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Jamiroquai music biography continued...

American tribe (the Iroquois) along with the music-based word, jam, the original Jamiroquai band members included Toby Smith (keyboards), Nick van Gelder (drums), Stuart Zender (bass), Wallis Buchanan (vibraphone) and Jay Kay (lead singer). Kay's home demos caught the attention of the record label Acid Jazz, which issued Jamiroquai's debut single "When You Gonna Learn?" in late 1992. The tune was a hit in England and led to a lucrative, multi-year recording contract with Sony and the release of their debut album, Emergency on Planet Earth, which became a major hit in Great Britain, peaking at number one on the charts, and yielding such Top Ten hit singles as "Too Young to Die" and "Blow Your Mind." The band's second release, The Return of the Space Cowboy in 1995, sold even better than its predecessor in Europe and was a big hit in Japan, as well. Jamiroquai conquered the American market with 1996's Traveling Without Moving. The album spawned the worldwide hit "Virtual Insanity," for which an award-winning video was filmed and helped the album achieve platinum status in the United States by the year's end. By the time the group performed at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards in the U.S., they had become an international phenomenon.



Lineup changes plagued the band after their 1997, triumphs, and their 1999 effort, Synkronized, was ignored in the U.S., though back home and across the globe, it was another major commercial success. More controversies ensued, but the band managed to come out with their next album, A Funk Odyssey, in 2001. It took the band four more years to accumulate more songs, and their next release, 2005's Dynamite, was recorded at studios around the world. In March 2006, Jamiroquai announced their switch from Sony to Columbia Records, and soon after publicized their efforts to go back to the recording studio for their seventh album. Many have viewed the band's leader, Kay, in a poor light due to a celebrity lifestyle that frequently sees him featured in the tabloids. But, as one critic said, "His heart is in the right place." Millions of fans around the globe think so, too.