from his listeners. In fact, Panic Prevention was aptly named for Jamie T’s panic attacks.
Not surprisingly, these panic attacks do not faze him. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m happy having [panic attacks],” said Jamie T in an interview with Time Out Magazine. “It’s part of who I am. When I get anxious, I have problems, like thinking I’m going to bite my tongue off or finding it hard to walk. Simple things become incredibly hard. I get problems with fainting, confusion, not being able to use my hands properly. I’ve had it for the last five years, although I think I’ve had a bit of it all of my life. But, y’know, everyone’s a bit f*cked up.” Indeed.