01: Intro
02: Masquerade (feat. DJ Friz)
03: 흰눈이 다시 (feat. 알리)
04: Without U (feat. 권기범)
05: 새 (feat. DJ Friz)
06: 3일 전
07: L.I.E. (feat. Epik High)
08: 차렷! (feat. Dynamic Duo and Tablo)
09: 경극 (feat. UnknownDJs)
10: 기도 (feat. 태완 a.k.a. C-Luv)
11: 양면성 (feat. YDG a.k.a. 양동근)
12: 왜 서 있어 (feat. 현준)
13: Natural
14: 투루먼쇼 (feat. Sean2slow and DJ Bamboo)
15: Take My Soul (feat. 여정)
16: T.B.N.Y. (Feat. 가오 and 언두)

Rating: 8/10

Download

Credit for the upload goes to Octopus Theatre. I just re-upped it in Mp3 format.

Artist Info:
Simon is a relatively new MC to the mainstream hip-hop scene. He's from Tokyo and has, before this album, made his career through collaborations and live performances. He's signed to Harlem Recordings and collaborated with just about every big name in Japanese Hip-Hop.

Album Info:
Simon Says is Simon's first major album release and dropped June 25th of 2008. Producers on the album range from Focis and Bach Logic to Jigg, 318, and Flammable of Gunsmith Production.

My Thoughts:
This is how Hip-Hop is done! Some nice production combined with Simon's crisp, killer flow makes this album something worth getting excited about. A nice mix of laid-back tracks (Aru Hi Totsuzen, Super Fly, Gooday)  and high-energy rap (Knock Out, Simon Says, Who Got the Next) and little bit of in between (The Locus, Dreams) make this a well rounded album any hip-hop fan will enjoy. Plus, two things I was missing from the latest Doberman Inc album showed up on this -- Jay'ed and Bach Logic! Nice to hear STY adding some vocals into "Gooday" as well, sounds good. Speaking of that, I can't really complain about the collabs. 4WD isn't really favorite guy in the world (if they would just leave him out of the hook I'd be straight) but it's nice to see Tomogen and Anarchy up there. I'm thoroughly impressed by Simon's debut, and I was wondering what was taking him so long, but if it means we get this kind of quality, he can take as long as he wants. Even if you haven't heard of him, if you're into any Japanese Hip-Hop, I highly recommend this.
 
Okay, so I finally caught with all the music out I think. I'll just start where ever I guess. Ryohei's got a new song out called "So Fly." I expected it to be a little more R&Bish from the title, but it's still really poppy. I like Ryohei's voice, but I can never get into his solo stuff. Especially his singles. Kato Miliyah's new song, "Sayonara Baby" is pretty nice. It's a departure from her recent extreme pop/ballad stuff, it's a little more R&B. I like it. Hi-D's new song, "Specialist" is pretty tight. I dunno, he's starting to remind me of Ne-Yo now. Hopefully i can find the single of it somewhere. PV rips are annoying. I haven't liked a Tanimura Nana single since "Say Good-Bye," including the new one. She's hot, but they need to chill with how much attention they put on her breasts. For real, it's a good rack, but you can't make a singing career off it. My girl Aria (she's my girl now, ya see? lol) released her new mini-album, Pheromone just recently. I recommend it, it's hot! Some of the tracks are almost Namie-esque. I've fell out of love with Namie, so I'm replacing her with Aria. Namie's stuff is starting to sound the same to me, I dunno. Coma-Chi has her nice special guest appearance on Pheromone too. You gotta check that track out. Spot Light is real hot too. This is random as hell, but I think Bonnie Pink is really hot now -- I dunno. I still don't really like her music. lol. Next! Oh yeah! Twigy just released an album. Did I ever tell everyone how much I HATE Twigy. He's so damn sloppy! If you're into Twigy you'll probably like the album. I couldn't get past his nasty flow. Actually, I almost enjoyed the track with Ayuse Kozue. Don't be fooled looking at the track list. A lot of those collabs are actually just intermissions. Seeda and Bay4k's tracks are. Wack! GK Maryan is randomly up there, I haven't heard of that guy in a minute! Okay, so hate on me all you like, but I kinda like Shimatani Hitomi's new album. I used to listen to her a lot wayyy back in the day, before I got into Japanese Hip-Hop. Anyways, I like her voice and she's absolutely beautiful, so I usually check out her albums, and I can't complain too much. Prima Rosa was a little bit better I think. I checked out that Baby Vox Re.V. album, since I was a big fan of the original Vox. Wasn't feeling it. Hi-D, Asami, Anty the Kunoichi, and Yamaguchi Lisa have a song out together entitled Taiyou. It's pretty cool, nice to see them all together. Check the video out at JpopnKpop. Asami just kinda popped up out of nowhere! Kinda random. Yamaguchi Lisa actually looked kinda cute in the video, I remembered her being ugly lol. Hi-D and Anty are kind of sparcely sprinkled through the song, so don't check it just for them. Anty seems like she's really trying to get her name out. I had never actually saw what she looks like until Burnin' Love, and here she is again! That's about it I think.

Well, I've been re-upping stuff in my spare time. I've actually started my goal of re-upping every single thing I put up here. It's coming along pretty well. I'm starting from the beginning of my blog. Here's what I got:

Epik High - Remapping the Human Soul
51 -Goichi- - 51st Dimension: The Yang
Dabo - The Force
DJ Hazime - Ain't No Stoppin the DJ
May J - All My Girls
Aquarius - Oboreta Machi
Deli - 24

They'll all be linked on their respective posts as well -- blah blah. If you want anything re-upped, just hit me up! I'm pretty quick about it now lol. That's it for today. I've got a ton of stuff in queue to upload here, so I'm going to try and get more posts in this week. I've got vacation to burn at work, so I've actually got five days in a row off (Sunday until Thursday), so I should have another post up soon. Maybe tomorrow! I dunno. Anyways, as always, thanks for visiting Miyako Flow and I hope you all got peace in ya karada lol.

For artist info check my upload of Sonomi's Everyday Mini-album.

Album Info:
Midnight is Sonomi's second consecutive mini-album and was released on January 16 earlier this year. All the tracks on Midnight were written and produced by some combination of Sonomi, Kreva, and Kumai Goro. Midnight was released as PV to promote the release on the mini-album.

My Thoughts:
Another awesome mini-album from Sonomi. Once again she's got a great pop/r&b kind of thing going on over some great Kreva/Kumai beats. I will say the tiny bit of reggae on her previous release has been dropped for some slower ballad type songs. Though I liked Everyday a tiny bit better, I certainly can't complain about this one. I can't believe she hasn't blown up by now. Dr. K is all over her album, she's got a very contemporary pop sound, and a style all her own. Whatever -- the Japanese public is missing out. She did just release a new single "Miss You." Sounds pretty good from the clip I heard on her website. I'm definitely gonna have to hunt it down. Anyways, if you like Kreva, Hinouchi Emi, or even post-Lisa M-Flo stuff, I'd recommend Sonomi all day.

