Artist : Munehiro
Album Title : Drama 11 Stories
Styles : Reggae / R&B
Label : Nobrand
Reference Code : NBCDG-1005
Released : 2005/04/21
Running Time : 47:14

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As a part of our goals here on Culture Universal we will aim to introduce you all to new artists every now and then to keep things fresh and also to let you know about the talent that has our support. Reggae in Japan is big, actually so big that only Jamaica can rival it when it comes to the sheer size of the community and the amount of artists performing daily in the clubs all over the country. While Reggae landed to Japan already in the 1970's and even though it took the local artists all the way until 1985 to start releasing records, nowadays Reggae has blown into a huge part of the youth culture in Japan and new people are constantly inspired to pick up on it and what's better is that there is a healthy amount of females on the scene as well. One of those female talents goes by the name of Munehiro (formerly known as Kanako), the latest addition to the roster of the yokohama based hip-hop/reggae label Nobrand. Some might remember Munehiro with her former name from Brier's (her labelmate) second album I Am but to those who've never heard of her let it be told that this is Munehiro's debut release as a solo artist.

After being treated to a brief intro in english where the artist is obviously reading it from the paper (don't blame her, blame the english teachers in Japan) the album kicks off with "Utage" a hard hitting funky club anthem that would make even the deaf and the paralyzed get aggressive and bop their heads. The album gets it's name from the 11 different songs on the album (the rest are skits and interludes) and from the fact that all of the albums lyrics are very casual and down to earth style about life itself. Fans of such artists as Minmi (who is also featured on the album) can expect a mixture of dancehall and r&b influences packed with fresh and tight production that is mostly handled by Munehiro herself. The biggest problem in this type of records nowadays especially in Japan is that the artists sometimes do not have the voice to handle the material and end up sounding like your average jpoppers which fortunately is not the case here. Munehiro's deep voice (well deeper than the average singer) and charisma goes hand in hand with the tunes most of the times and most of the album's highlights are all produced by the artist which helps the album's balance considerately.

What is positive also is that there's no forced chorus works in english and that Munehiro herself wrote all of the tracks on the release. On the lyrical side don't expect any miracles when it comes to originality since all the songs showcase life in some way but on the production side the album stays fresh throughout the 45 minutes. For a debut release for a yet unknown artist who produced most of the album herself under an independent label, Drama 11 Stories could be called an excellent release. If Munehiro would have produced all of the tracks on the release, the end result would most likely have been even better and now the album does have a few tracks that stop the album from becoming a truly remarkable release. For an example the chorus work on the track "Ocean" sounds too much like something from the ending credits of a japanese animation and the track "Ballad" is like most ballads well skippable unless ballads are your thing. "Utage" is definitely a candidate for the dancehall anthem of the year so far and with the rest of the album being quality music as well makes recommending this album easy for the fans of the genre.

Rating :

Words By : Jesse Viinikainen


TRACKLIST & SOUND SAMPLES >>>

Play All Tracks

01. 開演
02. 宴
03. One Soul
04. Survivor feat. Hankun from 湘南乃風
05. 華
06. 上演中
07. Mi Pasion feat. El Nando
08. Taste Me
09. I wanna B loved by U
10. Day Dreamer feat. Minmi
11. Ballad
12. Rock Me!
13. Ocean
14. 終演

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