Yomeiriland & PR0P0SE -- Shiawase ni Narou yo（しあわせになろうよ）

 

In the last few days, the YouTube video that I've been stuck on is the one for the fun funk fest "Hip Hop Lollipop" by Bootsy Collins featuring German hip-hop artist Fantaazma, and you can read about it "Rolling Stone". Fantaazma strikes me as being a combination of a really bright-eyed Cyndi Lauper and Nina Hagen.

But that song that I've been playing on repeat for the last little while reminded me of another funky party in the form of "Space Dandy" （スペース☆ダンディ）, the special ending theme for the amazing titular anime with the soundtrack to match. Over there, we had hip-hop MC ZEN-LA-ROCK and the all-female rap group Yomeiriland（嫁入りランド）whipping up listeners into a froth over their favourite sci-fi pompadour-wearing hero of the cosmos.

Listening to "Space Dandy" again, I then got curious about Yomeiriland since up to now, it's just been that particular song that has them represented here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". So I tried to look them up online but there is precious little information although I could find a "Vice" article on them in English from over half a decade ago which describes the three members as DJs who have been around since at least the early 2010s. Known as Mechummmm, Uuuuukakaka and Mieuxxx, they've apparently placed their rap on various music sub-genres, and the reason that the article exists was that Yomeiriland did a noteworthy cover of Novelist and Mumdance’s "Take Time", a song representing grime music which is new to me.

But the song that I'd like to feature here today is "Shiawase ni Narou yo" (Let's Get Happy) that has Yomeiriland and another duo by the name of PR0P0SE overlaying their rap and beats over a cutting-a-rug Big Band jazz melody along with other bloops and bleeps. The song came out in 2013 and everyone sounds as if they were indeed having a party in the recording booth. As for PR0P0SE, according to an interview, they consist of Onomatope Daijin（オノマトペ大臣...The Minister of Onomatopoeia）, who's worked with tofubeats, and trackmaker Thamesbeat who went to university with tofubeats.