Kitajima Kyodai -- Kyodai Renga（兄弟連歌）

I caught the occasional episode of NHK's "Gogo Uta"（ごごウタ）this afternoon and saw a duo that I've been seeing a fair bit on the singing stages on the telly recently.

This would be Kitajima Kyodai（北島兄弟...The Kitajima Brothers） consisting of enka singers Yutaka Oe（大江裕）and Takeshi Kitayama（北山たけし）. Not only do both belong to Kitajima Music Office under the auspices of enka legend Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）, but the two of them were also apprentices under the master himself. And I just found out through J-Wiki that the older Kitayama got married to one of Kitajima's daughters about a decade ago.

With Oe celebrating his 10th year in show business and Kitayama celebrating his own 15th anniversary as an enka singer in 2019, the two of them got together and decided the previous year that they wanted to tour the country together. And so, the Kitajima Kyodai was formed with their first single, "Brother"（ブラザー）coming out in August 2018. The two of them even appeared with Kitajima himself during last year's Kohaku Utagassen to perform "Brother".

Well, a new single came out earlier in February, "Kyodai Renga" (Brotherly Poetry). With words and music by Toko Daichi（大地土子）, the two of them on today's episode of "Gogo Uta" even said that this jaunty enka about brotherly love was more on the pop side of things. Along with Kitajima Kyodai's smooth voices, I like the optimistic and breezy feeling that the song brings out. It could be a favourite among the karaoke set.

(short version)

I found out that Toko Daichi was the pseudonym for Makoto Ono（大野誠）, the second son of Kitajima who was a singer and songwriter in his own right. Tragically, he passed away in March 2018 at the age of 51.