Maki Kanzaki -- Mou Heiki（もう平気）

 

I'm introducing another new face onto the blog and her name is Maki Kanzaki（神崎まき）. One point in her J-Wiki biography that got my attention immediately was the detail that during her time in America, the 22-year-old Kanzaki was one of the dancers in Janet Jackson's famous 1989 "Rhythm Nation" video. That point was also made at the "Anime News Network" and the Transformers Wiki under her other stage name of Mickey-T.

Kanzaki could be the dancer to the left of Jackson from the audience's point of view but I'm not sure. Maybe the more eagle-eyed among you can track her down after taking a look at her visage in the thumbnail below.

The Tokyo-born singer-songwriter had been active even earlier in her high school years by performing in a band around the Roppongi club circuit before going to the United States for a few years. But on returning to Japan in 1992, she released her first single "Arbeit Days"（アルバイト・デイズ...Part-time Days）. This particular song, though, is "Mou Heiki" (It's Alright Now), a track from her debut album "Niji no Fumoto e"（虹のふもとへ...To The Foot of the Rainbow） released in May of that year.

A song that hovers over the line between pop and 90s City Pop, the lyrics by Hiroshi Yamada（山田ひろし）relate the tale of a young woman struggling and then finally getting over a recently broken-up romance and making the strides to recovery. Meanwhile the melody was provided by Ken Yokoyama（横山剣）of Crazy Ken Band, and there's even a bit of Motown injected into the arrangement. Kanzaki's vocals struck me as being slightly less stratospheric than the similar vocals of one Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香美）who was also making her way through the music industry at the same time.

In addition to her six singles and four studio albums along with her live work, Kanzaki has helped out as backing chorus for other acts including Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）, Ken Hirai（平井堅）and TRF. As I also mentioned above, she has gone under the name Mickey-T to provide songs for a few tokusatsu and anime franchises such as "The Transformers".