HAMBURGER BOYS -- Natto Kazoku（納豆家族）

 

On Saturday, Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and I recorded an episode devoted to Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）classic 1982 album "For You" which will probably be hitting his YouTube channel or his Mixcloud site sometime in the next few days. Not to give out any spoilers but I did make a disparaging remark about the Japanese food, natto, during taping which had me feeling slightly guilty since I know that almost all of my friends in Japan and millions more in the nation are fans of the famous fermented beans with that...fascinating...smell.

The interesting history with me and natto starts from the fact that I had never heard of the stuff when I was growing up. My parents never ate or mentioned it. From what I've heard as probably an overgeneralization is that folks in Western Japan (which is where my family is from) aren't natto fans while those in Eastern Japan can't live without a box of natto for breakfast as it's rushed out over hot rice and garnished with green onions and a dollop of mustard.

My reputation for disliking the slimy brown beans did get around in whatever environment I was in. During my time on the JET Programme in Gunma Prefecture when I had lunch with the kids in the classroom, they would be extremely happy. Not particularly because they were happy for me to be there but for the fact that they knew I hated natto and if it turned out that natto was on the menu, there would always be an extra pack for the kids to fight over. Then, when I was living all that time in the Tokyo area, a couple of my students even took me to a natto-themed restaurant to try to convince me that their favourite food was perfectly fine, although I always suspected that they really wanted to get a laugh at all of the faces I would make in sampling the stuff. Not surprisingly, despite being aware of all of the health benefits and its similarity in basic structure with other foods such as cheese and yogurt (which I do enjoy), I didn't become a natto convert. The owner of the restaurant most likely was convinced though that I would never be welcome in his establishment again. Of course, I have no prejudice against anyone else who loves natto, but natto and I will never become a match in gastronomic heaven.

However it did get me thinking, though. Was there a kayo about natto out there in YouTube land? I did a search and it didn't take long for me to find a song about the stuff, but it wasn't a kayo from the Showa Era. This was actually a recent J-Pop song.

To be specific, it's more of a hopping J-R&B tune that came about in 2015. HAMBURGER BOYS is a trio hailing from Hokkaido consisting of vocalist Yuta Yamada（山田雄太）from MEN☆SOUL, guitarist Jiro Tamura（田村次郎）, formerly of the group The Vox, and DJ Hidemi Kaneta（金田ヒデミ）who comes from the mixture rock band Raiko（雷鼓）. Based on what I've read on their website, HAMBURGER BOYS formed in 2012 in Sapporo and have been coming up with tunes of which a good number have connections with the various municipalities in their prefecture and some of them are food-themed.

"Natto Kazoku" (Natto Family) is obviously one such food-themed song by them that was a part of their 2nd album "Party Set 2" released in September 2015. Unlike me, Yamada, Tamura and Kaneta are all in for their natto right from the peeling off the cover from their packs, the tornadic stirring of the rice and the beans, and right up to the scooping of the mixture into their mouths (they even go into the nutritious benefits). Like them, however, I am all in for the cool funky beat and rap of the song. I may not be anywhere approaching a fan of the food but "Natto Kazoku" is certainly something that I can dig.