June 25th, 2006

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Music
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Who is Monkey Majik?

Who, indeed? They’re a band (here’s their Japanese-only site) on the cusp of making it big in Japan. What’s the big deal? Nothing, except two of its members are brothers and Canadian former english teachers (from Alberta, if I recall the radio show I heard about them correctly), while the other two are Japanese. The Canadians, Maynard and Blaise Plant, speak (and sing) fluent Japanese.

Their songs are a wacky combination of Japanese and English. Here’s the video for “One Moment” and “Around the World“. Here’s a ‘live’ performance of the latter, and a nutty interview with English subtitles.
They don’t really float my boat–they’re maybe a poppier Jamiroquai (I welcome more apt comparisons)–but you might dig them.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Patty Foster
June 26th, 2006
7:05 am

Cool. Thanks! I love Jpop. I’ll keep this band in mind. One other band I like is the Japanese girls band PuffyAmiYumi (they’re like the monkees), I didn’t like them so much at first but they really grew on me. They’re pretty popular in North America having done music for the Scooby Doo movies and Teen Titans.

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tiff
September 1st, 2007
8:38 pm

i loveee monkey majik-they should be popular in canada and the US other than just japan since they have a lot of songs in english :]

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Dan
October 10th, 2007
3:24 am

I just went to Japan this summer and fell in love with their music. Ive always admired artists that can sing fluently in both english and japanese (with the proper accents) like Hikaru Utada and BoA (yeah shes Korean, but shes got the eng and the Jap so its all good).

I happened to be in Japan when they were doing the big 27h TV Promo for that famous movie featuring Shingo Katori from SMAP and music from Monkey Majik. When I learned that the two leads, Maynard and Blaise were from my home country I was stunned and instantly wanted to check out their songs. I love their fusion of Japanese and English (cause the lyrics actually make sense :P) and am really impressed. I DO wish (like Tiff said) they would consider creating an album to release in N. America (Canada :D???) cause I would think that would be awesome. They could be like Utada Hikaru who has her own albums in the USA (cause of her popularity with Kingdom Hearts and her ubber bilingualism). It means you get twice the audience that way :P

Anyway im still searching for lyrics, its 5:24am here in Saskatchewan :P but its Monkey Majik lyrics…so its all good :D Ciao!

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shinrei
February 14th, 2009
7:50 pm

this is a unique and nice band. the two main vocalists are canadian, yet they chose to sing in japan… i always admire foreigner who can speak japanese well, so they are admirable for me! haha…
and the songs are greata nd easy listen.. ^^

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