Jamiroquai are an English funk and acid jazz band from London. Formed in 1992, they are fronted by vocalist Jay Kay, and were prominent in the London-based funk and acid jazz movement of the 1990s. They built on their acid jazz sound in their early releases and later drew from rock, disco, electronic and Latin music genres. Lyrically, the group has addressed social and environmental justice. Kay has remained as the only original member through several line-up changes.
Yvette Marie Stevens, better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is an American singer. Known as the "Queen of Funk", her career has spanned more than five decades beginning in the early 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. With the band she recorded the notable hits "Tell Me Something Good", "Sweet Thing", "Do You Love What You Feel" and the platinum-certified "Ain't Nobody". Her debut solo album featured the number-one R&B hit "I'm Every Woman". Khan scored another R&B charts hit with "What Cha' Gonna Do for Me" before becoming the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with her 1984 cover of Prince's "I Feel for You". More of Khan's hits include "Through the Fire" and a 1986 collaboration with Steve Winwood that produced a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, "Higher Love".
Nell Marie McKay is an English–American singer and songwriter. She made her Broadway debut in The Threepenny Opera (2006).
Nancy Sue Wilson was an American singer whose career spanned over five decades, from the mid-1950s until her retirement in the early 2010s. She was especially notable for her single "(You Don't Know) How Glad I Am" and her version of the standard "Guess Who I Saw Today". Wilson recorded more than 70 albums and won three Grammy Awards for her work. During her performing career, Wilson was labeled a singer of blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and soul; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer". The title she preferred, however, was "song stylist". She received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice".
Betty Davis was an American singer, songwriter, and model. She was known for her controversial sexually oriented lyrics and performance style and was the second wife of trumpeter Miles Davis. Her AllMusic profile describes her as "a wildly flamboyant funk diva with few equals ... [who] combined the gritty emotional realism of Tina Turner, the futurist fashion sense of David Bowie, and the trendsetting flair of Miles Davis".
"That's the Way Love Is" is a 1967 Tamla (Motown) single recorded by The Isley Brothers and produced by Norman Whitfield.
Toshi Reagon is an American musician of folk, blues, gospel, rock and funk, as well as a composer, curator, and producer.
Geoffrey Paul Barrow is an English music producer, composer, and DJ. He is a member of the bands Portishead, Beak, and Quakers, and he has scored several films.
Carl Hancock Rux is an American writer, artist, and social activist. Rux is co-artistic director of Mabou Mines, associate artistic director/Mellon Foundation Curator in Residence of Harlem Stage The Gate House and a resident artist at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He is the editor of The Mass. Review. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta, a novel, Asphalt, and a play Talk, and is a musician, having recorded several albums since the release of his debut, "Rux Revue" on Sony/550. His mixed media works have been included in the Uptown Triennale at the Wallach Gallery, Park Avenue Armory, and London's Serpentine Gallery. Rux also created the lead role in The Temptation of St. Anthony, the first all-African-American opera to premiere at the Paris Opera.
Jacques Schwarz-Bart is a French jazz saxophonist.
Apothecary Rx is the second studio album by Carl Hancock Rux, produced by Rob Hyman and Stewart Lerman. The album also features singer Stephanie McKay and contributions from jazz violinist Leroy Jenkins and singer-songwriter Marc Anthony Thompson. The album was selected by French writer Phillippe Robert for his 2008 publication "Great Black Music": an exhaustive tribute of 110 albums including 1954's Lady Sings The Blues by Billie Holiday, the work of Jazz artists Oliver Nelson, Max Roach, John Coltrane; rhythm and blues artists Otis Redding, Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, George Clinton; as well as individual impressions of Fela Kuti, Jimi Hendrix, and Mos Def.
What's Happening is the second album from the Australian hip hop artist, Katalyst. It is a follow-up to Katalyst's award-winning debut album, Manipulating Agent. What's Happening was released by Invada Records on 25 August 2007. The album features guest vocalists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia - including Stephanie McKay, J-Live, Steve Spacek, Diverse Katie Noonan (george), Magic Dirt's Adalita and Beautiful Girls' Mat McHugh.
Katalyst is an Australian DJ and producer. He won awards at the 2002 Australian Dance Music Awards for Best Album and Best Producer.
Rux Revue is the debut album by Carl Hancock Rux, released by Sony 550 Music which operated through Sony Music's Epic Records division. The album was produced in Los Angeles by the Dust Brothers, featuring drummers Joey Waronker and James Gadson, bassists Atom Ellis and Carol Kaye, keyboardist James Hall, bass guitarist Wah-Wah Watson and additional keyboard, Keyboard, Piano and Melodica by Money Mark. The album mixes soul, gospel, blues, rock, classical and hip-hop into a collage of machine samples, drum machines, live instrumentation and sound effects, incorporating a gospel influenced Sprechgesang and Vocalese style reliant upon African American alliteration, consonance and assonance while abstaining from the common techniques of poetic monologue popular in spoken word and slam poetry.
Soulive is a funk/jazz trio that originated in Woodstock, New York. The band consists of Eric Krasno (guitar), Alan Evans (drums) and Neal Evans. Although they originated as a trio, the band has worked extensively with different horn sections, which have included Sam Kininger (saxophone) from 2000 to 2003, Rashawn Ross (trumpet), and Ryan Zoidis (saxophone) from 2003 to 2006. The band also worked with vocalist Toussaint Yeshua from 2006 to 2007. Soulive has toured in the original trio lineup of Eric Krasno, Alan Evans, and Neal Evans.
stephaniesǐd was an American indie pop band from North Carolina. Band member Stephanie Morgan now performs as the solo artist Pink Mercury.
Good Bread Alley is the third studio album of Carl Hancock Rux. Titled after a close-knit historically African American district of shotgun houses that once occupied a segregated neighborhood in Miami, Florida, the cd was released by Thirsty Ear Music, produced by Carl Hancock Rux with songwriting and co-songwriting credits from Geoff Barrow, Vinicius Cantuária, David Holmes, Rob Hyman, Stewart Lerman, Darren Morris, Phil Mossman, Vernon Reid, Tim Saul, Jaco Van Schalkwyk, and Bill Withers. The cd tackles religion, sexual politics, war and media overload, in the tradition of Marvin Gaye and Donny Hathaway, employing supersaturated, open-ended soul music with bluesy vamps, touches of minimalism, and slide-guitar licks providing a rich backdrop for Rux's sardonic baritone, achieving a pop-gospel synthesis.
Neo Jessica Joshua, better known as Nao, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer from East London. Her sound has been described as soul combined with electronic music, funk and R&B. Nao coined the term "wonky funk" to describe her style. She released her debut album, For All We Know, in 2016, her second album, Saturn, in 2018, followed by her most recent album, And Then Life Was Beautiful, released in 2021.
Adrian Harpham is an American session drummer, record producer, recording artist/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in New York City. He grew up in Southern California, Philadelphia and the Boston area.
Typh Barrow is a Belgian singer, songwriter, jurist, composer and pianist who was born in Brussels, Belgium. Her style is a mixture of pop and soul music with jazz and blues accents.