Sonomi's music makes me all warm and fuzzy inside lol. Anyways! Lots of great new singles floating around right now. Jay'ed is FINALLY is getting serious with the releases. "Zutto Issho..." is his new single, and it's a great slow r&b track. That guy could sing the phone book and I'd still listen to it though. For real, no homo -- I love Jay'ed's voice. Aria's got her new single out with Anty the Kunoichi, entitled "Burnin' Love." Very hot up-tempo hip-pop song. The video is pretty sweet too. Aria looks good. She's actually got a mini-album out with Burnin' Love on it,but I've yet to check it out (downloading it as we speak!) I tried to get into Wise's new single "Mirror" (feat. Salyu), but I just wasn't feeling it. I love Wise, but he's gotta kick the pace up a bit. Hi-D randomly has a new single out called Specialist, but I haven't gotten into that one yet either. Exile's new single is hot to death! Super Shine is a real smooth dance/r&b track. Definitely one of my favorite singles from them. Ya-Kyim has had Super Looper out for a minute now, but if you didn't check it out, I strongly suggest doing so, the song is extremely catchy, and not annoyingly so. Foxxi MisQ is back with their single "Say U Luv Me ~Mahou no Kotoba~. Decent song, but I couldn't really get into it. I was kind of disappointed, I loved their slower tracks on Gloss. Clench and Blista (from the Mic Banditz) have a single out with Foxxi MisQ as well, but I couldn't really get into that one either. Oh! If you can get you hands on L-Vokal's new PV "Step Up," I highly recommend it. It features Kreva, how bad could it be? You can find it on KpopnJpop.

Let's see...albums-wise, Buzzer Beats released their first album, called Just the Beginning. King T posted it up on his site. I recommend checking it out, every beat on the album is hot. Call me a hater, but I wasn't feeling most of the emcees on the album though. I'm straight with Seeda, Kohei, Nishinari, 晋平太, Geek, and Taro Soul, but I felt like the album was missing at least one track by the big guys. I'm talking Zeebra, Dabo, Kreva, or Verbal or somebody. It's cool to use lesser known emcees, but the ones I hadn't heard of or only knew vaguely I felt were kinda wack. I dunno. I can't hate on the album in general though. Good stuff. Namie and Exile both have their best of albums out (Exile has two!). If you've been following them as long as I have, you don't need to worry about "best of"s from them. Worth a check if you're unfamiliar with either though. Not sure if it's a new release, but Bromlatch from Ongaku Street posted up an album by a girl named Akane. I had never heard of her, so I decided to check it out. Very impressed. It's reggae enough to keep reggae fans happy and have a nice rhythm to it, but pop enough to not alienate those who aren't reggae purists (I'm certainly not). You'll have to back a couple pages though. Hannya has a new album out, but I've yet to check it out. I'm really excited about Simon's new album, but once again, haven't had time to sneak it in yet. I'll get to those before next post hopefully.

That's it for music news! So I'm sure everyone wants to hear about my trip to NY! If not, I'm gonna tell you anyways! lol. It was straight. I hit plenty of Japanese things. If anybody is hanging in Manhattan and needs to know where all the Japanese stuff is, I'll be glad to give up the spots. Anyways, I hit the Kinokuniya book shop (across from Bryant Park) first and bought the new BAPE catalog (it comes with a Milo keychain!). If you're looking to buy BAPE catalogs, Kinokuniya is the cheapest. Everywhere else it's $20 and up, but at Kinokuniya it's only $17. They've got a nice selection of CDs (expensive in true Japanese fashion though) and some really hard to find Japanese movies that are formatted especially for American DVD players. I almost bought a Miike Takashi movie collection they had, but I decided to save the money for the BAPE store (too bad I didn't buy anything there either!) Afterwards we hit the Book-Off, which is not far down the road from Kinokuniya. It's smaller and doesn't have the selection Kinokuniya does, but specializes in used media, so you can get it for a lot cheaper. I picked up M-Flo's Planet Shining for a measly $10 and Expo Expo for a down right cheap $5. Can't beat that. You really have to look hard for the hip-hop stuff, but it's there. Everything else I wanted to buy was $20 and up, and since I thought I was gonna spend big money later, I didn't buy anything else besides M-Flo. They've also got video games too, although the selection is extremely limited. Their movie section is nice too, but it's all region 2 only stuff. After that we hit the hotel and checked in. Hotel Carter right in Times Square. Not the cleanest place ever, but it's hard to beat $150 a night in Times Square. If you only need a place to sleep, I recommend it just for the price. I don't even remember what else we did the first day, other than get lost in China Town (ghetto ass place). Second day we hit Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum first. It was pretty sweet. It's like $30 to get in, but it's worth the price of admission if you've never been. Afterwards we took the trains down to Prince street. We hit the KidRobot, a japanese clothing line centered around little anime robot guys, first. The style is almost BAPE-esque, not quite as Hip-Hop though. Then we hit the BAPE store. If you're looking for it, it's kind of easy to miss. The BAPE sign doesn't stand out very well, so just know that Louis Vuitton and Y-3 is right around there, just on the opposite side of the street. The NY BAPE store is pretty wack compared to the Omotesando one. The selection isn't nearly as good. Still nice to check it out though. They didn't have my Black and Purple BAPEs I saw in Tokyo, so I decided not to get anything. Off to Mitsuwa! So we hit the Port Authority Bus Terminal to take the shuttle bus to the huge Japanese supermarket, Mitsuwa. It's all the way out in NJ, so it takes like 30 mins to get there on the shuttle bus. Really nice though. It's like a Japanese Super Walmart basically, complete with restaurants inside of the store (including an Italian Tomato! lol). If you're looking for a random Japanese food item then you'll either find it in Mitsuwa or never find it in the US period probably. I picked up a ton of Calpis Water (karada ni piisu!), some Melon Daifuku, Arare, and lots of other stuff. There's a little cafe inside Mitsuwa that is worth hitting if you're in for a snack or confectionary drink. The melon cream soda there is pretty awesome. Right next to Mitsuwa is another Japanese book store, a toy store, and some other random things I didn't go into (furniture and make-up I think). The toy store is pretty awesome, a picked up a couple random pokemon things for no apparent reason lol. The bookstore is a little overpriced, and if you speak Japanese to the store clerks they'll keep bugging you about joining some membership program, but has a very nice selection. I bought a really sweet book on Japanese onomatopoeia. It has the best magazine selection I've seen in the US too. When I was there in July I bought a Japanese tennis magazine, which I was pretty hyped about. Still haven't finished reading the damn thing though lol. Huge selection of manga too, if you're into that stuff. Oh yeah, in the midst of all that I ate lunch at the coolest restaurant ever -- Go Go Curry! lol. Good curry, good prices, and a gorilla as the mascot! I guess cause it's a Go-rilla, I dunno. Anyways, the owner named the restaurant after baseball player Matsui Hideki (his number is 55), and of course is a HUGE Yankies fan, so the store is full of baseball stuff. I didn't get time to hit the Teriyaki Boy restaurant like I wanted to, but I'll save that for next time. That was my trip basically!

Here's some random pics:

For Artist Info check my other uploads from Doberman Inc.

