Ikuzo Yoshi -- NDA! [んだ！]

No, I did not misspell the song title, nor is it an acronym for something else. NDA! is an exclamation similar to "Whoa, really?!" brought to you by the quirky, husky-voiced Enka singer Ikuzo Yoshi (吉幾三). Although I had never heard of this sort of exclamation before, I've grown to like it and it's quite appropriate for the song as a whole, which I would touch on in a while.

Moving on, NDA! seems to be more like the sequel to his earlier Rap-Enka fusion 'Ora Tokyo sa igu da' (俺ら東京さ行ぐだ) since it revolves around this fellow, most likely from the boondocks, narrating his experiences during his first ever trip to the bustling metropolitan known as Tokyo. And since he was only a teenager then (before they had pandas in the Ueno zoo), there's this element of wonder and bewilderment as he explores the different parts of the city be it classy or gritty, which is conveyed well by the bongos behind the narration in the middle of the somewhat Caribbean-themed music. The constant "NDA!s" in the background just adds to the character's - I'm quite sure it's Yoshi himself - growing fascination.

(cover version)

YES, I got the full version of the original song! (Edited about an hour after posting this article)
(Actually not anymore since music163 was rendered inoperable. However, there is the YouTube video above to enjoy --- J-Canuck)

Anyway, NDA! was released as the singer's 52nd single in October 2008 and was written and composed by Yoshi himself, which would probably explain why there are some strange words mixed into the lyrics. Interestingly, those are from his native Tsugaru dialect... Tsugaru is a region in the Aomori prefecture at the northern most tip of Honshu, and Yoshi's hometown of Kanagimachi (金木町) is somewhere in there. I only discovered that while flipping through that lyric book thing you get along with the album - Zenkyoku shu ~ NDA! [んだ！] ~.

Gotta love that Yoshi face!

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