His father’s diverse musical tastes helped him discover different genres when he was growing up, he adds.
His one true love, however, is R&B. “It began when I was young, just hearing 1990s and early 2000s R&B at home. The culture of where I’m from exposed me to a lot of hip hop, to which R&B is tied.
“I was and still am very introverted so I wasn’t partying that much [as a teenager], and R&B is a lot of love songs, which was stuff that I wasn’t living but thought, ‘Man, it sounds really good.’”
Towards the end of 2014, after graduating with a master’s degree in engineering, Jamison flew from Paris to Hong Kong on a whim, as he “wanted to see something completely different”.
He quickly fell in love with the city and decided to stay. Soon after, he met Hong Kong-based rapper Christopher Onoja, who invited him to try his hand (or rather, voice) on the hook of a song.
“We tried it, liked it and started writing more songs,” says Jamison.
“Chris and I were frustrated about not having a platform to perform, or the few gigs that we would have would mostly be reggae or drum and bass events – which was still good – but at the end of the day, we wanted to find a hip hop crowd, so we started our own,” Jamison says.
In July 2023, he redirected his energy towards another event organiser, R&B Hours, which he co-founded with DJ Minou, a Hong Kong-based musician and event organiser also from France.
“For a long time, we talked about how great it’d be to do an R&B-only party,” says Jamison. “No rap, no hip hop – only R&B and ballads.
“At first, we weren’t sure if we would find a big enough crowd for it but it’s got really popular and it’s going great.”
While R&B is Jamison’s favourite genre, he does not call himself an R&B musician.
“Referring to myself as an R&B artist means that I need to sing to a crazy level. I can sing, but I respect the craft too much to call myself that. Sometimes I do rap a little bit, even though I’m not a rapper either. I just do what I like, I guess.”
Jamison has released two R&B albums: Going Through It in 2021 and a deluxe version, Still Going Through It, in 2022.
“I’m not that great at expressing myself in real life, so I write a lot of my feelings into the songs, which is part of R&B culture,” he says. “You hear a 1990s R&B ballad and it just makes you feel like you’re the main character. It’s like a movie, almost.”
However, his latest release, in December 2023 – a music video for his single “Jungle Fever” – has nothing to do with film or “main character energy”.
“When you are a person of colour, being fetishised is just something that you feel sometimes in your life. I would say that most black people know the feeling.”
Jamison says he loves watching the reactions of first-time listeners. “They’re like, ‘What? No!’” he laughs. “That’s really satisfying as well.”
R&B Hours: One year Anniversary at P Lounge by Plaisance, G/F, 1 Duddell Street, Central, July 13, 10pm-3am. For more information, visit instagram.com/rnb.hours