Album Info:
Zero dropped in April earlier this year. Maybe it's because I was kind of out of the loop at the time, but I heard nothing about the release of the album until I stumbled upon it at YesAsia.com. The title track, Zero, has a PV out for it. This is Doberman Inc's first full album without Mab or Bach Logic. Mab left the group around the release of the Best of album last year, while I haven't heard any word as to why Bach Logic didn't do any production on this album. My guess is he's busy with other projects.

My Thoughts:
When I first got the CD I threw it my computer and, while checking out some of the tracks, I flipped through the booklet in search of individual track info. About the same time I started to realize something was missing in the usual DI album experience, I also realized that Bach Logic is nowhere to be found on this album. Granted, without BL, DI is still a set of damn good emcees, but it almost doesn't sound right without the high quality production. A good rhyme is worthless without a good beat, and vice-versa. I couldn't help but be a little disappointed by this album. Instead we got Jam Kane, Ryu-Ja, DJ Nao the Laiza, and Goodfella. Definitely sub-par for Doberman Inc. We still manage to get some good tracks out of the whole thing though. Zero is a good track with the whole "came up from nothing" kind of theme to it, while In Proof Of..., In the Dark, and Mirror Mirror Mirror are also solid tracks. It's nice to see another one of Japan's better emcess on the album in Simon, but I feel like Beautiful Wedding is the stand-out track of the album. It's certainly the first one I was really into. Still, I feel like the whole D. Inc. experience is missing. No Jay'ed? No other Osaka-repping emcees? No BL throwing in verses here and there? I think we got ripped off on this one. However, this album is still mildly enjoyable.

So! On to other stuff. I'm sure the main question on everyone's mind is, "Where the hell have you been!?" lol. I've been at my house. ^_^. To be honest, I needed a little bit of a break from everything. I was kind of busy with everything else going on, and then I got myself into more projects than I really had time for and just kind of gave up on the J-Urban community for a while. Luckily, I didn't miss much, because there's been a kind of lull in the time I was away. So, here I am, right back into the mix! I'll be keeping this up as much as possible, and I'm aiming for 3 new uploads a week or so. Anyways, while I was gone, I've been all over and grabbed a ton of good CDs, so I've got some just waiting to be upped here.

Speaking of being all over, I actually just got back from New York late last night. I wasn't there for any real reason, other than to just hang out. I finally got to hit the Bape store on Spring and Greene street. I actually intended to buy a pair of shoes this time around but I had my heart set on the purple and black pair I saw in the store off Omotesando, and they didn't have them at the NY store. The NY store in general is kind of wack. I dunno. So my next Bape hunting mission is LA! lol. I got to check out some other cool Japanese places in NY and NJ, including probably my new favorite restaurant lol. Anyways, I'll go into more detail a little bit later.

Since it's the grand return on the kashiramoji J, I figured I'd change the look up and add a couple new things to add some spice. You've probably already noticed the DJ-style theme going on now, and you may or may not have noticed the two new things in the side bar. First off, there's links to the four main Asian hip-hop download sites I get my music from (if you've read any of my posts before, you've seen me link to them), and secondly, there's a new little piece where I'll be putting up quick number reviews of newly released or upped albums. I couldn't get links to work in the custom side bar, so I just listed what site the album is upped on, and you can use the links section of the side bar to get there. I'll be adding more sites to the list as I go, and if you have a site that goes along with the theme, I will be more than happy to list it. I figured it'd be a cool way to give credit to those who have devoted their time to share with us, and to get a little sense of community going.

Since I have 72 messages waiting to be checked, it'll be a week or so until I get to all of them. I will say that I have read many of them today but have yet to reply. I re-upped a ton of stuff earlier today from requests and such. The wonderful thing about zShare is that anything I uploaded to it previously is still up and ready to be downloaded. Some of my mediafire and megaupload links are still up too. If you need anything re-upped, just ask and thou shalt receive. I might start re-uploading stuff that hasn't be requested for soon, just so all my links work. It depends on if I get time. Anyways, here's list of today's re-upps:

Epik High - Swan Songs
Epik High - Black Swan Songs Disc 2
Zeebra - Street Dreams Single
DJ Hasebe - Tail of Old Nick
51 -Goichi- - 51st Dimension: The Ying
DJ Mayumi - Berry Jam All Mixed Up
Ozrosaurus - Juice
I-Dea - Da Front and Back

That's probably the most I've ever uploaded in one day. Anyways, I'll be posting these links on their respective posts as well. I'll go more into all the goings on of the japanese urban music business while I was away in the following posts, as well as talking about my recent trip to the big apple, and of course uploading some audio pleasure along the way. Thanks to everyone who didn't give up on me despite my 8 month long break and to all my new MFers who have, until now, yet to experience the freshness of a new post here. I'll probably re-up some more stuff tomorrow, but I won't have an official post until tuesday or wednesday probably. As always, カラダにピース！

No I didn't photo-edit that album cover, that's a pic of the real album cover lol. BTW, the tracks have the original Japanese names as their file names in the zip, so if anyone has problems unzipping it, please tell me.

Artist Info:
DJ Oasis made it big with Zeebra and K Dub Shine in King Gidora, and then later decided to pick up the mic himself and release solo works. His rap style is similar to K Dub Shine's.

Album Info:
Water World was released in 2005, and had Mic Motsu DJ and Sekai Ichi Otonashii Nozeisha released as singles.

My Thoughts:
DJ Oasis has a very distinct production style, and you're probably not going to love or hate the whole album. For most, it'll be half and half I think. Some of his beats can be kind of annoying (Dakara Dokodemo) while others are just undeniably hot (Maji Uzaku Nee). It's just Hit and Miss all over the album, luckily there are more hits than misses. That said, DJ Oasis is a pretty decent MC in his own right, and it really shines in his solo tracks. The great list of collab artists helps too. I guarantee you'll have Mic Motsu DJ stuck in your head for at least 10 minutes after listening to the song lol. I gotta say though, if I had to pick one track that was the best, it's gotta be Maji Uzaku Nee. If you're looking for a bad-ass hip-hop track to listen to, there isn't a better track than that one. Lots of other good tracks on the album though. Enjoy!

I apologize for the lack of posts through the month of December. Holidays are always crazy for me, but look for a ton of uploads in January! I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas or whatever you celebrate! I ended up getting a Wii and new mp3 player. Nice stuff ^_-.

There's not a lot going on music news-wise. So I'll just talk about random music stuff.

Well between gift cards and presents, I ended up with three new american CDs. I got Blake Lewis's Audio Daydream, Lupe Fiasco's The Cool, and Kanye West's Graduation. Blake Lewis's CD is hot as hell. If you haven't heard of him, he finished second on the last season of American Idol, and won fans over with his beat-boxing, dancing, and mixing skills. Oh yeah, he can sing pretty well too lol. Anyways his CD is a hot mix of R&B, Dance, and Hip-Hop. Imagine Justin Timberlake, Jason Mraz, Michael Jackson, and Duran Duran all in one lol. It gets a 9.5 in my book.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lupe's album as well. One of the reasons I really like the album is that it is great hip-hop with no songs revolving around sex. Anyways, I think "Hip-Hop Saved My Life" is one of the best american songs I've heard in a while, just for it's style and message. Lupe has a flow that is matched by very few in my opinion, and the production on the album is great. I haven't fully enjoyed the album yet, but I'm teetering between an 8 and 9 for it. Great stuff. If you haven't checked him out, I highly recommend him. His flow is part Jay-Z, part Eminem, and all Lupe.

