Jay Knife by Dajung

Jen Dajung Kim, known professionally as Dajung, was born and raised in the Korean city of Incheon. At the age of twelve, she moved to China and attended an international school where she met her friends from different parts of the world. It was there that she acquired her bizarre monicker – Jay Knife – from her English teacher. In an effort to deal with childhood trauma and teenage angst, she started writing songs like she was filling a journal. In that journal, she recorded herself ruminating on self-identity, culture, religion, doubt, anger, and love.

From 2017 to 2018, Dajung uploaded her songs to various music streaming platforms under the name Jay Knife – written as “j.knife” at the time. When she came back home to Korea in the summer of 2019, she temporarily stopped making music. Struggling to find time to create music amid her rigorous school work, Dajung still wonders how her 14-year-old self ever managed to “just be creative.”

On her 2021 album Jay Knife, Dajung rips out the pages from her old journal and staples them together. She holds them in her hands and mourns the fading of her younger self. To her, Jay Knife is a recollection, but it also signals a new epoch of her musical world.

“nighttime” is one of the first songs Dajung has ever recorded. Created using her iPad and the microphone attached to her headphones, the song consists of simple ukulele and vocal loops. She sings quietly, almost whispering in an attempt not to wake her family up at night.

“do what you want” and “i’m still alive” revolve around the idea of being alive. In the two songs, the then-15-year-old singer reflects on what it means to be alive and how she manages to stay alive after all the mess she has been through.

Paradoxically, “when you fall in love” is not a love song. The song questions the existence of love. In the song, all Dajung does is simply ask: “when you fall in love, how does it feel?”

“is there any way you could change?” is a painfully honest song where Dajung selfishly asks the other person in a relationship whether they “could change”. She reflects on communication and connection, or the lack thereof.

In “drama”, Dajung discusses her relationship with songwriting. She reveals her doubts that she felt as a teenager from a small town. She also references people’s comments that held her back from pursuing music – the same idea she explores in “do what you want” and “i'm still alive”. Similarly in “untitled 2”, Dajung struggles with understanding her dreams and desires as she candidly sings, “I feel like I’m exploding.” In “pride”, Dajung rather triumphantly reclaims her identity. She tells the stories of her friends as well as the people of her generation. There is still a tinge of doubt in the song where she asks, “is my god proud of me?” Nonetheless, at the end of the song, she claims, “I will know everything/I wish I knew.”

Back when Dajung attended an international school in China, saying goodbyes was an annual ritual to her. The last track on the album “myp3” reflects on the bitterness that arises from frequent farewells. The minimalist ukulele song demonstrates Dajung’s desire to remember and be remembered forever. She wrote the song in MYP3, which is the IB equivalent of eighth grade.

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