Halcali

**Little.Vampire** Чет 07 Май 2009, 18:04

Halcali

Halcali Dpp1se5

Nominees for Space Shower Awards. Hosts of MTV shows. Winner of Japan Gold Disc Awards. HALCALI has earned some prestigious awards and honors throughout their career, but they weren’t always the superstar hip-hop duo they first appear.
Yucali and Halca first met in classes at their dance and talent school when they were ten years old. Both girls only intended to train in dance and wanted to eventually become back up dancers for other musicians. Eventually they were encouraged to take singing lessons as well, although it remained a secondary interest.
In 2002, Halca and Yucali spotted the poster that would lead them to the RIP SLYME audition to form a new rap group. Although they both enjoyed rap music, they originally were only interested in the audition because the poster was pink and adorable. In fact, they were so young that they couldn’t even read the kanji on the poster well enough to fully understand it. Halca and Yucali decided to give the audition a shot with a group of their friends. Originally there were five of them, all friends from their talent school, but the group quickly thinned out to the two of them. Halca and Yucali weren’t disheartened by their loss of members. “What if there was a group of three? Then it’d be like HALCALIXXX or something,” she has joked.
Halca and Yucali won the audition for the hip hop unit and were selected to form a group under O.T.F. (Oshare Track Factory, made up of DJ Fumiya and Ryo-Z from RIP SLYME). They were to act as a creative outlet for their writing and were taken onto the For Life record label. Both of the girls didn’t think much of winning the audition or working with O.T.F., mostly because they didn’t really understand the talent that they were starting to work with for their career. They didn’t even bother to mention their group formation to their friends. “At that time, we didn’t really understand what we were doing. We just kept doing what was in front of us,” reflects Yucali on that time in their career.
They soon started recording their debut single “Tandem.” O.T.F. decided that it sounded more natural if the rapping in Tandem didn’t sound too rehearsed, so he gave the lyrics to HALCALI and they recorded on the same day. By the time promotion for the single started HALCALI’s classmates and teachers had caught wind of their debut and were very supporting. To show their support they even played Tandem on the speakers at their school on the day it was released.
HALCALI began a regular schedule of single releases and promotions and had a whirlwind of a first year, leading up to the release of their first album, HALCALI Bacon. Although mostly produced by O.T.F. it also began to bring in other hip hop musicians, such as the Fantastic Plastic Machine and Kohei Japan, to help with some of the tracks. The album was popular and ended up making it to number five on the Oricon album ranking. This made it the first album by a female hip-hop artist to make it into the top ten.
2004 slowed down their flurry of single and album releases, resulting in them only dropping two new singles, Marching March and Baby Blue!, plus their second album Ongaku no Susume (Recommended Listening). Like HALCALI Bacon the previous year, the album was produced by O.T.F. but brought on the extra talent of artists like Supercar, RHYMESTER’s Utamaru, and m-flo. Nagi Noda, the artist for the Baby Blue! single, also stepped forward to design the artwork for the new album as well. Although Ongaku didn’t end up selling as well as HALCALI Bacon, HALCALI was still nominated for awards at the year’s end including a Best Pop Video at the Space Shower TV awards for Baby Blue!
In 2005 HALCALI’s releases almost dried up completely. Ongaku sales continued and it was greeted with a special reprint for selling over 100,000 copies (although this was more due to the fact that there were copyright issues with the cover art). Although they were no long releasing a steady stream of singles, HALCALI remained active. Yucali became slated as a regular on the Domoto Brothers music talk show (although she was given limited screen time) and they both hosted a weekly slot on Tokyo Radio’s BUZZ FM. Although they would continually talk about single releases on their radio show nothing was released until the very end of the year. It was then that they announced that they had left the For Life record label and that they had signed onto Epic Records, a subdivision of Sony. This marked the beginning of HALCALI’s major label debut, one that they started off with the release of Tip Taps Tip. The single was going to be used as the ending theme to popular anime Eureka 7.
Tip Taps Tip marked the beginning of a new style for HALCALI. Instead of having a quirky childish image they tried to develop a more mature style, complete with less rap and more singing. The single also packed another surprise: the b-side HALCALI ‘n’ bass became the first song that HALCALI helped to write. This new maturity carried on into their new fashion style as well, scoring them many appearances in Japanese fashion magazines such as Zipper, Jille, and SEDA.
HALCALI continued to release singles on the Epic Records label, but at a much slower pace than they had previously. In 2006 they only released two new singles, Twinkle Star and LOOK. LOOK also ended up becoming an anime theme, this time to the Japanese Powerpuff Girls remake. HALCALI continued their spots in fashion magazines and scored an appearance on the Takeyama Teacher show as animated pigs singing a song.
By the end of the following year HALCALI had released another 2 singles, Tougenkyo/Lights, camera. Action! and It’s Party Time! Tougenkyo/Lights, camera. Action! became their first double a-side release and foreshadowed the release of their first major label album, Cyborg Oretachi (We the Cyborgs). This was the first album by HALCALI that wasn’t produced by O.T.F. and was completed on a track by track basis with various leading artists. The album was accompanied with lower sales than either HALCALI Bacon or Ongaku no Susume, but was accompanied with the news that HALCALI would do their first overseas concert ever in Paris.
The Paris Japan Expo appearance spawned a series of concerts across the world as HALCALI traveled to different cites in Europe before announcing that they would be making their US debut in Chicago. After meeting with the successful appearances in Paris and Chicago, Sony continued to promote HALCALI overseas by promoting them in New York City and having them return to Paris.
HALCALI has always been a completely unique Japanese musical group. Although they are just two young girls, they have proven to be a rallying point for many of the greatest minds in Japanese hip-hop today including m-flo, RHYMSTER, O.T.F., Supercar, Schadara parr, Halfby, POLYSICS, and Fantastic Plastic Machine. Even HALCALI themselves can’t really explain all the attention that they draw from the major names in the business. “Maybe they can smell something on us!” Halca has joked.

References

ANN TV HALCALI Interview by Justin Sevakis 06/29/08.
Kokoku Hihyo Montly no. 289 January 2005.
“For Japanese Hip-hop duo HALCALI, the world is their stage” by Natsuki Oka in Japan Today 2008.
Marquee magazine august 2007.
What’s In? #242 August 2007.

Halca

Date of Birth: April 21, 1988
Halca started dancing when she was very little. Her mother placed her in classes after watching her dance along to music in front of the television. Her mother was always very supportive and put her into “Infant School”. After many years of classes she eventually met up with Yucali in a dance class and became fast friends.
Halca loves hip hop music, both Japanese and American. She is a big fan of RIP SLYME, Schadara parr, and Missy Elliot. She also loves Korean food and culture and tries to visit the country as often as she can.

Yucali

Date of Birth: July 18, 1987
Yucali originally started her interest in the entertainment world when she was very young. She was often sick when she was a child and a dance instructor who was friends with her mother recommended dancing as a form of exercise to build up her strength. From there she went on to dance school where she met up with Halca.
Yucali’s favorite anime is Sailor Moon, which she used to watch as a kid. In interviews she always says that she would love to do a theme for Sailor Moon if given the chance. She also loves Missy Elliot and cites her as one of her major musical influences.

Ето и един техен фенсайт: http://www.halcalisensation.com/