Some may have already heard of them, some may not have. Monkey Majik consists of Takuya “tax” Kikuchi (菊池拓哉, Kikuchi Takuya) on drums, DICK on bass and rather oddly Maynard Plant and Blaise Plant; two Canadian brothers who sing in both Japanese and English and play guitar. It is very unusual for a band with foreign members and foreign languages to attain such a level of popularity in Japan as they have.

Blaise had moved from Ottawa to Aomori in 1998 to work as an English teacher on the JET program and formed a band there to play a one-time gig at an international festival. Two of the members left Japan, so Blaise decided to contact his brother Maynard who had a moderate solo career already in Canada. He decided to move from Ottawa to Sendai where Blaise soon followed. Their first EP called TIRED, only had 1,000 copies available at Tower Records in Sendai. But their first single, “fly”, in 2006 was a great success and was quickly followed by their next single, “Around the World”, which reached number 4 in the Japanese Oricon top 200 singles chart. Pretty impressive for Gaijins, eh?

Anyway, the whole reason I’m making this post is so you can all watch this really awesome video–a collaboration of Monkey Majik and the ever-so-amazing Yoshida Brothers; Change.

 

 Monkey Majik ft. Yoshida Brothers - Change: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Their music can be purchased at Play-Asia.

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