Jamiroquai

Jamiroquai

Jamiroquai are an English funk and acid jazz band from London. Formed in 1992, they are fronted by vocalist Jay Kay, and were prominent in the London-based funkjazz movement of the 1990s. Three of their albums charted at number one in the UK, including Emergency on Planet Earth, Synkronized, A Funk Odyssey, and additionally their greatest hits compilation. Their third album, Travelling Without Moving, received a Guinness World Record for the best-selling funk album in history.

About Jamiroquai in brief

Summary JamiroquaiJamiroquai are an English funk and acid jazz band from London. Formed in 1992, they are fronted by vocalist Jay Kay, and were prominent in the London-based funkjazz movement of the 1990s. Their style is characterised by sounds taking influence from black music and lyrics having dealt with social and environmental justice. The band made their debut under Acid Jazz records, but subsequently found success under Sony. Three of their albums charted at number one in the UK, including Emergency on Planet Earth, Synkronized, A Funk Odyssey, and additionally their greatest hits compilation. Their third album, Travelling Without Moving, received a Guinness World Record for the best-selling funk album in history. The band has sold more than 26 million albums worldwide as of 2017, and have had several line-up changes since their first album was released in 1992. The music video for its lead single, \”Virtual Insanity\”, also contributed to the band’s success, and was named Video of the Year at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards. Their later releases drew from rock, disco, electronic and Latin music genres, but Kay has consistently remained as the leader through several line up changes. They have been compared to Sly Stone and Rufus Wainwright, and to Sly and the Rascals by some critics. The group have been described as having a ‘jungle sound’ with symphonic and jungle elements, unlike the previous record, which aimed for an accessible sound unlike humans, not the other way around.

They are currently on tour in the U.S. and Europe, where they have played at the Lollapalooza festival in Los Angeles and played the Coachella music festival in San Diego, California, and the Reading and Leeds festivals in the United States. They released their first single in 1992 as their debut single, and released their second album The Return of the Space Cowboy in 1994, and it ranked at number 2 in the British chart. In 1996, the band released their debut album, Emergency On Planet Earth, where it entered the UK albums chart at number 1. The album’s ecologically charged concept gave Kay press coverage, although Mark Jenkins of The Washington Post opined that the record’s \”sloganeering is as crude as the music is slick\”. The band’s drummer, Nick van Gelder, was on holiday for longer than expected, and he was replaced by Derrick McKenzie, who recorded with the group in one take for his audition. This was the first time this first phase of Jamiroqai’s career had been captured on film, and this first record was their first record to capture this phase of  capture the group at their very best. With 8 million copies sold worldwide, it is listed in the Guinness World Records as thebest-selling album in the history of the funk genre. In 2007, the group released their third album Travelling without Moving, which reached number 24 in the Billboard 200.