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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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Live Performance of Anly’s 26ml Tour 2023-2024
This is pretty cool. A fan of Anly’s (zero jack on YouTube) recorded her live concert in Nagoya’s Shangrila in support of her 26ml tour. We used to see Anly release her own live videos to her YouTube channel during the Covid-19 lockdown but now that she’s back to touring she’s mostly been releasing her…
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Koza Machi Channel (YouTube)
You’re in for a treat. Koza Machi Channel (コザまちチャンネル) on YouTube created a special cultural program “Tatta Futari no Kai (A meeting for two)” featuring top musicians/artists Maekawa Shuken “Gen-chan” and Yonaha Toru. As you can see from the screenshot, they don’t only play sanshin but also dance and talk story too. The program comes…
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The Mark of Empire (YouTube)
Located to Japan’s extreme south, the Ryukyu Archipelago was the setting for the small but vibrant Ryukyu Kingdom that emerged 600 years ago. Peter travels to its idyllic island settings to see how the Ryukyu identity is finding new meaning today as he visits a tattoo studio reviving an almost-lost traditional style, goes on a…
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The Weird Al of Okinawa? Tohme Yoshiaki
What can we say about Tohme Yoshiaki that’s better seen by watching his YouTube parody videos that are done in Uchinaaguchi. Here’s a couple that are very fun. But don’t let the parody videos and his food-filled Instagram fool you as his real occupation is a Ryukyu traditional arts performer (琉球伝統芸能実演家) and he’s an actor…
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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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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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The Session from Toki no Suisaiga (YouTube)
Toki no Suisaiga is one of those special programs that I wish were translated into more languages. It has such amazing episodes. For their The Session series (it’s preceded by two full seasons), it features collaborations between traditional performing arts musicians with modern artists/musicians. In episode #14 (pictured above), we see the Luchu Kuuchoo performed…
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