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Fender Guitars ❤️ Okinawan Musicians
We’ve known that Fender Guitars Japan showcased musician Anly before, and for their Stratocaster’s 70th anniversary one of the special events featured Okinawan veteran musicians Shimabukuro Masaru (BEGIN) and NAOTO (ORANGE RANGE)! On our last trip to Japan, we mulled over visiting their first ever flagship store in Harajuku (Fender Flagship Tokyo), but ended up…
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OZworld on GQ Japan
These are so interesting to watch and OZworld’s 10 essentials on the GQ Japan YouTuve channel is quite revealing. English subs too!
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Shimabukuro Masaru (BEGIN) to Release His First Solo Album
He’s often behind-the-scenes whether as a guest guitarist or composer/arranger so it’s amazing that this is Shimabukuro Masaru’s (BEGIN) first ever solo album! Although recording seems complete for the new album “55rpm”, it’s set to be released on February 21st and he also drew the album art for it too. The album has a lot…
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Musicians Oyakawa Haruka & Tanahara Kenta in “Toki no Suisaiga”
The long-running YouTube series “Toki no Suisaiga” and one of the most missed gems on the platform for Ryukyu culture finally, yes finally, released a couple of videos with English subtitles. The first video features popular Ryukyu classical musician Oyakawa Haruka (pictured above) performing the song “Nakarata Bushi (なからた節)”. Haruka has been on the series…
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Mateus Asato, Guitar God
While it’s still rather difficult to find any Asian rockstar in the West, it’s even more difficult to find one who’s Okinawan. Perhaps the most famous are James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins (his solo album “Look to the Sky” is one of our favorites) and after him we have Guitar God Mateus Asato. Mateus…
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Canae (i-Dushi) Opens a New Web Store
Singer-songwriter Canae from i-Dushi announces her own online store and the name is so cute! Canasando is a play on the Okinawan word kanasando using her first name Cana and sando. We also noticed that for Kanae she’s using a C instead of a K which is in line with what she did during her…
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Nakasone Hajime’s Amazing 2023
One of the nicest and humblest humans we’ve met, Nakasone Hajime is having an amazing 2023 and it’s much deserved. He recently announced his marriage and now he has a new album “En” that will be released on June 3rd. Can you believe that it’s already been 7 years since his previous album “Ten” was…
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Anly Shares An Amazing Photo
Anly recently shared a photo on her Twitter that’s mind-blowing 🤯 because it’s a pairing of one of the top pop music artists (Anly, of course) and folk music artists (Nakasone Hajime / R∞2) from Okinawa! If you follow us, you know that she did a collaboration with Hajime on her song “Alive” which is…
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Singer Anly to Hold a Fender Workshop in Fukuoka
(via Twitter) Fender Japan announced that singer Anly (our most listened to artist for 2022!) will have her own Fender Workshop in Fukuoka! The workshop will be for those starting out or looking to improve their acoustic guitar skills. Fender gives Anly a lot of love so is it only a matter of time till…
Karakui 