What does the name Jamiroquai actually mean?
The notes that soundtracked endless rom-coms from the noughties and funky nights of unstoppable soulful dancing, followed by strained conversations with your neighbours that still dress their kids up as ‘Indians’ for Halloween, is what Jamiroquai produced.
Though the band remarkably revitalised Britain’s funk scene, the London group has attracted some controversy throughout the years.
The band got its start when its founding vocalist and only continuous member, Jay Kay, started making socially charged music in 1992. The Lancashire man was inspired by the philosophy of Native Americans and named his band after the Iroquois First Nation Peoples, who valued duty and gratitude to nature. The name ‘Jamiroquai’ is a portmanteau between the word ‘Iroquois’ and ‘Jam’, since that’s a lot of what the acid jazz band were doing.
The name Kay chose matches the accessories he thought right to bring on stage with him. His onstage repertoire regularly included different kinds of headdresses and patterns that were fragrantly evocative of First-Nation Peoples, which many have called out as superficial appropriation of a desecrated tribe. Although not entirely white, the founding band had nothing native American about them, and aside from the inclusion of a didgeridoo, neither did their music.
“People scream, but I can’t hear, I don’t care too much,” sang Kay in ‘Shake It On’, but in truth, he did care. The incomprehension felt by many faithful to Black music reached such a pitch that upon accepting his band’s Mobo Award for 1997’s ‘Best Album’, he thought to mention it squarely in his speech.
He said, “I think this award is important to us because we’ve never denied that the music we do is of Black origin…people have said that we’re trying to plagiarise something that we love and you know…we’re trying to flatter the thing and do it properly.”
After long being inspired by typically Black musical phenomena, the likes of funk and jazz, Jamiroquai got the official stamp of approval from Black legend and musical icon Stevie Wonder. “I met Stevie Wonder the other night, and he seemed to approve of what we’re doing, so if we can put paid to all the ‘white guy doing the black music bit’ and just get on with it and enjoy it, it’d be much better!” Kay included in his acceptance speech.
The band’s members have always shuffled, as has their style, but one inspiratory figure has remained constant, and that is Stevie Wonder. The band made a name out of funk and sounding like Stevie Wonder, but this wasn’t appropriation to him; the myth behind ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ even let Jamiroquai cover one of his songs.
Wonder was a proponent of potent creative endeavour, and put his belief in Kay to make something great out of ‘Golden Lady’: “Music is something God has given us as a gift that we can all enjoy. In fact, I have a song I never released that I was thinking would be perfect for [Jay]”. Jamiroquai’s work was a constant homage to artists they admired, and, albeit often contradictory, Kay is warmly remembered for his efforts.
