Jamiroquai to BDS: ‘We’re coming to Tel Aviv’

Lead singer Jay Kay films video message to reassure local fans

As calls intensify for British jazz and funk group Jamiroquai to cancel its upcoming show in Israel, the band’s lead singer put out a video message to reassure local fans on Tuesday.

“Hi everybody,” Jay Kay said in the selfie-stick video he sent to the Israeli production company earlier this week. “I’m taking a short break at home before I’m off to Baku, and then – I am coming to Tel Aviv, in Israel, where we’ve never played. And I’m thoroughly looking forward to it.”

The band is slated to play a gig at the Rishon Lezion Live Park, just outside Tel Aviv, on May 2.

“So all you guys out there thinking I’m not coming – I am coming. Okay? Cool.”

On Monday, Artists for Palestine UK wrote an open letter to the band, calling on them to cancel the upcoming show.

“Inspired by the boycott movement in apartheid South Africa,” the letter reads, “the Palestinian people ask that artists refrain from entertaining apartheid Israel. Palestinians pay with life and limb for their protests, and they ask for your support. Will you stand with them? Will you cancel your concert in Israel?”

It appears that the answer is a resounding no.

The band, formed in 1992, saw its greatest success that decade, including the hits “Virtual Insanity,” “Deeper Underground” and “Canned Heat.”

But they’ve kept up in the studio, and just released their latest album, Automaton, in 2017 - and they just wrapped up a show at the famed Coachella festival in the US.

Tickets for the concert in Israel are still available via jamiroquai.co.il or at *9080. JAY KAY, lead singer of the British jazz and funk group Jamiroquai. It will perform in Israel on May 2 despite pressure from anti-Israel groups to cancel.