Skiddly dooby doop... erm, wop! It is Jamiroquai's platinum-selling scalliwag who one day "turned into a black man".

Today he plays some records to Linton Chiswick. "OK for you?" he kindly adds.

"Hello. This is Luga. He likes you." We're outside Jason "Jay" Kay's pristine, eco-friendly manor house, about an hour's drive out of London.

There isn't a Rolls-Royce in the swimming pool, or Keith Richards comatose in the garden but there are some sheep.

And Luga is the biggest German Shepherd in the world.
"Woof," says Luga, as a successfully intimidated Q is led in front of the decorator-jammed main house and paste a svelte, pale Ferrari,

into Jay Kay's purpose-built recording studio, where he recorded the whole of Jamiroquai's latest album, Synkronized.
Kay has anticipated us. He's already clutching an armful of assorted vinyl and CD's, and he's "shoved the Darren Day albums to the back".

For a musician so firmly founded in the sound of '70s rare groove (though this month's neo-classical single, King For A Day, is a departure),

a world where vinyl is king and so much is deleted, Jay Kay isn't a trainspotter when it comes to buying records.
"As a kid I didn't have massive contact with music.

I was a country boy, (adopts cod-West Country accent) spent most of my time out in the field.

I was also hard up, and I never really had records. My mum had loads of jazz stuff, and Aretha Franklin and The Beatles."

Mrs Kay was the Beatles' 64th fan-club member, and played a support gig for them in Hamburg. Young Jay doesn't pick any Beatles, though.
In fact the bravely opens with the least surprising record in his collection...