Kanye's album is good, but I expect more out of that guy. I mean, if you're going use song samples on damn near every track, then that album better be real damn hot. I like the album, and it's way better than Late Registration in my opinion (I actually liked some of the tracks that weren't released on Grad.) but if I'm comparing Hip-Hop to Hip-Hop, I gotta say Lupe's album is better. Kanye has a special way of garnering non-hip-hop fans to his style, but I feel like true fans of Hip-Hop might feel kind of ripped off with the blatant sampling and Kanye's so-so verses. That's just my opinion though.

Anyways, next post I'm planning to do the 2007 Miyako Awards. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll scream "WHAT!?" a couple times. And you'll probably download some stuff! I promise! Look for it in a couple days!

Finally, for the new year, I'm deeming everyone that frequents my site an MFer. MF standing for Miyako Flow, of course! lol. So thanks for checking the Miyako out, you MFers, and 体にピース！

Sorry about the lame album cover, this album is really old school and I couldn't find a better picture.

For artist info, check my upload of Big-O and DJ Watarai's Straight to Next Door.

Album Info:
Back in the day! This is Big-O's first (and only before Straight to Next Door) album without the rest of Shakkazombie from way back in 1998! Lol I was 13 years old. Needless to say, I didn't get to check out the album when if first came out. I couldn't find much info about the producers on the album, but there's shout-outs to DOI and DJ Watarai all over the place. Anyways, this was released under Dev Large's album label, El Dorado, and had the track Perfect World released as an analog single.

My Thoughts:
Take it for what it is. Old School. It's real laid-back and has some shitty beats thrown around in some of the tracks, but for as old school as it is, half of the tracks still stand the test of time. My favorite tracks from the album were No Limit, You are the Ultimate, Perfect World, and Got Me. Like I said, some of the other songs have beats that are so cheesy they don't really stand up to the rest of the album, but the good ones are really great. I mean people don't make beats like the ones from Got Me, No Limit, and Perfect World anymore. It's a shame too. Make sure to to check out the hot Tina collab. The remixes at the end of album are pretty hot too. The speed is actually picked up in the remix of Perfect World and it sounds a lot more like new Hip-Hop. It's pretty nice to listen to the regular and the remix and pick out the differences. Anyways, Big-O never fails to deliver hot rhymes, so everyone should enjoy this album, especially if you're a fan of real, pure Hip-Hop.

Music News, what what?

It's been a minute, and I apologize. Between work, Christmas Shopping, and maintaining a social life, I've had just enough time to go to eat and sleep every once in a while lol. Matter of fact, I think I told somebody I was going to re-up something and never did. Lame. My bad guys. I'm getting to it!

Anyways! In "WTF? Already? But I'm Hyped!" news, Seeda has ANOTHER new album coming out! It's called Heaven and is coming out sometime next month (HMV has 2 dates: the 8th and the 30th). Anyways, I'm really looking forward to it because the album is 100% Bach Logic and I-Dea production! Possibly my top 2 fav producers. He's also got a Concrete Green Christmas Album coming out in two days! The guy is a monster. Anyways, if you haven't checked out Seeda's Concrete Green stuff, they are a line of mix CDs between DJ Isso and Seeda with a ton of other artists featured on it. I might end up picking that one up sometime after Christmas too. BL has a couple tracks on it too. Unfortunately, right now only YesAsia has White Christmas and only HMV has Heaven. Hopefully YesAsia will stop being retarded and pick up Heaven, I mean they have Machikaze! For some reason they have an album listen under Seeda called "Dekkai Asu" that is listed as coming out the 28th of Jan, so that is probably the working name for "heaven" and YesAsia just keep it updated.

Sonomi has also got a new album coming out in January! Actually it's a mini-album called Midnight and of course has two tracks featuring Kreva on it. If I don't end up buying, I'm sure my boy will and I'll rip it and post it up! Luckily, YesAsia is actually carrying it! I love ordering from YesAsia because they give you toys for buying Japanese stuff, and free shipping! It's ran by Chinese people though, so sometimes their info and track names are a little off. I think they need me to write the reviews and comments on the album. "Machikaze is hot as a bitch! Buy that shit now son!" lol. "Foxxi MisQ is sexy! That's all you need to know!"

Let's see what else? Exile's new album is out, Exile Love. I enjoyed some of the tracks. The slow ballad stuff just doesn't catch my ear with them, but I was definitely feeling Touch the Sky, What is Love?, and I Believe. Did I say that Touch the Sky is produced and features a rap verse by Bach Logic!? I'm pretty sure I did, but I'm gonna tell you again anyway! lol. My Nihon Watch article for this week was about Bach Logic, Exile, and Touch the Sky. I talked about how BL might become something like Japan's Timbaland (except better ^_-).

If you're floating around Jpopsuki, you might run into coverage of the AnyBand (Tablo, BoA, Junsu from THSK, and Bora) concert. Check it out! It's really hot. They start the show off doing a new track called Daydream or something (sounded hot) and then they split up and Bora does her thing for one song. I really liked her part, they had a DJ scratching while she was playing piano and it sounded pretty hot. Afterwards Epik High came out and did Fly, 평화의 날, and Fan. Hot stuff. Mithra was sporting a new short haircut that looked pretty tight. Tablo looked like a little girl, but I'll give him some slack since he's such a tight emcee. At the end of Fan they all started dancing and DJ Tukutz started poplocking! lol that's a cool dude. Mithra somehow still looked intimidating even when dancing, the guy is a beast lol. I skipped Tohoshinki's part  and then BoA came out. Her part was pretty tight, she did some old stuff and they busted out My Name and Girls on Top. Then they all came back out and did TPL and Promise. Good concert. It looked funny watching BoA speaking korean, i'm so used to her speaking Japanese lol. I was hoping BoA was going to come out and sing the girl parts in Fly, but instead they just had the track playing the background. Too much to ask for I guess.

If you haven't heard, BoA is planning to take a break from the music business to pursue her education. She said she'll be going to a university in the US, which is probably best for her since most people won't recognize the korean mega star here. I have a feeling she'll be going to a really nice university (like not mine or anything in Virginia for that matter), but it's kinda cool to think that she'll be in the same country for a little while.

Anyways, it's about time for me to go to work, so I'll finish up other music news and stuff in another post, perhaps tomorrow. We'll see how busy I get on my day off. Anyways, if I don't get to post, I just want to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone. After Christmas, I'm probably going to devote the days after it to playing with all my present, but I'll try to get a post in here and there too! Thanks for visiting the Miyako!

Album Info:
The Harlem line of albums are music inspired by and used in Club Harlem in Shibuya.

