Six years after disappearing, Jai Paul accepts unwanted but beloved “Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones)”

The visionary enigmatic producer finally emerges from hiding and officially shares his illicitly leaked demos from 2013

British-Indian producer Jai Paul became a sensation in the early 2010’s with only three singles, released over almost three years. The mysterious prodigy gave no interviews and didn’t do any publicity, leading fans to scour the Internet for any bit of news about him or his work. It was hard to know if it was all a gimmick, or if he was genuinely shy to the point of paralysis.

Then on April 2013, a whole album’s worth of rough demo tracks was made available for sale on Bandcamp, before Paul wrote to beg everyone not to buy it, and it disappeared. And so did he.

It could have been a stunt, but after six whole years of complete silence, he’d have to be more than patient. Paul has just officially released all the songs in their original demo form as an album whose title indicates both a “leak” and “bait”. Go figure. He has also released a long letter, explaining that he was traumatised by the leak and spent all these years in therapy to overcome it. So does it hold up, after so much time and agony?

These first three singles are still stunning, especially “Str8 Outta Mumbai” which is nothing short of a masterpiece.

The rest of the songs are of varying quality, which is not helped by their being rough cuts. There are excellent ideas and techniques all over, but too many similar sounds and effects, which could have amounted to great tracks if they had been polished. Still, the release of this record closes a chapter and signals that Jai Paul is back and ready to share more of his promised talent. Let’s hope he lives up to all these years’ worth of hype.