Biography
Jason Kay grew up with his mother. She was born in Lancashire in northern England, was an adopted child and is therefore the only blood relative he knows of. The father left the young family before he was born, so he never got to know him. Before he was a year old, his mother received engagements in Las Vegas and later in Nigeria. Nevertheless, during his youth they lived in extremely poor conditions in which they had to leave the city at night and slept in the car because they were unable to pay for the hotel room. They had their first hopes of improvement since the early 1980s, when Karen Kay was given her own show on the English broadcaster BBC, which she moderated. Jason now received regular school lessons and his first real home. Jason was drawn to music from an early age and from his youth he was obsessed with the idea of becoming a musician like his mother.
Kay dropped out of school to earn money for instruments and equipment in various jobs. His mother knew the problems of being a musician and asked him to learn a more promising profession. Nevertheless, he had a loving relationship with his mother, which has not changed to this day. After his first recordings of his music, he was convinced that he was doing the right thing. The most important thing in this decision was that he liked his music and had found a form of expression. He quit his job and composed several pieces that got him his first record deal after just six weeks in 1990. After initial success, he founded the band "Jamiroquai" in 1992 and thus became a success story par excellence. The name came from a play on words between "Jason", "Jam" and "Iroquois".
Early on, Jason not only showed great potential for creativity, but also a high degree of commercial flair. So the band members didn't become equals, but rather his employees, and Jason shuffled off his contracts as a solo artist. The single "When you gonna learn" was released in the first year. The work was quite successful, but they switched from their contract with "Acid Jazz" to "Sony Musik S2", which signed the band for eight albums. However, when Sony wanted to get involved with a producer in the production, a dispute almost broke out. Sony gave in and Jason Kay produced his debut album "Emergency on Planet Earth" in 1993, from which the single "Too young to die" was already listed in the British top ten and the album reached number one after four days. All subsequent works were no less successful, which also benefited him financially. Despite his passion for powerful engines, Jason Kay became an avowed environmentalist and regularly supports projects such as Greenpeace.
Since 1998, Jason Kay has been producing in his own studio, which he set up in his historic country estate near London, which is surrounded by a park of almost 300,000 square meters. In 2001 the album "A Funk Odyssey" was released, which is noticeably influenced by disco. The sixth album entitled "Dynamite" followed in 2005. The following year, Jamiroquai moved to Columbia Records. Privately he settled in Horsenden, Buckinghamshire.
