Early career Hunt wrote and co-produced the song "Hopeless" for singer
Dionne Farris, formerly of
Arrested Development, and joined her band on guitar and keyboards. "Hopeless" appeared on the soundtrack for the film
Love Jones (1997). Hunt co-wrote several songs with
Rahsaan Patterson on his album
Love in Stereo (1999), and co-wrote with
Cree Summer, including the song "Mean Sleep", for her album
Street Faërie (1999), produced by
Lenny Kravitz. He also collaborated with
Joi on the single "Missing You" (2002). Through Dionne Farris, Hunt met
A&R person
Randy Jackson (who later went on to be a judge on
Fox's American Idol). Jackson would become Hunt's manager in 2002.
Capitol Records Hunt recorded much of the songs from his debut album in 2000. Producer Dallas Austin took Hunt's recording to
Capitol Records, leading him to sign with the label in 2001. Hunt's first album,
Van Hunt, was released in February 2004. The album included the singles "Down Here in Hell (With You)", "Dust", and "Seconds of Pleasure", and was nominated for a
Grammy Award for Best Urban/Alternative Performance. Hunt's second album,
On the Jungle Floor, was released in 2006. The album featured the single, "Character," a revisited "Mean Sleep", as a duet with
Nikka Costa, and a cover of "No Sense of Crime" by
The Stooges. The album was co-produced by
Bill Bottrell. Hunt has toured and appeared with
Mary J. Blige,
Alicia Keys,
Boney James,
The Roots,
Seal,
Angie Stone,
Coldplay,
The Brand New Heavies, the
Dave Matthews Band, and
Kanye West. In 2006, Hunt appeared with
Nikka Costa on the
Sam Moore album,
Overnight Sensational, on the song "If I Had No Loot". Hunt was also featured on "Half the Fun", a track on the
Count Bass D album,
Act Your Waist Size, released on Fat Beats Records. In 2007, Hunt won a
Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, along with
John Legend and
Joss Stone, for their cover of the
Sly & the Family Stone song, "
Family Affair", which appeared on the 2006 tribute album
Different Strokes by Different Folks. Hunt described winning the award as "one of the bigger pleasures I've had" to
The Athens Blur Magazine in 2009.
Blue Note Hunt released the 4 track digital EP,
The Popular Machine, on August 7, 2007. Hunt announced a full-length album,
Popular, to be released on
Blue Note Records on January 15, 2008. Hunt moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles in 2007 while the album was nearing completion. Blue Note had taken over Hunt's recording contract after corporate restructuring at Blue Note and Capitol's parent company,
EMI. In December 2007, Blue Note announced that they would not be releasing the album, and that Hunt and the label mutually agreed to part ways. Hunt wrote on his MySpace blog in January 2008, that he couldn't promise that
Popular would ever be officially released. Blue Note owns the
master recordings and opted not to sell it back to him at an affordable price. Hunt commented that he "didn't think that they had enough money" to promote the album properly.
LA Weekly called the album an "appealingly trippy fusion of funk grooves, punk guitar and soul vocals", and "a left-field stunner". In August 2017,
Popular finally had an official release on all online distributors 10 years after it was shelved.
Independent As of June 2008, Hunt was recording a fourth album, which he planned to release himself and
market using the Internet. Hunt has blogged about his new approach on his
MySpace page. Hunt toured the U.S. in July and August 2008. Meanwhile, he released
Use in Case of Emergency, a compilation of
demos,
remixes and
B-sides recorded between 1997 and 2005, through his Web site in May 2009. In July 2009, Hunt told
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he plans to release one more album and tour once more, but does not know what his plans are after that. Hunt performed at the
National Black Arts Festival's tribute to
Curtis Mayfield at the
Atlanta Symphony Hall on July 16, 2010.
Godless Hotspot and What Were You Hoping For? On June 14, 2011, Van Hunt took to
Twitter to announce the release of his first song in 3 years. The song "June" was released on June 15 at midnight via Mike Ragogna of the
Huffington Post along with the announcement of the title of his forthcoming album (
What were you hoping for?) and its release date. A longer article about the song "June" and the new album and Van's new approach appeared later the same day on the Music remedy website. The article is about the joint venture-between Hunt's own label Godless-hotspot and
Thirty Tigers. It said that "June" is the first of a series of free songs which would be released from various sites until the new album came out. The next release will be "eyes Like Pearls" the first official single from the album which was set to be released to radio in July 2011.
The Fun Rises, the Fun Sets Van Hunt released updates of work on his upcoming album via PledgeMusic during the course of 2014. In March 2015, he announced the title of his album as
The Fun Rises, the Fun Sets, due for release on May 5, 2015. He previewed the release of the new album with the new single "Vega (Stripes On)", which was available for release via iTunes and Amazon and followed this up with another single, "Old Hat". Both tracks had official videos accompany their releases. The album charted at No. 31 on the US
Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. ==Influences==