“Body Rock” is a song from 2002 that I will always remember from Heartsdales. Two decades later and the song still holds up remarkably well and definitely worth checking out!
GROUP: HEARTSDALES
SINGLE TITLE: BODY ROCK
DURATION: 6 Songs (28 Minutes)
RELEASED ON: August 28, 2002
- Body Rock
- Rainy Days
- Helpless Game (Play it on the Radio! Mix) – feat. Heartsdales feat. Mika Nakashima
- Body Rock (L12 Remix) – Heartsdales feat. Arkitec, Clench & Blistah
- Body Rock (Original Instrumental)
- Rainy Days (Original Instrumental)
If there was one group that will be remembered for their contribution to Japanese hip hop in a commercial sense and attracting listeners globally, it would be Heartsdales.
Featuring sisters Rum (Sugiyama Yumi) and older sister Jewels (Sugiyama Emi), these two New Yorkers from Yonkers, moved to Japan and applied for a rapper audition for the TV Tokyo program ASAYAN produced by m-flo’s VERBAL.
“ASAYAN” was known for trying to bring popular musicians to produce a group through auditions and with television publicity, hoping to create a mega group.
It began with mega producer and musician Komuro Tetsuya would lead to putting a new pop trio known as dos in 1996. But unfortunately, Komuro dated dos member asami (in which the two got married and later would divorce) and formed the music unit TRUE KiSS DESTiNATiON which literally ended dos without any announcement.
Then Koji Kubo tried to produce a group called L*IS but their lack of motivation, their inability to grasp the choreography and their lack of Japanese mannerism when it came to greeting, was not its best and after one single, they were disbanded immediately.
But “ASAYAN” would find success in 1998 with discovering the idol group Morning Musume (produced by TSUNKU of the band, SHARAN Q) and singer Heike Michiyo and in 1999, Komuro Tetsuya would produce solo artist Suzuki Ami.
While the show’s popularity was winding down, two auditions would happen in 2001. For the male vocalist category, it would lead to the founding of R&B vocal unit, CHEMISTRY.
And a rap audition produced by VERBAL of m-flo which would attract 1,300 applicants. In the end, Rum and Jewels known as “Heartsdales” after Hartsdale, New York would become the winners and later that year, they would release their debut single “So Tell Me” on December 19, 2001 and it would debut in No. 8 on the Oricon Charts and sales exceeded 100,000 and making the song a bonafide hit.
For me, I was unaware of Heartsdales until their Japanese label Avex contacted me about Heartsdales at the end of 2002. The duo who were under Espionage Records/Cutting Edge, was wanting to promote Heartsdales as they are originally from New York and the crossover would be good for an American audience.
And throughout the years, I was listening to their music and absolutely loving it but the timing of bringing Japanese music artists to the US, let alone promoting them, was not so easy at the time because at that time, the Japanese music that Americans were primarily into was either rock or if it was anime-related.
I had friends who threw major events in New York and Dallas, but Japanese hip hop was not something that was not popular among American listeners who would pay tickets to see them live on the other hand, Japanese audiences in America…yes. But that’s not what the label was after at the time.
So, it was about timing and right when I felt it was possible to work with the label to bring Heartsdales out to the US and I was working on getting an exclusive all-English interview with the two, I was told that the duo would be ending activities in September 2, 2006.
Japanese hip hop was primarily an underground movement. There were people in America who worked to get the word out on Japanese hip hop, but in the mid-90s, you had groups like Scha Dara Parr become popular and commercial when they collaborated with Ozawa Kenji in 1994 for “Kon’ya wa Boogie-Back” and that single sold over 500,000 units. And then you had hip hop group East End joining with idol Ichii Yuri of Tokyo Performance Doll in 1995, and the group had their No. 1 single with “Da.Yo.Ne” which sold over 912,010 copies.
And then you had pop groups with rappers, comedians Downtown would team up for a rap song Sakamoto Ryuichi and Towa Tei for the song “Kick & Loud” in ’94 and Japanese hip hop was seen on television even more.
And success even furthered in the late ’90s by rock/rap group Dragon Ash, with songs such as “Let Yourself Go, Let Myself Go” and “Grateful Days”. The former selling a total of 640,000 copies and the latter selling over 900,000 copies, while their third album “Viva La Revolution” would sell over 1.8 million copies.
But you had other groups and artists paving the way such as Rip Slyme, Rhymester, Zeebra, to name a few.
But for female rappers, Heartsdale paved the way for other Japanese female hip hop groups to come out. In fact, as mentioned, when I felt it was the right time to bring Heartsdales out to the US, they had disbanded, and another group discovered in a 2002 audition by Rip Slyme, known as HALCALI would be the duo that would be brought to the US in 2008 and the interview with a Japanese female hip hop duo that I would have would be with HALCALI.
I still listen to Heartsdale’s music today, and sometimes think to myself, if it was today, we could have easily brought the duo to perform live and they would be much easier to promote, considering people are seeing K-Pop artists and J-Pop artists much more thanks to YouTube and social media.
But 2001-2006 was a different time than it is today, but I can remember when the label told me to check out their music, I listened to their third single “Body Rock” and that single actually captivated me and made me become a Heartsdale fan.
One can listen to “Body Rock” and start grooving to the song immediately and after listening to it once, dancing, humming, rapping or singing along to the song. I knew at that point of how special Heartsdale was. There was no Japanese female music artists doing what they did in a commercial level, that had the look and delivery.
And while “Body Rock” shows their hip hop rhymes and singing vocals, the second track “Rainy Days” features a fiercer lyrical flow from the duo.
The third track features a collaboration with singer Nakashima Mika. Nakashima, similar to Heartsdales, was also trying to break into the music scene in 2001. While she made her first debut as an actress, she would make her music debut a few months later with “Stars” which debut at No. 3 on the Oricon Charts. But I have to say that I was surprised to see this collaboration because they are on two different music labels (Nakashima with Sony Music Associated Records at the time) and rarely do you see Avex and Sony collaborating. But overall a cool song with Heartsdales rapping and Nakashima showcasing her vocals.
The fourth track is “Body Rock (L12 Remix) featuring Heartsdales with Arkitec, Clench & Blistah. The song primarily features the male rappers creating their own hip hop vocals, as well as singing with a few of the Heartsdales “Body Rock” rap being utilized in the song. But it’s a different and different take to the song.
The last two tracks are the instrumental versions of “Body Rock” and “Rainy Days”.
But overall, “Body Rock” is a song from 2002 that I will always remember from Heartsdales. Two decades later and the song still holds up remarkably well and definitely worth checking out!
