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JAY KAY is climbing the walls of his hotel suite. And not just walls - he appropriates everything in his restless, fervid circuit of the room, leaping around from table to chair, to the floor, barely pausing for breath as he demonstrates one point after another.
It's not just a spliff he needs, it's a sedative. He talks like he walks, too, a torrent of words and sounds, alternating cadence and rhythm as he mimics people, beats out tunes, or pretends to be driving one of his beloved Aston Martins, hands on steering wheel, mouthing the sound of an engine topping 100mph. It's the kind of energy that comes from ambition and drive. It keeps you enthralled, but it also keeps you in your place.
When Kay's band, Jamiroquai, first materialised in 1993, a very different soundscape was dominating Britain. It was the sound of Blur's Damon Albarn being ironic and a nation of wannabe Damons following suit. Kay wasn't interested. Irony wasn't his bag. He wore a silly hat and brandished a marijuana logo and talked about the destruction of the planet. In defiance of all predictions, Kay did not disappear. He grew bigger. But it was his third album, Travelling Without Moving, which made him an international star. The formula was exactly the same as his previous two albums, only more polished, more confident and backed with the kind of marketing savvy that most artists would kill for.
A gravity defying video for Virtual Insanity, directed by Jonathan Glazer, went on to win four MTV awards and propelled the band to a Grammy award. Sony very nearly ruined it by resisting Kay's demands to fund the video, but eventually conceded.
"I said you must give me the money, you must give me the money, and I'll come up with the result," says Kay. They did. He did.
There has been no such struggle over his latest album. Sony are banking on a big summer hit with Synkronized. The first single, Canned Heat, is an audacious hymn to the last days of disco, a brilliant, infectious dance number that is two parts Chic to one part Bee Gees.
As with Virtual Insanity, the song is accompanied by a video in which Kay leaps...