AKEMI -- Keep On Dream

by Basile Morin via Wikimedia Commons

Once again, I've come across another talented Japanese singer whom I've never heard about before despite having made her debut well more than thirty years ago. AKEMI doesn't even have a J-Wiki profile and it was through the good fortune of blogger kinuzure and his "Tamaranaku, AOR Kayo"（たまらなく、AOR歌謡） that I was able to find out anything about her. And this was an article that he had posted only a few months again in August.

First off, AKEMI hails from Fukuoka Prefecture and she got into the singing business thanks to being inspired by "We Are The World" in the mid-1980s. She made her debut in 1990 with an insert song in a drama. In the late 1990s, she went over to the United States to study performance and composing at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She's also taken up jazz and gospel as part of her repertoire. Currently working under the name AKEMI Lady-A, she is continuing to ply her trade in both Fukuoka and New York City.

According to kinuzure, the source album for this particular song is "Second Wind", her second album from 1991. "Keep On Dream" is a peppy pop song written by Kaoru Asagi（麻木かおる）, composed by Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）and arranged by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. It has a slight brush of R&B and hearing those percolating beats, I got that 1990s vibe immediately.