Thank you so much Megan (14).
Let me also dissociate from Ryan. I just happened to be in that video.

Whereas real soul artists such as Shiina Junpei (Shiina Ringo’s bro.) or Tsubaki usally just flop. Most likely due to them not trying hard enough to come off as Black.

Damn it, I think I should’ve just said that the only popular R&B styles artists in Japan all happen to be posers. (Save for ACO, & UA who’s not exactly R&B, but her style of music can definitely be classified as soul.)

My bad about the rant, and going off topic for a bit. I just get irritated when I think of how badly people in Japan misunderstand the genre of Soul music.
I’ve seen plenty of artists in Japan who are skilled at the craft, but never
gain any recognition due to not looking or sounding wannabe “American” enough.

They don’t seem to get that the artists with the most soul are not the best imitators. Rather they are often the ones who are just being their selves.

It already happened. It was a pretty good attempt too, too bad it flopped big time. Only made the top 50. Whereas something as poser as DS455′s Still belong in the street (What street!?) clocked in at oricon’s top 20.

Well, it’s not exactly hiphop. There was a R&B style cover of Misora Hibari’s
川の流れのように awhile back in 2003.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEzL3orP5MA
It was performed by a girl who goes by the stage name “Tsubaki”.
An artist who was formerly R&B/Hiphop, but has since went pop. Since she failed as an R&B artist.
Which is kinda comical imo, because she’s practically one of the only Japanese R&B singers I’ve ever heard who actually sang with soul.
(Most J-R&B singers usually just try to imitate American music rather than singing with their own style & voice.)

I personally feel that Tsubaki’s cover did a good job of modernizing Enka.
Or at the least I find this cover to be far more preferable than Jero’s wackass attempts at B-boyism. (Just because he’s Black doesn’t mean that he needs to dance. Especially when he doesn’t dance that good to begin with.)
Unfortunately for her, this attempt at modernization of Enka wasn’t met with welcome hands.

I was the first one to upload this music video to youtube. As it seems that nobody knew about this cover until I uploaded it last September.
(That guy I linked to seemed to have nabbed that vid from one of my suspended accounts.)
I remember getting into a huge argument with diehard Misora Hibari fans in my comment section, because practically everybody was disgusted at the singer’s R&B style vocals. (Despite the fact that the whole point of the song was that it’s supposed to be an R&B cover to begin with.)

What I don’t understand is how come nobody ever gets mad at that kawa no nagare no yoni Trance cover that was on Detective Conan awhile back? Which was piss poor horrible might I add.
(I think it was Detective Conan. It was one of those cartoons.)
At least that Tsubaki chick did something that was actually listenable, and most of all it had soul.
Which is something that is embarrassingly lacking from most of Japan’s R&B/Hiphop music.

Enka may not be identical to blues but they meet at the same smoky bar and drink Jack Daniel’s together.

Connor: You mean like MC Frontalot’s song for Penny Arcade? Maybe we can get Stefano on board.

I should probably apologize. I know extremely little about what enka is, so that’s probably why I missed the connection.

I feel a bit embarrassed posting among those who seem to be experts on Japan related things…

Who will rap over it? You? Marxy? Lord willing, Patrick Macias? NeoJ doesn’t have an official site song yet.

One hint may be the marriage of enka with karaoke. Enka singles are sold with the expressed purpose to be practiced karaoke, and back when cassettes existed, the B side was usually the karaoke version, with the range of the song, etc. I know that other song singles outside of Enka are sold like this, but when your demographic is older people, the more accompaniment, the better.

So, whereas a performer may be able to pull off a simple arrangement in a concert, the same arrangement may not be worth trying to sell as a recording.

It goes without saying that Shiina Ringo is very aware of what she was doing with that song title.

Man, I should hope so. Even Morning Musume have paid tribute to that song.

Re: Sampling enka: Probably the biggest obstacle to this, meta-issues aside, is that enka is so seldom funky.