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Exclusive Catchup with Jay Sean, Juggy D & Rishi Rich!

After years of speculation it was recently announced that Jay Sean, Juggy D & Rishi Rich (The Rishi Rich Project) would be reuniting in the studio again (Read about it here), SimplyBhangra's Monika Plaha caught up with them recently!

After years of anticipation, excitement and rumors of your reunion, here you are back together. So how does it feel to be back together, back in the studio, doing what you do best and making music?

Ah it feels amazing to be here and back together, we are so excited about the whole project again. Ten years ago we had so much fun, we toured the world three times over with so much excitement, not really knowing what was happening…it was a complete world wind experience that took us my storm!

You’ve been planning to reunite for a while now, is this Rishi Rich project reunion merely in celebration of your 10year anniversary?

(Jay) Having our 10year Rishi Rich project anniversary just acted as a catalyst, as we’ve never really been apart. I mean even when I’m in the US I’ll still try and keep in contact and always find time to catch up with these guys whenever I’m in England. We’ll meet up go for drinks, have food, go to parties or even if it’s to chill at each other’s houses. The excuse to get back in the studio and really get down to it and schedule time I think was definitely driven by the fact that it was our big 10 year anniversary, if it was 8 years, nah it wouldn’t be the same.

(Juggy) It’s weird because we didn’t really plan on when we will come together, it all just fit perfectly into place. Myself and Jay have just finished our albums and Rishi is currently making his, the timing couldn’t of been better and it just made sense to get back together.

 

By the looks of it you’ve always seemed so close, there’s a lot of love and bromance between you guys. Did you miss that when you went from being together to going your own separate ways?

(Juggy) There’s always a lot of love between us but it’s weird because we didn’t originally even plan to make a group we just toured together. I started off as a solo artist and so did Jay, Rishi was our producer. So when we happened to be on the same record it was a crazy new experience, people liked our music, we did tours, it was different in the sense we went from being solo to being in a ‘boyband’. We go with the flow and do what we do best.

(Jay) We miss each other yeah but we all bring something of our own to the table. The main thing is when somebody see’s the Rishi Rich project they immediately know what they are doing to get. They get the best of both worlds, they’re going to get the Punjab/Bhangra hits and they’re going to be getting some Pop/RnB from me then they’ll get our collaborative hits. This is why people want to book us as an act because we are different we have our individual talents but this is what we are together.

You were fearless in the sense of bringing together two diverse cultures and two unique varieties of music. You introduced to us this great new Urban/Asian genre of music, it was a success and you really do have this cross-cultural appeal. You must be so proud of yourselves?

(Juggy) It’s very over whelming you know from doing songs with Jay and Rishi when we were all together to then doing gigs on my own which is mainly Bhangra. What was surreal was to see people at my gigs who aren’t even Indian, so our previous success gave me that platform to introduce Bhangra to a western audience. Our cross fan base is amazing, they love our music! I also remember doing gigs in Germany and there were more Western Germans than Eastern Germans, I was like woah whats happening here, it’s wicked though!

 

Because you were incredibly successful with your previous hits, you stormed your way into the UK top 40 charts, and did performances for top of the pops, MTV etc. Do you feel pressure to live up to your previous success?

(Jay) We don’t feel pressure, without being arrogant what yet do we have to achieve. We did something amazing at the beginning then we went solo and each had our own amazing success and then more than anything else we all had success on a personal level we all got married we all found wives who care about us and who love us and we love them and on a personal level we really have achieved. So therefore there is nothing else on a life basis we feel there is to accomplish, so when all of that is cool you don’t feel pressure, you only feel pressure when there is something to prove.

Your teasing us with these social media pictures/ videos of you guys in the studio, when will a song finally be released?

(Rishi) All in good time. When it’s polished off and ready it’s all good to go.

(Jay) We spent 2 days in the studio and did nothing, we just have so much fun together. Two days ago we spent the whole day in the studio but did absolutely nothing, we just chatted about our ten years together and messed around but then yesterday we planned to complete one track but came out with two. We were happy with what we achieved and we did it in about an hour, it happened all so naturally it was great.

 

The music industry waits with baited breath for the much anticipated joint return of Jay Sean, Juggy D and Rishi Rich, previously known as The Rishi Rich Project. The trio are set to return with a brand new collaboration, recapturing some of their old magic from 2003 ..