Jamiroquai

Jamiroquai
Jamiroquai
	Jay Kay performing live
Background information
Years active	1992–present

Jamiroquai is a British band led by singer Jay (Jason) Kay. The band enjoys worldwide popularity and is the best-known member of the early-1990s London-based acid jazz movement, alongside groups such as Incognito, the Brand New Heavies, Galliano, and Corduroy. Jamiroquai have since, however, moved in other musical directions.

The name "Jamiroquai" is derived from the Native American Iroquois tribe, with which Kay has said he identifies philosophically, combined with 'Jam', as in musical jamming.

History

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Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" music video

After Jay Kay auditioned unsuccessfully to be the singer of the Brand New Heavies, he decided to put together his own band. Jamiroquai's first single, "When You Gonna Learn?", was released in 1992 on the Acid Jazz label. Following its success, Kay signed a £1,000,000 eight-album record deal with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the first of which was the mercurial Emergency on Planet Earth in 1993 which was laden with soulful grooves, themes of social consciousness and flowing jazz instrumentations. The 1994 follow-up, The Return of the Space Cowboy, became a more definitive album of testimonial funk and psychedelic power. The force is strong in both albums and has set the mark for what Jamiroquai can offer.

The band's international breakthrough came with the third album, Travelling Without Moving in 1996, which yielded two big hits, "Virtual Insanity" and "Cosmic Girl," establishing a strong hold in the difficult American market. At the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, the creative videoclip for "Virtual Insanity" won four awards, including Best Video, Best Special Effects, Best Cinematography, and Breakthrough Video.

Their hit single "Deeper Underground" - the band's only UK #1 single to date - appeared on the soundtrack of the 1998 movie Godzilla. Another single, "Canned Heat" was featured in the films Center Stage (2000) and Napoleon Dynamite (2004), the latter for its famous dance scene.

The acid jazz flavours of the first three albums were less evident in 1999's Synkronized. Jay Kay's interest in funk and disco music were gradually shifting the band in other directions, and with this came further commercial success. By their fifth album, A Funk Odyssey (2001), the disco influence was especially evident. The fifth album's first single, "Little L", reached #1 in many charts worldwide.

In 2003 Jamiroquai released a DJ mix album in the Late Night Tales series for Azuli Records. The track selection shows some of the band's funk, soul and disco influences, including tracks from The Pointer Sisters, The Commodores, Johnny Hammond and Marvin Gaye.

Their latest album is titled Dynamite and was released on June 20, 2005. It reached #3 on the UK charts, with similar successes repeated around the world. It has been regarded as Jamiroquai's most diverse work to date, with danceable disco tracks such as "(Don't) Give Hate A Chance" mixed with the more laid-back jazzy sounds of "Talullah", which harks back to the much earlier Jamiroquai sound. The first single, "Feels Just Like It Should" was released early in June, the second, "Seven Days In Sunny June" released on August 15th, followed by the third, "(Don't) Give Hate A Chance" on November 7th.

Recently Jay Kay has expressed bitter resentment with his longtime record label Sony Music. In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he commented that "These days it's 18% music and it's bloody 82% marketing bullshit ... Next time I do an album, I'm gonna put it up on the internet for five fucking dollars." He also remarked that a Jamiroquai "greatest hits" album will be released in 2006, purely out of contractual obligation: "2006, they're out of the fucking picture. Take your greatest hits and stick it up your fucking arse." [1] This combined with recent comments in an interview with The Sun ("There are other things I want to do with my life ... I want peace and quiet and to meet a nice girl and have some little pitter-patterers [children] and chill out."[2]) have fueled rumours that he will soon retire following the Dynamite tour.

In March 2006, Jamiroquai announced their switch to Columbia Records (although Columbia Records is also a subsidiaries of Sony BMG). In May Jamiroquai performed during the Laureus Sports Awards in Barcelona, the event was later televised by NBC in June.