SOUL'd OUT -- To All Tha Dreamers

 

When it comes to an average neighbourhood anywhere in Japan, if you threw a rock anywhere there, you would have a better-than-even chance of hitting (besides a commuter): a) a karaoke box, b) a McDonalds, c) a café (franchise or independent) or d) a patisserie. Considering that three of the four choices have rather tasty fare, Japan is quite the foodie nation. 

Patisseries, bakeries or bread shops...whatever you like to call them, when I was living there, I would always get some wonderful stuff whether it was the one near my school or the place right under my subway station. And it was there that I first came across the wonderful Bacon Epi. I'd had never had it before in Toronto, but it is a bread roll with bits of bacon in there and it's one of my most favourite things. I've heard that some bakers even put a drop of bacon grease into rolls just before they go into the oven, and that's all she wrote. Sold out! But getting back to the Bacon Epi, just one speck of deep-fried pork in the dough makes all the difference...the aroma, the umami and the flavour just spreads out and punches that bread into heaven.

Anyways before I end up salivating onto my desk, I will segue into the 2004 anime adaptation of the manga "Yakitate!! Japan"（焼きたて!!ジャぱん...Freshly Baked!! Ja-pan） which is all about a young man with ambitions of creating a national bread for Japan. Even the brief scene above has me swooning over the various types of bread there are all over the planet.

Not quite sure how a disco-influenced ending credit sequence fit into an anime about breadmaking, but hey, it's anime. Anyways, the second ending theme for "Yakitate!! Japan" was "To All Tha Dreamers" by the hip-hop/pop group SOUL'd OUT. Written and composed by the group, yup, I got the usual distinctive vocals of Diggy-MO' with some of the good ol' disco. Being their 8th single released on New Year's Day 2005, it was also the title track for their second album that came out a month later. Both single and album did well on the charts with the former breaking into the Top 10 at No. 7 and the latter reaching No. 2 (it eventually became the 56th-ranked album for 2005).

I don't know who's behind the female vocals and chorus for this remix version but my accolades go to them. I'm also tempted to jump onto the disco floor!

SOUL'd OUT -- Tokyo Tsushin ~ Urbs Communication（TOKYO通信〜Urbs Communication〜）

 

Ah, yes. The Times Square bridge in South Shinjuku. Used to traverse this going from Tokyu Hands to Kinokuniya Bookstore. I kinda wonder how Takashimaya Times Square has been doing all these years considering all of the changes in their neighbourhood.

In any case, a good Monday to you. Not being a huge rap fan, admittedly I don't have a lot of SOUL'd OUT articles on KKP...only ones that I thought were especially interesting for Diggy-MO' really tripping the light fantastic, vocally speaking. However, I have just discovered the group's 11th single from February 2006, "Tokyo Tsushin ~ Urbs Communication" (Tokyo Communication), and I think it's about as close as they've ever gotten to a pop tune, but of course, with the rapping still intact.

Yup, it's pretty catchy and apparently it was used as the theme for something called "Tokai ni Sumu Hito-tachi no Communication"（都会に住む人たちのコミュニケーション...Urban Residents' Communication）. I tried punching that into the search engines but I got bupkis. Maybe it was a television show or huge event on intra-urban communication as the title of the song hints at. "Tokyo Tsushin" managed to peak at No. 13 on Oricon, going Gold. It is also a track on SOUL'd OUT's 3rd album "Alive" from March 2006. It also went Gold, hitting No. 3.

Heartsdales feat. SOUL'd OUT -- Candy Pop

 

Happy Mother's Day! I hope that all mothers out there are enjoying the special Sunday. We took Mom out for an early breakfast at a local diner that we hadn't entered in over two years, so it was great to have those pancakes, sausages and eggs once more. Plus, the owner recognized us on sight which was very reassuring.

It's not even noon yet and already my pop culture stomach has been getting as full as my real one is right now. Some of my family will be catching "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" later today (and I'll be catching it pretty soon myself), the fourteenth Doctor Who has just finally been announced (my congratulations to Ncuti Gatwa...I've never heard of him but then again, I hadn't heard of Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant or Matt Smith before they got the job as Time Lord), and the currently running Season 3 of "Kaguya-sama: Love Is War" basically lit their corner of YouTube on fire due to a rap sequence with a couple of the main characters in Episode 5. Had no idea that Chika could swear like a sailor!

