Jamiroquai

By the time Jamiroquai's debut sold, half of London's music press had cast Kay as a Stevie Wonder tribute act; Melody Maker even ran a contest daring readers to tell the two voices apart. Kay finally met Wonder backstage at an MTV taping and settled the record himself: "I said to him, 'I'm that guy you must keep hearing about; the little white guy who's copying your stuff,'" he recalled. Wonder answered by humming "Virtual Insanity" back at him, then agreed on the spot to let Kay cover "Golden Lady" — a blessing Kay says left him "in the corner in tears."

listen: upstream & heresource: The Independent — "Interview ↗share

1973

Golden LadyStevie Wonder

→↓

1996

Virtual InsanityJamiroquai

listen forThe pairing traces to that backstage conversation: Wonder hummed this Jamiroquai hit back at Kay before Kay asked, in the same breath, to cover "Golden Lady." Neither man was reaching far for common ground. "Golden Lady" rides a clavinet figure ringed by lush strings under Wonder's falsetto glide; "Virtual Insanity" runs the same trick a generation later, opening on a clipped clavinet riff before Kay's own falsetto slides in over a bed of strings — the vocabulary Wonder built on his 1973 album Innervisions, replayed here as a hit single rather than an album cut.

Kay is touchy about being called a copyist, but he draws a careful distinction when pressed on where his live band's sound actually comes from. "If you just sample Barry White or Sly Stone, that's one thing; to get their spirit is different," he told the Los Angeles Times in 1997, explaining why Jamiroquai hired real musicians instead of looping old breaks. The remark names Sly Stone specifically — the one time Kay identifies an individual funk forebear rather than the genre in general, testimony that outweighs the countless critics who simply lump him into the same rare-groove lineage.

listen: upstream & hereshare

1968

Dance to the MusicSly and the Family Stone

→↓

1996

AlrightJamiroquai

listen forSly and the Family Stone built "Dance to the Music" out of band members calling out their own instrument over a chugging groove — the interlocking, everybody-plays feel Kay singled out when he talked about chasing a forebear's spirit rather than sampling their exact sound. "Alright" runs a similar trick through a glossier disco filter: stacked group vocal ad-libs, blaring horns, and a rhythm section that keeps trading parts instead of locking into one riff, the same structural idea surfacing a generation later under brighter production.

Jamiroquai's music runs on the London rare-groove scene's reverence for 1970s American jazz-funk, and it was longtime keyboardist Matt Johnson — who joined in 2002, well after the band's formation — who named the specific record behind it. Recalling why he covered Roy Ayers' "Our Time Is Coming" on his own live album, Johnson said: "Roy is really the king of jazz-funk and that track is very influential in the original Jamiroquai sound... I love that it's so open, it's perfect to jam on." It's a bandmate's retrospective claim, not Jay Kay's own testimony, but it names a song no one else in this lineage does.

listen: upstream & heresource: Soul and Jazz and Funk — "Keyboard Warrior" (Matt Johnson on Roy Ayers' "Our Time Is Coming") ↗share

1976

Our Time Is ComingRoy Ayers

→↓

1994

Space CowboyJamiroquai

listen for"Our Time Is Coming" rides an unhurried mid-tempo groove built for stretching out, Ayers' vibraphone floating loosely over the beat rather than locking to it — the loose, roomy quality Johnson praised. "Space Cowboy" borrows that same loose-limbed pocket: a lazy, behind-the-beat rhythm section under Kay's vocal, with room left for a wandering keyboard line to drift in and out, the acid jazz answer to Ayers' sense that a jazz-funk groove should breathe rather than snap tight.