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Jamiroquai
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Jamiroquai is an English band from London that plays acid jazz and funk. The group was formed in 1992 around the singer Jay Kay, the only constant through all the changes of line-up. The name is a blend of jam and a slightly altered version of the Iroquois, the Native American confederacy. Kay wanted a real live band with a real live sound, after he had had an earlier recording of When You Gonna Learn reworked by his producer. When it was restored to its original form, it became the debut single, a song about social issues.
Music and breakthrough
Kay signed to Acid Jazz Records in 1991 after a demo on which he covered a song by the Brand New Heavies. Wallis Buchanan also played didgeridoo in the band, and the keyboard player Toby Smith was his writing partner. Later the band moved to Sony. Three albums reached number 1 in the United Kingdom: Emergency on Planet Earth (1993), Synkronized (1999) and A Funk Odyssey (2001), as did the single Deeper Underground (1998). Travelling Without Moving (1996) earned a Guinness World Record as the best-selling funk album ever. The video for Virtual Insanity won an MTV Video Music Award in 1997 and brought a Grammy in 1998.
Influence
The group built on acid jazz and later took in influences from rock, disco, electronic music and Latin. The lyrics addressed social and environmental issues. Jamiroquai was the third best-selling British act of the 1990s, after the Spice Girls and Oasis, and helped funk find a new audience.
Listening
When You Gonna Learn · Jamiroquai, 1992
Discography
Studio albums
- 1993Emergency on Planet Earth
- 1994The Return of the Space Cowboy
- 1996Travelling Without Moving
- 1999Synkronized
- 2001A Funk Odyssey
- 2005Dynamite
- 2010Rock Dust Light Star
- 2017Automaton
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- After Hours: Session 4NL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Acid jazz Genre
Around those labels bands formed that played real instruments in the spirit of the old records: The Brand New Heavies, Galliano, Young Disciples, Incognito and Jamiroquai, whose first single appeared on Acid Jazz in 1992.