Jamiroquai

Jay Kay originally formed Jamiroquai with various other musicians - notably Stuart Zender, Nick Van Gelder and Toby Smith - in 1992. The son of jazz singer and actress Karen Kay, he began making music in his early teens and coined the name Jamiroquai by blending the name of the Native American Indian tribe, the Iroquois with 'jam' short for jamming. Experimenting with drum machines and techno, he developed his own distinctive style of dance-orientated jazz fusion music, which drew regular comparisons with Stevie Wonder. Their debut single 'When You Gonna Learn', taken from the album 'Emergency on Planet Earth', helped the album achieve the number one spot on the UK Albums Chart. Second album 'The Return of the Space Cowboy' made it to number two with the singles 'Space Cowboy', 'Half the Man' and 'Stillness in Time' all breaking the top 20. Their third album, 'Travelling Without Moving', made them a name in the US as the singles 'Virtual Insanity' and 'Cosmic Girl' swept the charts. 'Virtual Insanity' won the band four MTV Video Music Awards in 1997 including Best Video and Best Special Effects. 'Deeper Underground' was the first single to be released from their fourth album 'Synkronized' and showed a shift to more acid jazz sounds, a direction in which they continued for their fifth album 'A Funk Odyssey'. In 2006 they moved from Sony Music to Columbia Records and started working on their next album. 'Rock Dust Light Star' was released in 2010. The album saw them return to their earlier sound but failed to make a dent in the charts. Their next offering came in the shape of 'Automation' which was put out in 2017 and an accompanying festival tour of Europe and Asia was set for the summer.

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