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Miyazawa Kazufumi’s New Album “35” and Its Beautiful New Version of “Shima Uta”
Speaking of Oyakawa Haruka, here we find her on Miyazawa Kazufumi’s new album “35”, celebrating his 35th anniversary as a musician. Of course, no music of his is without heavy Okinawan music influences (he’s from Yamanashi in Japan), and this album showcases his sanshin talents and collaborations with HoRookies (the next generation BEGIN!) and Ryukyuan…
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HY’s Hit Song “366 Days” Becomes a J-Drama & Spawns Several Collaborations
Who would’ve thought? On the J-pop side, we’ve see Utada Hikaru’s hit song “First Love” become a J-drama and now, it’s HY‘s “366 Days” turn! The drama is currently airing on Fuji TV’s coveted 21:00 time slot and although it doesn’t have any Okinawan actors in it, it does have Maeda Gouki from “Chimudondon” and…
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We’re in Love with Kizuki Minami’s “Ranman”
The song “Ranman” from Amami-Oshima’s Kizuki Minami has been on our heavy rotation playlist for days now and it’s so awesome. The song is the title track from an album she released this year and while it treads more on the J-pop wave, there are a couple of shimauta tracks. Overall it’s an amazing release…
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Miura Daichi Participates in Sada Masashi Tribute Album
Released on 10/25 is the tribute album “Minna no Sada” to Japanese folk singer Sada Masashi and Miura Daichi is one of the artists featured on it! Daichi covers the song “Kaze in Tatsu Raion (The Lion Standing in the Wind)”. Speaking of new releases, Daichi announced that his next album, “OVER”, his first original…
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Our Voices Through Rapper Awich
If you’re a new reader of Karakui, you may think it’s mainly a blog about Awich (and YU-KA) because of how often we post about her. It’s just that this is how BIG she’s become and it’s very much deserved. Being a female rapper in Okinawa and Japan and becoming famous enough to command a…
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Nanaironote x i-Dushi
Perhaps one of the best YouTube channels around is Nanaironote who does covers of J-pop songs in Uchinaaguchi (although they use Okinawa Hougen in their music video descriptions) with many of the top musicians from Okinawa. We’ve featured their videos on Karakui before but here’s one featuring our favorite now-on-hiatus duo, i-Dushi, covering J-pop star…
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Anly’s 5th Album “26ml”
Our beloved singer-songwriter from Okinawa’s Ie Island Anly is set to release her 5th album “26ml” on 10/18! 🎉 We don’t have any links to streaming platforms at this time but we’re pretty sure we’ll get them soon. For now, physical copies of the album are being sold on online retailers with special limited edition…
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YU-KA’s “Hoshizukiyo (Starry Night)” Reaches 12 Million Views on YouTube!
Wut. It was just April of this year that YU-KA announced that her music video for “Hoshizukiyo (Starry Night)” reached 6-millions views and a few months later it’s doubled that and is now at 12-million! Could being on The First Take have that much of an impact? The answer is yes. Yes it can. Un.…
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YU-KA on The First Take (YouTube)
Singer-songwriter YU-KA continues her dominance on the new music scene with an appearance on the prestigious YouTube channel The First Take! YU-KA performs her song “Hoshizukiyo (Starry Night)“. Episode 330 welcomes YU-KA, a singer-songwriter fluent in both Japanese and English, to THE FIRST TAKE for the first time. She will sing “Starry Night,” a song…
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Uehara Shunsuke’s Dawgss New Single “Finale”
Possibly one of the best/top drummers from Okinawa (you’ll often find him keeping the beat for the most popular artists from Japan) is Uehara Shunsuke (formerly of Rinken Band) and his group dawggs has a new single “FINALE” that was released on 1/17/23. We’re really loving it. Add it to your favorite streaming platform here.
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