My Thoughts:
Yeah, so a 6 is the lowest rating I've gave in a while, but the Harlem albums are a great way for people to check out some of the lesser known producers and MCs while getting some good stuff by the tried and true Dabo, Zeebra, etc.. I can't tell you how many artists I've gotten in to listening to the many Harlem albums, but the most notable is probably Kashi da Handsome. His track on Ver 3.0 with DJ Hazime and Deli is too much (Ver. 3.0 was uploaded a while ago on here too). Anyways, I liked about half the album, but the real stand-outs to me were Shake Ya Head, Fact & Truth (the track that got me into Goichi back in the day!), Kakumei, and Get it Started. There's lots of other hot tracks though, like Thru (the random Juju collab is nice), Showcase, and Dirty Go Round. It's kind of funny, but on this album I wasn't really feeling the songs with the big stars. Zeebra, Dabo, and Sphere's tracks are all mediocre in my opinion. I really wanted to like that Sphere and L-Vokal track too, but I couldn't get into it. I'm kinda mad there's no BL on this album too, but oh well. Enjoy!

Well, I haven't had time to watch any of the music shows yet, but I will say that I covered most of the stuff that is going on in the "Japanese Music that somewhat pertains to Hip-Hop and R&B and whatever I listen to" community last post, but there's a couple things I can talk about I guess.

Well, back on the subject of cover albums, Shimatani Hitomi released her Otoko Uta (Man Songs) cover album where she sings a whole bunch of songs originally sung by men. If you're into Hitomi, you'll like it, if not, don't bother. She's got a nice voice, but I don't think I'll be revisiting it. Too slow. Kanashimini Sayonara was kinda nice, but I could do without the rest. I'm not really into covers unless you do it the Ryohei way -- change the instrumental and the rhythm of the song up so much that it's like a totally new one. Tribute albums are a little bit different story, but as far as single artists covers, that's how I feel. It's hard to beat an original.

BoA has a new song out with one of the guys from Doping Panda. Hot song. I haven't got to thoroughly enjoy it yet, but it's one of her best releases this year. I'm kinda disappointed she's neglecting her Korean stuff. It usually has more of an edge to it. Oh well.

Chemistry has a new song featuring some elephant, or at least that's what the video looks like lol. Anyways, their new song, Kagayaku Yoru, is okay. It's along the same lines as Sora no Kiseki, just a little slower. Catchy lyrics, but the instrumental is like a lame Monkey Magic album cut or something. It'll probably do pretty well with the pop fans though.

Exile's got a new song called Touch the Sky. Hot stuff. Bach Logic and STY worked with the R&B group again to produce and write the song (BL and STY also did 24 Karats). You might get dizzy watching the video, so don't eat right before watching it for the first time lol. I like the whole white to black outfit transition thing going on though. There's a rap verse in the song with BL spitting some hot stuff (ala Seeda's Futeishokusha). I'm pretty hyped about the song, partly because Exile has been doing pop and slow R&B stuff for a while now, with the exception of 24 Karats, and partly because it's BL! Songs called Touch the Sky are always hot anyway!

Well, King T said he'd post up Equal's new album, so I'll post a link over there when he does if you don't feel like checking yourself. Anyways, I gotta get ready for work, so enjoy Harlem and 体にピース！

"Fly girls want him so bad!! Now it's E~qual!!"

Artist Info:
Equal is a member of MOSAD, who debut in 2002 with their album The Great Sensation. Just months after Equal's solo debut album, the leader of MOSAD, Tokona-X, died in a shroud of mystery. Equal went on to release four more solo albums, including his latest album, King and Queen. You might know him from Dabo's "Shall We Rock?" video, released earlier in the year. Equal not only rhymes on his tracks, but he produces some too. He produced a little less than half of The Rock City.

Album Info:
The Rock City was released in September of 2005, less than a year after Tokona-X's death. Equal worked with many producers on the album, including Bach Logic and DJ Ryow.

My Thoughts:
Pretty good album with some nice collabs. Equal is one of the more consistent emcee in Japanese Hip-Hop. He has released at least one album every year since 2004 and rarely delivers bad flows in his song. He's one of those guys where you're probably never going to love his entire album, but you'll at least like most of it. I have much respect for his self-produced stuff too. Of course, my favorite track on the album just happens to be the only track produced by Bach Logic, Live on Direct. Jay'ed helps too. Anyways, two of my favorite songs from this are produced by Equal himself, 10 Club Commandments (can't go wrong with Dabo and Deli!) and Call me back! I wasn't feeling Go Away! when i first checked out the album back in the day, but that's a pretty tight song. Back then I was really into the No. 1 Host MC track though. That's still a hot one. lol B no tsuzuki no AKA might be hot without AK-69. I can't remember the last time I liked a song with him it lol. The beat is kinda hot though. Anyways, it's all and all a good quality album with lots of good tracks. If you're not too familiar with Equal, I'd recommend checking this out, you'll probably like him. His flow is very distinct, and might take some getting used to, but normally he goes really well with the beat.

Whoa! Tons of music news to go over in just a few days. Let's hope I don't forget anything!

In "I'm kinda disappointed" news, Tablo just released an album with Pe2ny (producer that works with Epik High a lot). Unfortunately, it's all instrumental, but it's still kinda cool. Nice stuff to listen to while you're concentrating on something I guess. All the instrumentals are pretty nice in a very chill way, and apparently the two envisioned their own movies to create each song to, making it a "Soundtrack to a Lost Movie" sort of thing. Good idea I guess, but sometimes I feel like artists get so caught up in artistic creativity that it becomes too abstract for most. I'd definitely put their album, "Eternal," in that category. Oh well. Let's hope some new Epik High comes out in the beginning of next year, although it seems like Tablo is pretty busy with his other musical endevours.

On to Japanese stuff! May J and Aria have both got new albums out, both of which are hot. They both surprised me. Aria's album, the Jukebox, is really great with some nice collabs (Seeda! Equal!) I can't get enough of that Equal track. The techno sound is hot. Seeda's track up there is pretty tight too, but it could be better. He's not in it enough. Some of the people she collabs with usually spell doom for a track in my opinion (El Latino particularly), but even the shitty people picked their game up for her album. I actually enjoyed Hokt's verses in Not Over. Anyways, I'm gonna go with an 8 (maybe 8.5?) on her album. I was a little disappointed that it lacked a great slow R&B song. Her debut album, ARIA, had plenty. Still a hot album though. May J's new album surprised me in a bad way. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't suck, but I was expecting the same quality as her "All My Girls" mini-album. Instead, only about half the album are new tracks, and many of the new tracks are a little poppy sounding for my tastes. I will say that I enjoyed the remixes on the album and some of the new tracks. By the way, if you haven't checked out May J's single for Do Tha' Do Tha', then do it! Bach Logic produces some remix hotness on there. He even throws in Anty the Kunoichi (I think it's her lol) on the remix. The other track on the single is pretty good too. Both Aria and May J's albums can be found at JpopnKpop.

There's a ton of cover albums about, because it's that time of the year. Yamamoto Ryohei (M-Flo collab fame) has released Cavaca 2, where he does pop/dance versions of many american songs. I will say he always chooses interesting songs lol. Check out his version of Linkin Park's Numb. I think I like it better than the original! lol. Satomi', whom I talked about last post, released her new cover mini-album thing. It's a cover of J-Pop this time, with songs from Yaida Hitomi, L'arc~en~ciel, and Hirai Ken. Her version of Darlin' Darlin' (by Yaida Hitomi) is better than the original in my opinion (the original is too f'n annoying and Meilin's was just as bad!) but still ain't awesome. Coma-Chi makes it a lot better, but the PV doesn't have Coma-Chi in it! WTF!? Anyways, the album is okay, nothing spectacular. Satomi, in my opinion, lacks the voice to really pull off good covers. There's a couple songs I felt like she was trying to hard to sing in the original artist's key, and not in her own. I'm planning to check out Shimatani Hitomi's cover album because I like her voice and she's hot, despite being as far from urban as musically possible lol. Oh well, if it's any good I'll tell you guys. All those cover albums can be grabbed at the infamous JpopSuki torrent site, while you can also get Satomi's cover album on JpopnKpop.

Ai's new album is out. It's not bad. I'm not a big fan of Ai's voice, so I'm a little biased. She's got a couple nice club tracks and a remix of Get Up with the Mario Bros. of Japanese Hip-Hop, Zeebra and Sphere! (Zeebra is the skinny tall one, Sphere is the short one with a funny face lol) Anyways, that track is especially hot. Also can be found at JpopnKpop.

Controlle has got a good quality version of Zeebra's Shinin' Like a Diamond PV if you're looking for that as well!

Oh yeah, a french guy on here hooked me up with the link to his SkyBlog. There's some pretty good stuff on there. Old school Shakkazombie and stuff. Anyways, check it out: http://satsuriku.skyrock.com/.

Okay, that's it for now. I'm going to watch this charity tennis match thing at my university later tonight. Pretty cool stuff. R&B singer Elliot Yamin is going to be there. I just recently picked up his christmas CD, but have yet to check it out. He has a great voice though. Anyways, thanks for visiting the Miyako, and enjoy The Rock City!

For Artist Info check my upload of Kreva's Shinjin Kreva wayy back in the day lol.

Album Info:
This is a Mix CD of Kreva's best instrumental works from before Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu. All the beats on the album were produced by Kreva.

My Thoughts:
When I first bought this in Tokyo, I didn't realize it was all instrumentals, but I wasn't disappointed when I found out though. This is a really hot CD to just put on and chill to, especially if you're concentrating on something like school work and you just want something to help the time go by or drown out other noise. Also, you can take any of these and spit or even sing to it if you'd like. You might not straight up take this and put it on your Mp3 Player or whatever, but there are many other ways to enjoy this album.

Ok so next post I'll go back to my normal album posting stuff. If Aria's new album isn't spammed all over every other download site I might put that up. If it is, well I'll just hook you guys up with links and upload something else. There's no reason to post up something that can be found in many other places most of the time.

Speaking of Aria, in "I'm hyped as hell" news, Aria's new album, The Jukebox, has a song featured Seeda!!! I can't imagine it being anything less than spectacular, but we'll see. You can find The Jukebox on JpopSuki if you are of the torrenting type lol, but if another site doesn't beat me to it, I'll upload it on Wed or Thurs. I'm still downloading it now, so I haven't checked it out yet. Aria's singles with Chozen Lee from Fireball, Hokt, and Big Ron are also on the album. It seems like this month is revenge of the urban female artists, I dunno.

On that topic, May J's new album is out I believe (or at least it is digitally). You can check it out at hmv.co.jp (she's on the main page last time I checked). I haven't listened to the clips yet, but I plan to pretty soon. Damn work always getting in the way!

Ok so, both the Nanas have new stuff out. Tanimura Nana has a nice new song called Say Goodbye. The song has a great urban feel to it, I highly recommend it! I wasn't even following her music until this single, because it's just THAT good. It helps that she's pretty hot in a girl-next-door kind of way too. The rapper in the song sounds like one of the guys from Uptown (K-Hip-Hop). Her performance on CDTV of the song was what got me into it. Good stuff. NaNa (notably from the album version of Zeebra's Slow Down) has got a new song out called Show Girl. Really hot beat. Hopefully she'll stick to that style. I'm been following her stuff since Slow Down, and Show Girl is the first song I've really liked from her besides the Zeebra collab. I don't know, the hook could be better, but I won't complain too much. Still worth listening to. Both Nana's videos can be found at Controlle's Site.

Speaking of the man with the kashiramoji Z, he has just released a video for Shinin Like a Diamond. I was hoping he'd do it because it's a hot song and my boy Sphere needs some TV time! lol. I would say May J needs it to, but she's on the verge of being everywhere now(and so she deserves!) Anyways, despite the video being part snicker comercial, part PV, it was pretty tight. The beginning is hilarious. It's nice to see Zeebra doing some comedy stuff every once in a while, since he's naturally so tall and intimidating lol. Normally I'm not in to May J for her looks (she's a lil too white for me, sorry), but she looked HOT in the video. Like, whoa. Sphere just happened to look like Sean Paul in some parts lol (ah gots deh riddim!) with his new hairstyle and outfit. And yes, May J is way taller than Sphere lol. Anyways, I couldn't find a downloadable (<-- not a word) version of the video yet, but Controlle has a link to view it: Shinin Like a Diamond Article. Oh yeah, just in case you didn't know, Shinin was produced by none other than DJ Hasebe! Too bad Zeebra didn't say "DJ Hase-be-be" like he usually does lol.

Let's see...Rickie G, who has worked with the likes of Jay'ed and Ya-Kyim, has a solo song out called Love Soul. Put it plainly, it's a great song, no matter what you're into. It's definitely got a laid-back kind of island flair to it. It's hard to describe. Anyways, his voice fits the song perfectly and the hook is really great. It's one of those sit back and smell the flowers kind of songs, because 毎日がさいこう！I really like his voice, and I hope he continues to put out good stuff. Once again, the video can be found at Controlle's site.

Homemade Kazoku has a new collab with Flow, which is pretty random, but it turned out really well. I liked Flow's song earlier this year, Answer, so I was excited to see the two groups come together. Check it out if you're into the Kazoku or edgey alternative rock stuff. The video and the single of the song can be found at JpopnKpop.

Crystal Kay has a new mini-album out which I have yet to check out, and Ai's new upcoming album has a remix of Get Up featuring Sphere and Zeebra. I don't really like Ai's material, but I'm looking forward to that. Oh yeah! Satomi has a new song out, but for some blasphemous reason the PV is missing Coma-Chi's rap. I refuse to listen to the song without Coma-Chi, so I'm still hunting for the version with her in it.

Anyways, that's it for now. Hope you enjoy the Kreva album. 体にピース！

Compilation Comments:
I threw this comp. together from a group of about 40 Christmas songs I had laying around my computer. A lot of this stuff is not the normal type of music you find up here, and some of these artists I don't normally follow, but once a year it's nice to get ya ears off all that hardcore and listen to some nice feel-good Christmas music, and what better way to celebrate than the Japanese way? So, since I can't upload Christmas Cake for you guys, I figured this would be just as good. The comp. has some great R&B style Christmas songs (I Believe, Our Christmas, Sounds of Snow) with a little pop/rock (We Are, Hurry Xmas, Angel Song) and some random dance/pop to keep everybody happy( This Christmas, So Merry Christmas, Winter Story). Unfortunately, the only Japanese Christmas Hip-Hop I could find was a random song by Yamadaman and Kick the Can Crew's Christmas Eve Rap, neither of which I'm too fond of. Enjoy! If anybody has some mp3s to add, that would be awesome!

