Gameface (album) - Background

Background

At the age of sixteen, Jay R was already a member of a group called FI (First Impression). The group consisted of five members, including Jimmy Martinez (who came to Manila with Jay R and is now popularly known as Jimmy Muna). When the other members left the group, he and Muna replaced them with Kris Cadevida (later known as Kris Lawrence after winning ABS-CBN singing show Search for the Star in a Million). They did gigs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Michigan. He, also, became the lead singer with his sister Jhing of another band that was led by his late uncle, Robert Sillona, called The Howlers. Later, his sister Jhing would collaborate with him in creating songs. He started performing gigs all around Southern California. He also did back-up vocals for major artists, whose albums were released in the United States, Latin America, Philippines and other territories. Later, he started co-writing songs with these international artists. He has collaborated with Ray Brown, Troy Johnson, Jason Edmonds, 3am, Steve Singer, Gary Brown, Triangle Productions, Dutch Cousin, Chuck Cymone and many other talented producers, even before he got the record deal with Universal.