Explain something to me, all of you super-cool, ultra-smart, worldly and forward-thinking people out there: if you’re good at something, why is it necessary for you to change it? One of the most commercially-successful UK artists of the late 1990’s, Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay is back up in your groove again, and “hat boy” (as the UK press disaffectionately refers to him) is no less of a master at his blend of funky retrovision today than he has been in the last ten years. With the Tuesday release of his first album in four years, Dynamite, the press is going to go after him and say “nothing new here”. NICE ONE, MATE! Easiest review you’ve ever written there, Captain Obvs!

If you didn’t like Jamiroquai before now, stop reading at this point, sip up some hatorade and go listen to the litter box collect cat poo — this review isn’t for you. Ok, look, I’m going to stand up for the man for just a second because, well, I like some funky Jay Kay music (I ain’t scurred) AND because I like saying “fuck you” to the mainstream press anyways (they have yet to send me a paycheck for my work, work which many of their writers enjoy reprinting in part or in whole). In fact, it seems that Sony in the U.S. is “too cool” to release a new Jamiroquai record. Why? After all, wasn’t it the blockbuster indie Napoleon Dynamite (for whom the new album is supposedly named) that made American audiences get up and jam in the aisles to the neo-funky “Canned Heat”?

It seems that I like to know that my oatmeal is going to taste like brown sugar, raisins and cinnamon every time I eat it. I like my coffee to have 3 sugars and cream and for the taste to be rich & strong. I like consistency, and if the consistency is good, I’m not at liberty to want to fuck with it. So, for all my desire to see artists progress in one direction or another, I have no complaints about Jamiroquai’s new record. It’s slickly produced, funky as hell, and fueled by a familiarity that makes it worth listening to. It’s different enough that it’s got its own vibe, but not so different that it falls off the Stevie Wonder/Earth Wind & Fire/Disco-Funk train.

Just to prove I’m not off my cracker here, I’m going to let you listen to the whole thing and decide for yourself and, hell, here’s an MP3 of my favorite track off the album, “(Don’t) Give Hate A Chance” for you to rock your fucking iPod with for a minute. The hook is purely The Jacksons “Can You Feel It” pulled up for 2005 ears and newsflash: I’m going to dance my ass off to it until someone pries my headphones from my cold, dead hands. This song completely describes how I’m feeling right now at this time in my life, and I’m grateful to have it. Like the man says, “Now you’ve been taking/Our dignity for too long/I want to save it/Sanctity that we hold/And who’s right and who’s wrong/We’re not so different anyway/Words are in this song/Can we stop the fighting?”

Jamiroquai is not music for just the 30-something and the pop music fan. Soul brothers and sisters, take note — Jamiroquai has lost none of their flair, Jay Kay is still a fucking funk master, and the consistency of Dynamite with other Jamiroquai records shouldn’t be denigrated when it means “consistently good”. Once you like it, go buy it for yourself.

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