Morgan Jay Combines Music And Comedy For A Unique Experience

An "unquenchable thirst for attention" helped to lead Morgan Jay to a career in both comedy and music that's working for him.

With a successful career and thriving social media presence, Jay is well-known for his craft. He's getting ready to take his show on the road for a tour that spans many cities from September through November.

Jay's first open mic was at 18 years old, shortly after he began college at NYU. And he hasn't looked back since.

"My first open mic was my second day of college at NYU. An 18-year-old armed with mediocre jokes about Spiderman. I thought it would be a small crowd, but were 400 students there," he told The Blast exclusively. "It wasn't until 2007 that I started regularly going to open mics and shows. I wanted to do something in the performing arts in high school, and stand-up felt like such a cool art form."

Another thing he credits is his desire to get into standup comedy - he wanted girls to like him.

"I had an unquenchable thirst for attention which has subsided a little bit, but not completely," he said.

Combining music and comedy in one show came from "a place of frustration, exploration, and respect." He was frustrated by only telling jokes and wasn't excited about what he had to say.

"I had to ask myself, if I was going to continue down this path, how was I going to embrace the process," he explained.

"Exploration in that I only wrote two songs in the beginning, and I was going to test it out as an experiment. I never said, 'I am a musical comedian.' I've always permitted myself to admit when something isn't working. And respect that there were musicians and comedians I admired like Steven Lynch, Adam Sandler, or Jamie Foxx."

Jay self-produced his one-hour special, "Live at the Village," and released it on YouTube on May 31. He's about to embark on his "Love Across the Galaxy" multi-city tour to support his YouTube comedy special.

Jay had some tips for watching his new special. 

"You don't have to watch this special all at once. It's ten songs; it's broken up into chapters. In a world with waning attention spans, I wanted people to know they could stop and start this at any point," he explained to The Blast.

"This was made with the person watching from home in mind. The person is watching on their phone. I want them to feel like they're in the room."

Much of his material comes from universal topics. He explained that he doesn't "completely push boundaries" or is "insanely edgy." Jay keeps race, religion, and politics out of his material and sticks to talking about dating and relationships.

Jay's social media pages are thriving. He has nearly 1 million followers on TikTok and an additional 152,000 on Instagram. With an active TikTok page, Jay said he enjoys the "ability to create a fan base" on his own.

"The ability to reach a huge amount of people with one video can truly change everything," he told The Blast. "It has, in my case, regarding my career and selling show tickets. I also like how you can put a video out that might be terrible, and if no one sees it, it's fine. It will just get buried."

As for a favorite performance, Jay once sang a song at a college, which sticks out in his memories.

"The song ends on self-love and your value," he said. "This college student left after the song, which was early in the show. I thought they didn't like it, but they messaged me later telling me how they went back to their dorm and cried because they said they had a hard time loving themself and that the song helped them. I think we underestimate the impact our art has on our audience."

For more information on Morgan Jay and his upcoming tour, visit his website.