R&B singer Wesley Jamison on finding an audience in Hong Kong and racial fetishization

He adds that his father’s diverse taste in music helped him discover different genres throughout his childhood.

His true love, however, is R&B. “It started when I was young and only listened to R&B from the 1990s and early 2000s at home. Through the culture in my home country, I was exposed to a lot of hip-hop, which R&B is closely associated with.”

“I was and still am very introverted, so I didn’t party that much (as a teenager), and R&B is very much about love songs. These were things that I didn’t live, but I thought, ‘Man, that sounds really good.'”

In late 2014, after completing his master’s degree in engineering, Jamison spontaneously flew from Paris to Hong Kong because he “wanted to see something completely different.”

He quickly fell in love with the city and decided to stay there. Soon after, he met Hong Kong-based rapper Christopher Onoja, who invited him to try his hand at the chorus melody of a song (or rather, his voice).

“We tried it, we liked it and we started writing more songs,” says Jamison.

“Chris and I were frustrated because we didn’t have a platform to perform. The few gigs we had were mostly reggae or drum and bass events – which was still good. But ultimately we wanted to find a hip-hop audience, so we started our own,” says Jamison.

In July 2023, he turned his energies to another event organizer, R&B Hours, which he founded with DJ Minou, a Hong Kong musician and event organizer also originally from France.

“We talked for a long time about how great it would be to have an all-R&B party,” says Jamison. “No rap, no hip-hop – just R&B and ballads.”

“At first we weren’t sure if we would find enough of an audience for it, but it has become very popular and is doing great.”

Although R&B is Jamison’s favorite genre, he does not consider himself an R&B musician.

“Calling myself an R&B artist means I have to sing at an insane level. I can sing, but I respect the craft too much to call myself that. Sometimes I rap a little bit, although I’m not a rapper either. I just do what I like, I guess.”

Jamison has released two R&B albums: Go through in 2021 and a deluxe version, I’m still going through thisin 2022.

“I’m not that good at expressing myself in real life, so I write a lot of my feelings into the songs, that’s part of the R&B culture,” he says. “When you listen to an R&B ballad from the 1990s, you feel like you’re the main character. It’s almost like a movie.”

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”.

“If you’re a person of color, fetishization is something you feel sometimes in life. I would say most black people know that feeling.”

Jamison says he loves watching the reactions of first-time listeners. “They’re like, ‘What? No!'” he laughs. “That’s really satisfying, too.”

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