Jamiroquai are an English acid jazz and funk 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".
Kelis Rogers is an American singer-songwriter and chef. She attended New York's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she played saxophone and was selected for the Girls Choir of Harlem. Upon graduation, Rogers landed a role as a backing vocalist for the hip hop group Gravediggaz. She then began working with music producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo—collectively known as the Neptunes—who led her to sign with Virgin Records in 1998.
Roy Anthony Hargrove was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles of jazz in 1998 and 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, but also had a penchant for genre-crossing exploration and collaboration with a variety of hip hop, neo soul, R&B and alternative rock artists. As Hargrove told one reporter, "I've been around all kinds of musicians, and if a cat can play, a cat can play. If it's gospel, funk, R&B, jazz or hip-hop, if it's something that gets in your ear and it's good, that's what matters."
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 poet, playwright, singer-songwriter, novelist, essayist, as well as multidisciplinary performing and installation artist. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta, a novel, Asphalt and the play Talk, Rux has been published as a contributing writer in numerous journals, catalogs, anthologies, and magazines including Interview magazine, Essence magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Iké Udé's aRude Magazine, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and American Theatre (magazine), among others. Rux's writings and monographs on visual art include essays on the work of conceptual artist Glenn Ligon ; the introduction for Nick Cave’s Until; and the Guggenheim Museum’s Carrie Mae Weems retrospective.
Vinia A. Mojica is an American singer from Queens, New York. She is best known for her collaborations with the Native Tongues collective and other hip hop artists.
Gail Ann Dorsey is an American musician. With a long career as a session musician mainly on bass guitar, she performed regularly in David Bowie's band, from 1995 to Bowie's last tour in 2004.
Jacques Schwarz-Bart is a French jazz saxophonist.
Nicole Rachel "Nikki" Yanofsky is a Canadian jazz-pop singer from Montreal, Quebec. She sang the CTV Olympic broadcast theme song, "I Believe", which was also the theme song of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. She also performed at the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics and at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Winter Paralympic Games. She has released four studio albums to date, including Nikki in 2010, Little Secret in 2014, Turn Down the Sound in 2020, and Nikki By Starlight in 2022.
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.
Sandra Kay Matthews, known professionally as Sandra St. Victor, is a Dallas-born singer-songwriter most known for her work as lead singer of The Family Stand and their international hit single "Ghetto Heaven". She attended the now famous Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, High School studying all styles of music. Arts Magnet was also stomping grounds for musical colleagues Erykah Badu, Roy Hargrove, Norah Jones and Edie Brickell. She received scholarships in music to Kansas University & Bishop College in Dallas, Texas, where she continued her studies, until deciding she'd rather learn by doing. She joined a local band in Dallas, and began touring Texas and Louisiana. The band was led by jazz guitarist Zachary Breaux.
Ozone was a funk and R&B group during the late 1970s and early 1980s, signed to Motown Records.
Food is the sixth studio album by American singer Kelis. It was released on April 18, 2014, becoming her first album released under Ninja Tune Records. After parting ways with Jive Records in 2007, Kelis signed to Interscope and will.i.am Music Group in 2009, through the label she released her fifth studio album, Flesh Tone, which saw Kelis experiment with a dance sound. In 2011, Kelis began work on the follow-up to Flesh Tone; however, she left Interscope and signed to Federal Prism, before officially signing to the British independent label Ninja Tune for the release of Food. Food is an R&B and soul album with a diverse musical style that incorporates funk, Afrobeat, Memphis soul, and neo soul. Its songs feature crackling horns, brass, earthy guitars, simmering electronics and vocals from Kelis that were noted as being breathy, smoky and sultry.
Kandace Springs is an American jazz and soul singer and pianist. She has released four studio albums.
Crystal Murray, is a Franco-American singer-songwriter. Starting her musical career in 2018 by signing to the British label Because Music, her songs are inspired by a mix of R&B, neo-soul, jazz, funk and house.
