Hitmaker Jay Sean has revealed that he is proud of former One Direction singer Zayn Malik for branching out on his own and going solo because his material is great. 

He told Capital FM that some of his close friends wrote for Malik's new record, entitled 'Mind of Mine', and he actually goes way back with the heartthrob:

“I have a very strong tie to his current project. It’s so funny, the whole Zayn story is insane. From when I met him at school and brought him up on stage for the first time he ever sang on stage. And he was very sweet when he remembered it, he sent me a DM and was like ‘Bro, I really appreciate you doing that for me’ and this, that and the other and I was like ‘yeah I wish I had signed you though because now you have more Twitter followers than me, more Instagram followers than me!’"

Sean went onto add that he is very excited about Zayn's solo material and might even work with the star in the future: “His new material, a lot of the album was written by my very, very close friends, people that I have written songs with and worked with like my friend Adam Sampson who also has produced for Zayn. This one degree of separation thing is really interesting. So I’m very, very happy for him.”

“It’s funny, I think we have a shared fanbase obviously and a lot of people want us to work together. I’m open for creative juices to flow, that’s it. I never say no until we get in a studio and if it’s sounding horrendous then you know it’s not going to work but you never know when there’s going to be some magic. I like the grown sound, I think that would work for sure.”

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Watch Jay Sean's recent Live Lounge session here: