m-flo -- How You Like Me Now

m-flo loves....rotational cameras (inside joke).

Anyways, although I cannot say that I'm really all that deep into J-R&B, I've had my eye off and on over the years on the unit called m-flo. I think the one reason for that is, despite all of the hip-hop and rap, the guys have also touched some of the older R&B tropes from a few decades ago to create their catchy music.

The two current members of m-flo, Verbal and ☆Taku (Takahashi), met up when they were students at St. Mary's International School in Tokyo and organized dance parties as members of the group N.M.D. Some years later, once the two of them got their post-secondary education in the United States, they got together again and created their first single, their version of "The Way We Were", the old Barbra Streisand chestnut in 1998. Then they invited Elizabeth Sakura Narita, better known as Lisa, and together they gave rise to the cool and groovy "Been So Long". As for the group's name, m-flo is an abbreviation of Mediarite-Flow with that first word a re-spelling of "meteorite".

"How You Like Me Now" is m-flo's 10th single released in September 2000 with the group being behind its creation. The rap and the gestures are all in the video, but what got me to like the song and eventually buy the single was just the sunny nature of it all and Lisa's velvety singing vocals. Plus, she and the gang just throw out all of the J-pop cultural references such as anime "Doraemon", the Sunday-afternoon show, "Shoten", and kaiten sushi. And of course, there is that kaleidoscopic video. I can't blame the cameraman for falling over in the last frame. Bring the bucket, please!

The song managed to get as high as No. 9 on Oricon. Thanks to "How You Like Me Now", I started to look up some of the other entries in their discography, notably those that have gone into one of their BEST albums, "Award SuperNova - Loves Best" which came out in 2008. "How You Like Me Now" first got onto m-flo's 2nd album, "Expo Expo" in 2001.

M-Flo -- How You Like Me Now?