He won the 2004 Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Ray, a biopic about the life of the late musician Ray Charles. He is the fourth person in history to have both scored a #1 album and won an Academy Award.

Jamie Foxx started his career as a comedian. He changed his name from Eric to "Jamie Foxx" in order to get more opportunities to perform at comedy clubs (since he had noticed that unknown female comedians had an easier time getting booked than unknown men did, he opted for a gender-neutral alias), and he became known for his appearances on comedic TV series when he joined the cast of In Living Color during the third season. In Living Color launched the careers of a number of comedians, including Jim Carrey and the Wayans brothers. When In Living Color ended, Foxx was given his own show, The Jamie Foxx Show, which produced 100 episodes from 1996-2001 and still runs in syndication. Foxx's film debut came in Toys (1992) with Robin Williams. Foxx's first prominent dramatic role came in 1999 when Oliver Stone cast him as the star quarterback in the football-based film Any Given Sunday. He also received critical acclaim, and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, for his role in the 2004 action film Collateral, where he played an ordinary cab driver who was hired for a night by a hitman (Tom Cruise) on a killing spree.

Foxx's portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 film Ray earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor. This made him only the third African-American male actor to win the award (the others being Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington). He also received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Collateral, making him only the tenth person to have been nominated for both acting categories in the same year. Foxx also became the first black actor to have double nominations in one year.

In recognition of his work in 2004, Foxx received an unprecedented three Golden Globe Award nominations in acting categories. He was nominated for his lead role in Ray, his supporting role in Collateral and for his portrayal of Stanley Williams in the television movie Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story.

He also starred in the war film, Jarhead with Jake Gyllenhaal in 2005. Before starring in Jarhead, Foxx played Lt. Henry Purcell in the relatively unsuccessful film Stealth.

Foxx was seen at many Miami Heat playoff games in the 2005 campaign. Along with Colin Farrell, he will star in a film version of Miami Vice, scheduled for release in mid-2006. He also has a film opening in 2007 called Damage Control.

Jamie Foxx is also a singer and accomplished musician. He started playing piano at a young age, and later took classical piano lessons while attending college. In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the Fox record label) entitled Peep This, which was only mildly successful. In 2001, he hosted the MTV Video Music Awards.

His music career went into a higher gear when, in 2004, he was featured on rapper Twista's song, "Slow Jamz", also featuring Kanye West. The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, as well as number three on the UK singles chart. Foxx's second collaboration with Kanye West, "Gold Digger", in which he sang the Ray Charles-influenced hook, went straight to #1 on the Billboard Top 100, and remained there for 10 weeks straight.

During the 2005 Grammy Awards, Foxx performed live with Alicia Keys and Quincy Jones singing "Georgia on My Mind" in tribute to the late Ray Charles. Foxx received a nomination for a 2006 Grammy Award for Best R&B Male Vocal Performance ("Creepin").

Unpredictable is Jamie Foxx's second studio release. It sold over 598,000 copies in its first week but didn't reach the U.S. #1 spot.

After debuting in the first week at No. 2, Unpredictable rose to the top of the Billboard pop album chart, with 2nd-week sales of 200,000 copies in the United States. The album also charted in the UK top 10 album chart, peaking at No. 9. It has since been certified silver.

Foxx became the fourth artist to have won an Academy Award for acting (for his portrayal of Charles in Ray) and achieved a No. 1 album. (The other three to accomplish this feat were Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Barbra Streisand.) Foxx's first single from the album, the title track, "Unpredictable" samples "WildFlower" by New Birth. The song peaked inside the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and also made the UK top 20 singles chart. The second US single from the album was "DJ Play A Love Song", which reunited Foxx with Twista. In the UK, however, the second single was "Extravaganza", which saw Foxx once again collaborate with Kanye West. He was not, however, featured in the song's music video.