Trini producer Jaydot featured on Summer Walker’s new album

IMAGINE being a producer who posts beats online. Now imagine making a (US R&B singer) “Summer Walker-type” beat. And now, imagine Walker hearing this beat and deciding to feature it on her new album. Well, this actually happened to Trinidad and Tobago producer Jhaye “Jaydot” Mc Kie and he’s ecstatic.

The 31-year-old Arima native has been making music for at least half of his life. He has worked with local acts such as Abdiel and 5Star Akil, among others.

He told Newsday he’s mainly into R&B, hip-hop, trap and dancehall.

But in 2019, he said he “really sat down, had my goals out and said, ‘Okay, I’ll do this, this and this and I should experience one of these goals,’ – one of which was my first major placement.”

He gave himself a five-year time frame, not knowing he would achieve same in under three years.

“I post all my instrumentals and all my beats on there for the world to hear and to see what people like on my website – jaydotbeats.com – and on YouTube and Instagram.

“From there, it brought other opportunities where some of the people who would listen to my work happened to be some really influential people who would reach out to me and e-mail me and want to work with me.

“(Last year), I got the opportunity to communicate with one of the artistes that belong to Summer Walker’s label (Love Renaissance).”

He said he worked with some artistes from the label for a while, and then: “Before you know it – boom! They said they want this beat for Summer Walker.”

His beat was originally titled More, which eventually became Broken Promises on Walker’s album Still Over it, which was released on November 5.

He said it took him around eight hours to complete the original beat, which is listed as being co-produced by US artiste Young Rog (Roger Atwell) on the album.

Mc Kie recalled, “It was an early morning and I was going for a very simple kind of spacey track because most of the times you don’t want to overdo things…So an ambient, spacey, slow but dark (kind of song) but I tried to give it a modern sound.

“If anything, that’s a stylistic thing I tend to do. Whatever I make, I try to make it sound as modern as possible as well.”

In the mellow, harmony-filled track, Walker reminds the person she’s dating:

“Say what you mean/Do what you say,” later concluding, “I’ve been mistaken/You’re not the man I thought you were/And they tried to warn me.”

Mc Kie told Newsday he got confirmation his track would be on the album around April, crediting the achievement to “diligence and hard work.”

All of his production work for the track was done in Trinidad, which, he said, makes him even more proud.

“As a producer, you’re always thinking you’ll have to travel to go and have this mega session (where) you’re with the artiste and you do the stuff…But during the pandemic, you see things changing and here I am and I’ve done this somehow and it worked and I’m just really glad to have that experience.”

On the day the album was released, he wrote on Instagram: “Who would have thought a guy like me who never touched US soil before would have my first major placements, especially doing all this in my homeland.”

He told Newsday he has been getting “a lot of support, congratulations and love from people all over.

“I’m super grateful for that because it’s very reassuring.

“People were like, ‘Jhaye, you manifested this!’ It’s insane.”

Still Over It – Walker’s second studio album – can be found on all music streaming platforms. It’s projected to hit number one on Billboard 200.