Next!

Compilation Comments:
Bear Rock asked for me to hook him up with some instrumentals, so here it is. I didn't have any DJ Watarai, but I just pieced a bunch of pretty good ones together. Big props go to Waso from JpopMusic forums, many of these were in a compilation he put together a while back. Most of these are pretty hot instrumentals to rhyme to, if you're so inclined to do so. I know I've even tried to spit a few bars on the instrumental to Street Dreams lol. Anyways, if you guys are looking for more, I could throw another one together in the near the future. Plus I'll be upping the Kreva instrumental non-stop mix album tomorrow.

Well, I was planning to post up Kreva's Instrumental Mix album tonight, but I'm pretty tired and I think I'm going to call it quits. I had to wait in line at 7:00 in the morning to get a Wii earlier, so my energy is waning fast. It was worth it though, I got one! I also got a good amount of Christmas shopping done for my mom, so things turned out pretty well. Expect that Kreva album tomorrow. In random news, I watched this Korean movie called City of Violence earlier and it was tight. I think I'm going to rename the movie Baby Vox, because it's Korean and hot as a bitch lol. Thank goodness it's not broke up like them! Imagine Kill Bill with guys and Tae Kwon Do. Anyways, Kreva's Nonstop Mix album tomorrow, and more info on the latest music junk. Thanks for visiting the Miyako!

Note: The heathen that orignally ripped this thing spelled Doberman Inc on tracks 11 and 12 as "Dorberman Ink," and I was too lazy to fix it.

Artist Info:
Jay'ed is a soft spoken R&B from Osaka. Born in 1981 to multi-racial parents (from Polynesia, New Zealand, and Japanese origins), Jay'ed sings in both Japanese and English like no other. He has worked with many different artists, including I-Dea, Jamosa, Dabo, Twigy, Equal, and others, but he usually does collaborations with other people from Osaka, like Doberman Inc, Norisiam-X, and Bach Logic. He started his solo career in 2005 with singles for "Why" and "Pop Them Bottles."

Album Info:
The Gift is a compilation of Jay'ed's many collaboration with others and his own solo tracks. Many tracks on this album have been featured on other albums. The album, released in 2006, had two singles come off of it, "Why" and "Pop Them Bottles." Fly Away was also released, but not in correspondence to this album.

My Thoughts:
Jay'ed is my male Yoshika. His style of music is way different than Yoshika, but both of them have soft, beautiful voices that I can't get enough of. Jay'ed is one of the best voices in Japanese R&B, but lack of promotion and focus on his solo career has led to mediocre album sales. I love just about every song he's ever done, and it's sad he hasn't released a full solo album yet. If you enjoy great R&B, you'll love this album. Fly Away, If I..., We Got It All, and Jam Session were all released on other artist's albums, but having all four Jay'ed collabos on this album is great, because all four songs are great. Movin' On, Just Let Me Know, Sayonara, and Shining Star are also good tracks that are (to my knowledge) exclusive to The Gift. I even liked Oh Na Na, the interlude on the album. Nearly the whole album is wonderful, so even if you aren't really familiar with this guy, if you're into grown sexy R&B, I highly recommend this.

Man, it's been a minute. Sorry about the two week hiatus. Thanksgiving is a rough time for me. I end up working my ass off at work, and then come home just to put random furniture together and clean lol. It was kind of hard just keeping up with my articles of Nihon Watch. By the way, (shameless self promotion:) If you haven't checked out Nihon Watch, and you're into Japanese stuff (which you must be if you're here) then check it out! It's got lots of nice articles about everything you'd ever want to know about Japan, including Japanese urban culture, which is done by yours truly! Ok, now...on to music news!

Alright. I know I've talked about korean girl group Tenjochiki before, so I want to inform everyone that their new album, Graceful 4, is out! It's their debut album in Japan. If you're into Foxxi MisQ, I highly recommend Tenjochiki, because their music is very similar (they just aren't as hot -- I'm sorry). The album is so similar to Foxxi's Gloss, that you might experience deja vu lol. It even has a random ass Corn Head collab lol. Seamo just happen to make an appearance in the album too, as well as one of the members of the male Tenjochiki, Tohoshinki. The album isn't as good as Gloss in my opinion, but it's definitely worth checking out if you need something to subside your hunger for a new Foxxi release (like myself). Oh and yes, the whole album IS in Japanese, just in case you were wondering. You can download it at JpopnKpop, along with most of the other music news I'll be talking about pretty much lol. I'm literally using that site to do music news lol. Anyways -- 次！

Let's see, May J and Twenty 4-7 have new singles out. I've talked about May J's Do Tha' Do Tha' already, so I'll just say it's pretty hot. "Hard Rock Candy!" lol. I'm not really feeling twenty 4-7's new song, but I have yet to check out the single. Their single for Fly Out was nothing but hotness, so I have high hopes for the other tracks on the single. May J's new album is coming out early next month, and I'm pretty hyped about it. If it's anything like her My Girls minialbum, it will be 100% hotness. So far her singles, with the exception of Dear.., have been really hot to me. I might end up picking up that album after Xmas. I don't really want to spend the money until after then. I have faith that JpopnKpop will have the album up as soon as it comes out anyway lol. BoA, NaNa, Faith, and The Brilliant Green all have new songs out, but I haven't had time to fully check them out. I heard the BoA track is sexy though.

Remember when I talked about BoA and Tablo doing a commercial together for a phone company, and that I wished they would do a song together too? Well they did! The phone company AnyCall used their sheer financial power to put together AnyBand, consiting of BoA, Tablo, Xiah (random singer guy -- I dunno), and Bora (Jazz pianist). Well, I could live without the last two, but whatever. Anyways, they have a single called Talk, Play Love, which is so much an advertisement for AnyCall that it's kind of hard to truly appreciate, but the song is all and all pretty good. I heard Tablo wrote the song, which is makes me respect it a little bit more. Their single has another track that is mediocre at best, but that's probably because Tablo didn't write it! lol. Actually I don't know who wrote it really. There's even a video for the song, which combines both songs from their single. The video is nine minutes long and has a really random story and Tablo dressed up as a K-rocker (wtf?). Anyways, if you want to check it out, hit up SoundResque, a nice K-music LJ to download just about anything korean from, you just have to be a member of LJ and join their community (it takes a whole 3 seconds, stop being lazy!) Anyways, they've got the single and the video up there for your downloading pleasure.

What else? Uh Ryo the Skywalker (reggae dude) just came out with a new album, I downloaded it, but have yet to check it out. I'll put up what I think after I check it out. Minmi's got some love song collection out too, but I'll check that out later as well. Ai's new single is out and has a hot Sphere of Influence collab on it. Get it at JpopnKpop too!

Oh yeah! Big news! Ne-Yo just released a version of his song, Do You, with Utada Hikaru in it. She's coming back to us, back to R&B!!! lol. Anyways, the song was originally done with Mary J Blige. The song was released as a digital single, but I'm not exactly sure whether it was released in the US or Japan (the Japanese love them some Ne-Yo, there's no telling). I'll check on that. The cover for the single says "feat. Utada" which is was her moniker on her ill-reviewed American album (which I thought was total hotness). If you haven't checked out Exodus, Utada's american CD, i'd recommend doing so. You could probably buy it for 50 cents by now lol. Anyways, Timbaland produced a lot of the album, and it shows. There's a little too much asian stereotypical lyrics in it for me, but all in all the album is hot if you're into R&B/Pop.

