Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe feat. Joey McCoy -- Reiko

Last night, I got to hear Rocket Brown's latest podcast of "Come Along Radio" in tribute to Black History Month, and one new song that I heard was "Reiko" by the 1988 incarnation of Omega Tribe, known as Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe（カルロス・トシキ&オメガトライブ）.

The one thing that got to me immediately and was also noted by Rocket and his special guest, The Afrocentric Jukeboxx (I hope that I got the name right) was how much of Earth Wind & Fire's "Let's Groove" was in the intro. Anything EW&F has my undivided attention. The other thing about "Reiko", which was released in November 1988, is that it wasn't Toshiki behind the mike this time, but Joey McCoy who up until July of that year had been helping the band out on backing vocals until he was finally made an official part of Omega Tribe, according to the history of the band on J-Wiki. Furthermore, going back to the intro, the "bao, bao, bao" vocal effects reminded me of what would become the launch into "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and featuring Bruno Mars, one of my favourite recent songs.

"Reiko" has got a lot going for her with the dynamic horns and those classy strings which remind me of both the disco days and late 1980s City Pop. It rather mixes uptown and downtown nicely. The single was the 3rd under the band's name of Carlos Toshiki, with Chinfa Kan（康珍化）coming up with the Japanese lyrics while Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）& Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）composed the melody. Shinkawa and Jerry Hey also worked on arrangement, and of course, Hey is the horn man.

On the same day that the single came out, a 12-inch single with the English and Japanese versions was also released. With the English version (lyrics by Michael Mcfadden), the EW&F/"Uptown Funk" vocal effects were taken out there but then going deeper into the intro, an old Omega Tribe-esque sound came through because of Toshiki's background chorus. However, the "bao bao bao" could be heard briefly in the middle of the song before the arrangement of the original single popped up once more.

I like both versions but feel free to make your preferences. The original "Reiko" peaked at No. 15 on Oricon while the 12-inch single only hit as high as No. 78.