Jay Keya biography

Fans of the group have been waiting for the album for five years - as so much time has passed since the release of their previous Dynamite album. A year later, a compilation of the best hits of the High Times: Singles group, which completed Jay Kei’s contract with Sony label, was the same contract signed in the year, which turned the young, which gives the London Esid-Dzhazovka, a global suction, selling albums selling albums with multimine-million-high rooms that lives.

In their own mansion and collecting expensive cars. It all began on December 30, when Jason Kay was born - the future founder, soloist and author of the songs of the Jamiroquai group. He was brought up by a single mother Jazz singer Karen Kay. Jason's father, Portuguese guitarist, left Karen shortly after the birth of two twins, one of whom died shortly after giving birth, and the second - Jason - remained to live for two.

Jason spent a significant part of childhood, traveling around the world with his mother and watching her performances. Despite the fact that Karen worked hard and hard, she was not able to break through to success in show business, the family often felt need, and Karen dreamed that her son would become a lawyer. At 13, Jason and his mother moved to London, where he was sent to study at a boarding school.

However, he did not show much desire to study and, having graduated from school, quarreled with his mother and left the house. At the age of 16, Jason lived somewhere and earned a living in all available ways - from telemarketing and sales of Kilt to theft and trading of marijuana. Nothing of this could have turned out, and once, falling into a fight, where he was nearly stabbed, Jay Kay returned with a guilty to his mother’s house.

It was then that he seriously decided that he wanted to engage in music, invented the name and logo for the group and wrote all his free time songs. Jay Kay made the first demos with a friend who had a 4-road tape recorder. He released his first “White Label” type called “Natural Energy” on the StreetSounds label, but the cooperation with the label did not go further.

Once, Jay came to listen to the Brand New Heavies group and, although they didn’t take him, he got into contact with the musicians and their producer Femi Kuti. With their help, he made a demos of his song “When You Gonna Learn? This was followed by a contract with Acid Jazz Records for the release of the single and, on the basis of a single single, signing a contract with Sony label for as many as 8 albums.

An intensive and stressful process of recording the album began. The group, adjusted to the record label, sometimes spent days and nights in the studio. The debut album "Emergency on Planet Earth" was released on May 13, and the group went on its first world tour. Opinions about the album and about the group among critics and ordinary listeners were divided: some enthusiastically praised and supported the new star of the British Esid-jazz and Fanca, while others preferred to firmly criticize Jamiroquai, accusing them of the secondary and copying of the music of black performers.

Particularly went to Jay Kay, who was constantly accused of imitating Stevie Uander. This, however, did not prevent the album from making their debut in the 1st place in British charts and become a classic of the genre, which has been listened all over the world after more than a dozen years. Immediately after the world tour, Jay Kay calculated the drummer Nick Van Gelder, whose game ceased to satisfy the picky frontman.

Derrick Mackenzie was accepted in his place, who plays in the group to this day, and the guys immediately began to record the second album. Like the debut, the second album was recorded in a big hurry, and, moreover, Jay Kay suffered from depression in connection with hard work, pressure and criticism from all sides, trying to find refuge in drugs. The first single “Space Cowboy” was dedicated to Marijuana, which was the beginning of Jay Kay’s campaign for the legalization of light drugs.

At concerts, the group often smoked a cigarette with marijuana, and Jay Kay repeatedly voiced his position regarding her legalization at concerts and in an interview. The album “The Return of the Space Cowboy” took 2nd place in British charts and was very well accepted in Europe and Japan. However, real success came to the group after the release of the third album "Travelling Without Moving".

The first single “Virtual Insanity” was in a hundredth splash in the whole world, not least thanks to the video clip, which was shot by director Jonathan Glazer. The video "Virtual Insanity" has long become the hallmark of the group and is still considered one of the best and original clips in history. Jamiroquai worked for wear, touring a lot, shooting new clips and speaking on television.

The work brought its fruits - the album “Traveling Without Moving” has become the most commercially successful album of the group, sold by multimillion -dollar circulations in many countries of the world, including the United States, where Jamiroquai has not been popular.An important achievement was also awards, including Grammy for the song “Virtual Insanity”, four MTV awards, including “Video -Lip the Year”, and the award of the British Academy of Composers and Authority of Songs IVOR NOVELLO.

Sales of the album exceeded 11.5 million copies and it entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most commercial successful album in the style of Funk. From the world tour, Jay Kay returned to a superstar. The Jamiroquai frontman finally could afford to live like a real rock star-the singer acquired a mansion at the Horseden estate, became a serious collector of expensive cars and was seen in novels with famous actresses and supermodels.

Jay also became famous as a high -speed lover - he was fined several times for speeding. In the year, the group was instructed to write a song for the new Hollywood blockbuster "Godzilla". The Deeper Underground single resulted from the previous hits of the group with a weighted sound and was accompanied by another spectacular video clip, which ultimately became the first and so far the only single Jamiromet, which took first place in the charts.

The recording of the fourth album Synkronized was overshadowed by the unexpected departure from the group of Basist Stewart Zender, who constantly conflict with Jay Kue for various reasons, not last financial. As a result, the group had to urgently look for a new bass player to them Nick Fayf and rewrite the album, throwing eight songs written together with Zender in order to avoid copyright problems.

Although Synkronized and did not achieve the success of the previous album, he nevertheless made his debut in the charts 1, and the sales level reached an impressive indicator of 4 million copies. The first single “Canned Heat” was in 4th place in the charts and became one of the main dance hits of summer. The album “A Funk Odyssey” The original name “A Funk Odyssey”, by analogy with the film Stanley Kubrick, marked the change in the group’s style towards more electronic sound using sequences, dramas and “Pro Tools” systems.

Many elements of the traditional sound of the group, such as the spiritual section, DJ and DJ, left Jay Kay behind. These changes on the one hand brought the group of new listeners, but on the other, they caused the discontent of fans of the traditional jazz-fank sound of the group. The album was accepted with varying success - in the UK it took 1st place, but in the United States remained almost unnoticed.

The main single "Little L" became another dance hit and took 5th place in the British chart. This song about the difficult stages in the relationship was written about the friend of Jay Kei, the model and TV presenter Denise Van Authen, whom Jay Kay met for more than two years. Jay and Denise were even going to get married, but parted shortly before the album release. In the year, a collection of hits Jamiroquai “High Times: Singles”, which included 17 singles Jamiroquai from the previous six albums, as well as two new tracks of Runaway and Radio, was published.

This compilation completed Jay Kei’s contract with Sony, with which Jay Kay has been unhappy with the cooperation with - the singer repeatedly accused the label of limiting his creative freedom and his insufficient support as an artist. Having thus completed the first stage of his musical career, Jay and the group went on vacation, which lasted so long that Jay managed to get the rights of a helicopter pilot, and the public-believe the rumors that Jamiroquai had broken up, and Jay Kay left show business.

The new album was recorded by the group alive in the studio and became a return to the living, organic sound of the group. The album is almost all played on live instruments and combines the elements of the traditional sound of Jamiroquai and experiments with rock music. Jamiroquai spent the summer of the year, speaking at European festivals, and on November 1 a new album finally released.

Today, Jay Kay feels a rested, full of strength and ready to give himself to music again. This is very important to me. This is a long, long road ... And it doesn’t matter what was good and bad in the past, the main thing is that I am still in the game, and this is wonderful!