Home Made Kazoku’s trio, Micro, Kuro, and DJ U-Ichi, grew up in the United States before moving to Japan. Their music is upbeat and generally pretty happy sounding. Some of it is down right funny like the line from the song ZokuZokool: “Who are you gonna call? Girl Hunters!” The trio uses a lot of English in their works.
The trio has produced many theme songs for anime. Among them is “Shonen Heart” for Eureka Seven: Psalms of Planets, “Thank You!!” the seconding ending theme for Bleach, and “No Rain No Rainbow” for the second Naruto Shippuden movie. That tune is one of my favorites.
Home Made Kazoku promotes love, family, peace, harmony, and just fun in their lyrics. American hip-hop could learn a lot from this trio. Their background rhythms are different for each tune (contrast with many American hip-hop tunes). Their instrumentals involve traditional hip-hop beats combined with piano and more traditional Japanese sounds. They are just enjoyable and uplifting to listen to. Many of their works have children singing backup in the chorus.
Their music videos usually take place in the spring and summer with pleasant uplifting images of people getting along or striving to overcome a challenge. Okay, they are probably sounding a little too touchie-feely for some of you, but not everything needs to be serious, violent, or dark. We need more light and feel-good things.You don’t need to understand Japanese to enjoy their message.
The Japanese language raps better than English. It just flows wonderfully. Home Made Kazoku does interject English swear words in their lyrics on very rare occasions, but it is nothing like the every-other-word swearing that identifies American rap. They use it for contrast more than a focus.
Home Made Kazoku is excellent for relaxing and lifting your mood after a rough day.
They did the second opening for Eureka 7 called Shounen Heart, it’s probably my favorite song from them
Gah, semi-double post, my apologies
I loved their Shounen Heart from Eureka 7
Eureka Seven was there I first heard about them. They have a nice sound to them and are pretty positive in most of their messages too.