Ah, rap. It's not a genre that I know particularly well but on seeing Miyuki and Chika rapping away in the park there had me thinking back to the early 2000s when rap and hip-hop were really making their presence known in Japan. So, in the KKP backlog, I noticed that there was a video involving a couple of acts that I used to hear about when I was living there at the turn of the century, but hadn't realized that the two of them had worked together.

But in September 2003, out came a single "Candy Pop" by Japanese-American hip-pop sister duo Heartsdales with help from hip-hop group SOUL'd OUT who I've remembered all these years because of Diggy-MO's distinct voice. Listening to the song, I have definitely received a lot of those m-flo vibes and sure enough, according to the JASRAC database, Verbal from that group was helping out on the lyrics along with SOUL'd OUT and Jewels, one-half of Heartsdales. SOUL'd OUT took care of the composing work.

I can't even say that I'm a hip-pop fan although I ought to give some of Namie Amuro's（安室奈美恵）post-2000 songs a chance. However, "Candy Pop" is pretty darn catchy; the title says it right there, it's got a lot more on the pop side despite the rap patter, and happily enough, it fits the lovely weather outside: sunny and refreshingly cool.

SOUL'd OUT-- Tongue Te Tongue

Amazon.jp

When it came to the genre of J-R&B, I was more for the soul/funk end of things such as with Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Misia. I wasn't ever a huge fan of hip-hop or rap. But now and then, a few songs from that part of music did reach me, one of them being SOUL'd OUT's "Tongue Te Tongue".

Part of the reason was that Main MC Diggy-MO's vocals struck me as being very interesting to listen to. The other was that catchy refrain including the title that sounds borderline obscene. However, after looking at the lyrics by Diggy-MO and fellow member Bro. Hi, I'm not quite sure what the lyrics are all about. Still, the music by Diggy-MO and other member Shinnosuke is fairly earworm-y.

"Tongue Te Tongue" was SOUL'd OUT's 16th single from October 2007. It peaked at No. 10 and was a track on the group's 4th album "Attitude" from January 2008. It got as high as No. 7 on Oricon. I believe there was a music video with the song but I haven't been able to find it on YouTube.

The group had its run starting from 1999 before disbanding in 2014. They had a total of 20 singles excluding digital downloads and 6 albums.

m-flo loves EMYLI & Diggy Mo' -- DOPAMINE

Well, talk about the expression "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade!" In 2002, smooth-voiced Lisa of m-flo left the group but remaining members Verbal and ☆Taku stayed cool and started a series labeled "m-flo loves who?" from the following year in which a rolling series of guest vocalists would give their own contributions to the oft-sunny hip-pop of the unit. To be honest, though, I'd only known one example of this series before I bought their 2nd BEST album, "Award SuperNova - Loves Best-" in 2008, and that was m-flo loves Bonnie Pink, "Love Song".

One day in my sweltering apartment, I was watching one of the cable music video channels, Space Shower, and it was playing a spotlight show of m-flo hits. The various videos were pretty fun and despite that I have never been a hardcore hip-hop fan, I liked m-flo's lighter touch to the genre. And what sent me over the edge to buy "Award SuperNova", their BEST album of "m-flo loves who?" was when the commercial for this album popped up right after the spotlight. I just went "Why not?" and the next time I hit one of the CD shops, I pulled out the yen. Snazzy cover.

"Award SuperNova" has the audio CD and a DVD filled with all of the "m-flo loves who?" videos with singers as varied as Crystal Kay and veteran singer Akiko Wada（和田アキ子）. Strangely enough, the one video which didn't have its audio equivalent on the CD was the one for "DOPAMINE", m-flo's 18th single from February 2005. I had seen the video on that spotlight show and just thought the song would have been the first hip-hop number suited as the theme song for a comedy-variety show. (And I guess it is the first Japanese pop song named after a neurotransmitter.) Bright and day-glo colourful and infectious with Verbal flying about in anti-gravity and then-teenaged EMYLI shaking her booty, it was a hap(py)-hop song at the Apple Store! Heck, even Diggy Mo' from hip-hop band SOUL'd OUT came across as being fairly cuddly considering that he looked like a fellow who could twist me into a sizable pretzel if I stared at him the wrong way.

Although the influence doesn't show up as prominently in the video, "DOPAMINE" sampled "The 900 Number" by 45 King. It peaked at No. 20 on Oricon. As for "Award SuperNova", it hit the top spot and eventually became the 62nd-ranked album for 2008.