Jax Jones

When Duke Dumont topped the UK charts with his single “I Got U” in 2014, many listeners may have assumed that featured artist Jax Jones was the singer. In fact, Jones (born Timucin Aluo in 1987) was a co-writer and producer on the song, and its No. 1 position marked his auspicious debut. Raised in London by a Turkish father, a Malaysian mother and a Nigerian stepfather, the Apple Music Up Next alum grew up on a mix of American hip-hop, UK dance and African music, which might help to explain the mix of styles that swirls through his own tracks: His youthful fondness for Prince shows through in funk-infused cuts like 2015’s “Ocean Drive”, while Afro-Caribbean accents bubble up in 2018’s “Ring Ring”, a lilting tropical-house collaboration with Mabel and Rich the Kid. Though his beats generally follow the punchy cadence of deep-diving future house, he brings a hip-hop producer’s collage sensibility to the mixing desk: Many of his productions slyly interpolate other songs. “You Don’t Know Me”, from 2016, is built around the slinky hook of M.A.N.D.Y. and Booka Shade’s 2005 anthem “Body Language”, while “I Got U” contains a choice bit of Whitney Houston’s “My Love Is Your Love”. Whether on his own productions or his remixes for Ellie Goulding, Charli XCX and Missy Elliott, Jones’ habitual blend of pop polish and house groove is unmistakable. “I just thought I'd try it,” he told Apple Music about his relationship to dance music. “House is a collage of everything the creator is. If you love hip-hop, you can chuck that in there. If you love rock, you can chuck that in there too. It took a long time, but now it makes a lot of sense. It’s sample-based and also musical, so it's a very natural fit. Life is beautiful like that. They say you have to, like, get rid of yourself to go to the next level. And I think that’s what happened.”