Hey, Kouhaku! Bounce with me!
Remember last year I told you about Kouhaku Uta Gassen, the annual music contest held on New Year’s Eve between male and female artists? Well, 2006’s Kouhaku, as Taro reported, turned into the Japanese Nipplegate when kitschy hip-hop/R’n'B artist DJ OZMA had apparently topless girls dancing to his song “Bounce With Me”.
For the finale, the girls pulled off their skimpy G-strings to reveal little mushroom “penises” – the DJ OZMA logo. NHK received over 250 compaints and the producers were quick to point out that the girls were wearing body suits. Admittedly, I could only tell they were body suits after looking at the high resoultion close-ups Taro posted. It might be interesting to note that despite that debarcle, the White team (men’s team) won Kouhaku that night.
Anyway, Taro posted video, take a look at it quickly because it might get pulled down like other Japanese copyrighted material. I wanted to post a bit about DJ OZMA himself, because very little is known about him. People aren’t even sure how old he is. His official profile carries on about Taiwanese and Korean music scenes, and apparently how much of a hit he was there. There is a theory currently doing the rounds that he is in fact Sho Ayakouzi from a “Yankee” rock group called 氣 will 團.
He seems to have appeared on the music scene in 2006, dancing like a loon and chanting half-English, half-Japanese songs. The lyrics are silly and predictable, the costumes (particularly the blonde afro) are outrageous and the behaviour is very lewd. He’s basically a joke, much like Hard Gay. In fact, in the short time he’s been on the scene, people like Ayumi Hamasaki and martial arts fighter Akihiro Gouno have been impersonating him.
His first album “I ♥ PARTY PEOPLE” was released in late November, so expect more kitsch in the future, especially after all that free promotion he got after Kouhaku.
Links:
EMI’s official website for DJ OZMA (Japanese only)
DJ OZMA’s official site (Japanese only)
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