Night Tempo and Takashi Hosokawa -- Kita Sakaba（北酒場）

 

I'd like to acknowledge and once again give my thanks for this lovely keychain with a younger Takashi Hosokawa's（細川たかし）handsome visage sent by our KKP co-administrator and enka/Mood Kayo expert Noelle Tham. It has made for a good conversational piece all these years.

As I mentioned in my previous article regarding Junko Yagami（八神純子）, tonight's episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）had the theme of successful kayo in other countries such as America and South Korea. Of course, Japanese City Pop has been one major factor in this flourishing and appreciation of kayo kyoku beyond the nation's shores. However, even before Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Plastic Love" exploded on YouTube a few years ago, there was also the phenomena of Vaporwave and Future Funk which often kneaded and manipulated some of those urban contemporary tunes in Japan. So names such as Jung Bae and Saint Pepsi as some of the driving forces also became familiar to me while we were all working on our articles on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in the 2010s.

One other name I've seen is Night Tempo who, according to Everybody Wiki, has been around since 2015 making his brand of Future Funk in his native South Korea. The above is one of his earlier creations, "Moonlight Tokyo Bay". Night Tempo also made his appearance on "Uta Con" tonight as part of the episode's theme on kayo getting its due overseas, and much to my surprise, it hasn't just been the Japanese urban contemporary stuff of the 1980s that has been his paint and canvas. 

In fact, the lad has come up with his "Showa Groove" series of overall kayo kyoku given some beats and twists. And the example that he showed tonight on "Uta Con" was his take on Takashi Hosokawa's big hit "Kita Sakaba". I was especially happy with this one because "Kita Sakaba" just happens to be one of the first kayo kyoku that slid me into my mania for the Showa Era music in the first place starting from the 1980s, and it became one of my go-to songs at karaoke.

Hosokawa appeared with Night Tempo to perform this newer version of "Kita Sakaba" along with a group of Bubble Era dancers in what looked to be a cabaret club in Tokyo. Just the place for it! If you like, you can take a gander at some of his other creations on YouTube.