Young, Parisian, Ready To Bloom

Name: Jain

Genre: Acoustic Pop

When She Started: 2011

Most Like: Corinne Bailey Rae, Jack Johnson, Zaz

The Sound: If Jason Mraz was killed and reborn as an adorable, 20-year old Parisian.

In her video for the song “Hob,” 20 year-old French singer/songwriter Jain is perched on a stool, backlit on a white background so she appears as a silhouette. Over precise guitars strums, she sings in English, with just a hint of a French accent:

I am here for you anytime/ If you need me you know where I am / I’ll be by your side all the time / Can’t you see that I love you bay-bey.

It’s a classic pop message, and one that Jain delivers with an understated charm.  Aside from another acoustic video for the song “So Peaceful,” it’s the only musical product Jain has out in the world right now, but you can already tell Jain is what you might call “a natural.” With her formidable voice, guitar chops, and cute-as-a-button looks, she’s something of an indie-folk heroine in the making.

Jain is French, in theory, but she grew up all around the world in tow of her contract negotiator father, who brought the family to Dubai, the Congo, and Abu Dhabi. Meanwhile, she listened to Otis Redding, Nina Simone and Manu Chau. It all adds up to a broad cultural palette that you can really hear in her songwriting. The rhythms are somewhere on a spectrum between reggae and gypsy jazz, but there’s a real bluesy quality to her melodies, topped by an easy-breezy, girlish pop veneer.

Right now, she’s playing a lot around Paris and picking up some good gigs (opening for folk artist Leon Russell, for example), and working on her first album. We predict big things.

Photo Credit: Yann Orhan