Blah, I know I forgot a ton of stuff, but I'll call it quits for now. KingT has Uzi on his LJ, download it right not, or the UBG will jump you! lol. I haven't even had time to check it out yet -_-;. Anyways, enjoy Jay'ed and prepare yourself for my hand-chosen Japanese christmas compilation next time around. Thanks for visiting the Miyako!

For artist info, check out my upload of Seeda's Hana to Ame.

Album Info:
Machikaze is Seeda's first major debut album. This just came out 10/17 of this year. So far the only PV release is of Mic Story. Seeda worked with a ton of different producers on this one including Bach Logic, DJ Watarai, I-Dea, Starwax, Focis, and Kreva. All of the mp3s have the producer information on it (it shows when played in Windows Media Player).

My Thoughts:
I was extremely hyped for this album because Hana to Ame (Seeda's last album) is one of my favorite albums I own, but I wasn't really feeling this one like I was Hana to Ame. Part of it is that Bach Logic produced every track on Hana to Ame, and he produced less than half of this album. However, the ones he did produce, Flip Dat, Bad Tripy, Machikaze, and Mata Futeishokusha, are pretty hot. I like that Seeda worked with many different producers this time around, but for me, it just didn't turn out as good. I was surprised to see that DJ Watarai produced Mic Story (sounded like I-Dea to me). I-Dea produced Dick Rider and Music, two songs I weren't really feeling. Technic, produced and featuring Kreva, is crazy hot, especially in the beginning where he mixes in lines from Kreva's The Show and Seeda's Adrenalin where they both say "Ore wa ore." The song is hot, but it sounds so Kreva-ish (lol) that it almost doesn't sound like it should be on the album. I'm glad it is though! Both Seeda and Kreva spit fire on that track. Flip Dat is an undeniably hot track. Kemuridama has a kind of 51 -Goichi- feel to it to me, just because he spits on old school Japanese style beats a lot. Is it just me, or was the beat for No Pain, No Gain stolen from DJ Deckstream's Deckstream Soundtracks? Still hot though. We Be Smooth is a nice treat with the never disappointing L-Vokal and Luna. Mata Futeishokusha isn't as good as the original to me, but it's still worth listening to if you liked the original from Hana to Ame. In general, if you are looking for something to listen to between Zeebra and NMU's hot new releases, I would totally recommend checking this out. Seeda can rhyme with the best of em, and this album, in general, has some solid production.

Seems like Seeda calmed down with all the cussing in English this time around, I kind of miss it. "Standing on my own two, I'm a bad mother fucka." lol

Let's see, Music News. SoulJa's Spirits, probably the most over-hyped album ever, released last week. My Nihon Watch article was about it. So I decided to go on HMV and listen to clips of all the songs. Shitty! I'm sorry. I didn't even like Koko ni Iru yo. That dude sounds crappy on the mic no matter if he's singing or rapping. Anyways, I'm thinking about doing my Nihon Watch article on NMU's new album and their new Nikes if I can find some good info on it.

Speaking of NMU, KingT posted up their new album, Special Force. Check it out! If you liked their other albums you'll love the new one. I enjoyed it more than their older releases. Plus there's a new track produced and featuring the man, the myth, the legend: Kashi da Handsome! If you haven't checked out KingT's blog by now, you're missing out on some pretty good stuff. For some reason listening to Special Force made me want to bring back Dabo's old track, Lexus Gucci lol. "Hey Hey!"

If you haven't noticed, Machikaze is uploaded on zShare. Mediafire deleted my upload of Soul Tree yesterday. So it lasted 5 DAYS before they deleted it. Bastards. So I'm officially switching to zShare for now. If anybody has problems with zShare, please tell me. I'll be glad to upload it to a different server. That's about all the rambling I have for now. Enjoy Machikaze and 体にピース！

Album Info:
Soul Tree is a tribute to R&B innovator and legend, Kubota Toshinobu. He's been topping the charts with his soulful voice and catchy lyrics since the mid 80s, and is still pumping out the hits. His latest single was MAGIC with Kreva.

My Thoughts:
It's great to hear some of Toshi's hits redone, remixed, and sung by other artists, especially because you can almost guarantee that if Toshi sung it, then it was a damn good song. I was especially hyped about some of the really old but awesome tracks, like Ryusei no Saddle and You Were Mine, because they are so old the sound quality isn't too good lol. The artists generally rep Toshi pretty well on this album, but there's a few I could have lived without. I'm personally kind of disappointed that Zeebra didn't show up on this album, since he's been very verbal about his respect for Toshi. I was especially impressed by Soulhead's rock version of Ryusei no Saddle, BoA's dance/pop version of La La La Love Song, Gospellers' version of Dance If You Want It, and Kumi's Yume with You. However I was extremely disappointed by Sowelu's Candy Rain. Candy Rain is my absolute favorite Toshi song, and is how I got into him. Sowelu's voice is kind of annoying and the arrangement is all wrong. They slowed the song down too much I think. It's still a decent song, but it's nowhere near as good as the original. There's a couple songs I feel like are a little too goofy sounding in parts to really take it seriously (Ta Wa Wa Hit Parade and You Were Mine). My other problem with You Were Mine is that Shiina Junpei can't really sing that well. Once again, the original is way better. It's hard to top Toshi's version of most of these songs, but still the album in general has some great R&B tracks, whether you are a fan of Toshi or not.

I gotta keep my ramblings short and sweet today, I have to go back in to work to help them roll out all the Holiday stuff. Anyways, I got listening to Toshi probably about four years ago after Candy Rain was the theme song for one of my all-time favorite dramas, Suiyobi no Jooji (Wednesday Love Affair). Good stuff.

I know I've talked about MitsuiSelphie's big project that I am a part of earlier, but I'm pretty sure I didn't elaborate too much. Anyways, it's called Nihon Watch and it's pretty much a magazine style website where everyday of the week a different person has a particular topic to post about. Yours truly is the Japanese Urban Culture correspondent and my designated day is Wednesday. That's today! So my first official article was today, so I decided to write about SoulJa's major debut album, Spirits, which just happens to also come out today. Check it out! The official launch for the website isn't until next week, so you are getting some cho-exclusive stuff right here! lol Check it out: Nihon Watch!

Anyways, that's all I got time for now. Remember to keep it real and all that good stuff lol. Thanks for checking out the Miyako. Peace!

Addiction (Korean)
Bad Drive
Do You Love Me (Korean)
Girls on Top (Korean)
Hey Girl, Hey Boy (Seamo feat. BoA)
Holiday (Palm Drive feat. BoA and Zeebra)
La La La Love Song (feat. Soul'd Out)
Lady Galaxy
Midnight Parade
My Name (Korean)
Prayer
Revolution Code 1986-2006 (feat. Rah-D)
Some Day, One Day (feat. Verbal)

Download
(Re-upped 9/9/08)