The Z List: Jaden Chen on finding his own tune

I first became acquainted with Jaden Chen when he performed at our annual The Z List party just last year. The theme was ‘Summer Euphoria’ and while his rendition of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” still lives rent-free in my head (as well as the unofficial duet with Daisey Gorgeous for Chappell Roan’s “Casual”) what caught my eye was the way he had left the party, giddily stuffing his bag with flowers that he’d helped himself to. At once, the bag of bright orange flowers looked like it was a part of Jaden’s outfit all along — how fitting, too, that colours matched the bright orange in his hair.

It struck me then that Jaden had a special eye for things like that; creating something artistic out of the mundane. (At our annual LSA100 party last year, Jaden also snagged one of the Best Dressed Awards with an outfit that he’d put together a little last-minute, and an accessory — a sick bone armour headpiece that he created himself.) “Just a lot of random day-to-day objects,” he says with a shrug, when I ask him about where he gets his ideas from. “Like, even when I see this carpet right now and I’m like, ‘Oh, I really like the colour of the fur.’ It’s something I can work with.” The carpet right beneath our feet is a curious shade of pink, and I watch as the gears in his head start to turn. “How can I make something out of this? Or, like, how do I put this on my face?”

You don’t have to scroll through Jaden’s Instagram page for very long to understand what he’s talking about. As a content creator, he affirms that his focus is on “fashion and beauty, but not, like, actual beauty; it’s makeup but more ‘artistic’ type of makeup”. His makeup style is experimental, abstract — literal art pieces on his own face. Jaden’s form of experimental makeup relies on invention, and true intention, instead of being ‘perfect’. The goal is not to be beautiful per se, but to evoke a kind of feeling. (Most of the time, it’s horror-inspired or VFX makeup, and that’s when Jaden plays with all kinds of materials like liquid latex.)

Creating has always been at the core of who Jaden is. He has dabbled in traditional art, like on paper or watercolour, since he was very young. And while content creation is how he “pays the bills”, his ultimate goal is music. “I think it was growing up with Nickelodeon and Disney Channel,” Jaden says, when I ask exactly where his love for music stemmed from. “It was the era where everything was a musical. You know, Hannah Montana, stuff like that. I think that’s where I got it from. So, I’ve always been into music since I was a kid.” From there he’d picked up guitar and singing, teaching himself through YouTube.

Sometime during the pandemic, Jaden had spent two years preparing for an idol competition show set to take place in China. He’d undergone intense training — singing classes, dancing classes and all the works — before they were eventually forced to cancel the show. “It was good, but for now I want to focus more on my music as well,” Jaden says. “Because eventually, that’s what I want to do. I want to be a singer, an artist. It’s just hard right now. But eventually, I do want to focus more on that.”

Just last year, Jaden released his first full-length album, Front Page. I thought it was a pretty decent debut album and its main single, “Make God”, a solid song. But Jaden admits that it hadn’t been as fulfilling as he’d hoped. “I met my current manager, my label, a long time ago when I was in China, doing my training stuff,” he opens. “Then, after that I signed with her, and we did the album. We had, like, some songs before that, and she was like, ‘Let’s do a full album.’ I kind of just listened to her lah. I had the song drafts, so I sent them to her and we worked on each song, and then we somehow compiled ten songs into an album. But honestly, I don’t feel like it’s my best work.”

The album’s production had been the root of Jaden’s frustration — he felt that the label did not have the funds for better producers. And so, for his next project, Jaden aims to proceed more carefully. “I told her [my manager] that I don’t want to do a full album,” he says. “I want to focus on each song. I feel like when I specifically focus on each song, I can perfect it. I can tell the producers, like, ‘Actually let’s make this better, or that different, instead of rushing ten songs.’

“So, I’m actually working on a Chinese song now. I feel like Malaysians, especially my audience, are more susceptible. How do I say this? The Chinese-speaking people in Malaysia, they support Chinese songs. But the English-speaking audience doesn’t really support local artists. It’s a lot harder.” (His point stands: the only song on Front Page that’s fully in Chinese, “我愿意把我世界交换你的时间” is the also the most-streamed track on the album after the main single.)

In the meantime, Jaden is cruising through life with what he’s got. “The pro of what I do is I don’t have a 9 to 5,” he laughs. “I don’t have any ‘authority’ telling me what to do. But technically, the audience is… sort of doing that lah. But yeah, you’re not tied to a specific ‘routine’. The cons… well, it’s not a stable income. And it’s very draining. It’s really, like, mentally dreaming. Because it’s, like, creative work.”

And on top of all that, the challenge also lies in the fact that as hard as you try to break out of the norm or trend, it eventually does get to a point where everyone’s parallel lines meet. “I feel like the most important thing is to just not compare yourself,” Jaden muses. “It’s just such a cliche thing, but when I first started out, I was always so, like, ‘Why did this go to that person? Why didn’t I get that?’ But after a while, it’s just like, ‘I don’t really care. ’ And, like, you shouldn’t care. But something like that does take a lot of time to let go.”

editor-in-chief MARTIN TEO | editorial team MALLIE MARAN, MELISSA FOONG, RONN TAN | interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | creative direction & styling MARO COLLECTIVE | photography & art direction NELSON CHONG | lighting BERNARD CHONG | assistant photography ZUKI & DAVID ONG | videography POR JIA JUN & BOBO HOO | makeup BERRY LOW | hair WILSON & CHEEING | location DAWA HOUSE MOONKITAA | wardrobe H&M