Many people today who listen to “city pop,” a bubbly take on funk, disco and dance pop that came out during Japan’s economic heyday, can only imagine how dizzying it might have been to see the glitz and excess of the 1980s and '90s. Radio DJ and personality Kamasami Kong lived it.
“Every night was a party. Every night was a disco or a nightclub or a bar with friends, and every morning was a hangover,” he tells The Japan Times. While his days were occupied with MCing events at malls or beaches outside of Tokyo, “after that, we’d come back into the city and go to a studio. I’d be recording something for this artist or that artist, or doing a radio or television show. It all happened so fast ... it was a blur.”
He and I talk for over four hours at a Mexican restaurant in Toranomon Hills on a warm June night, though I spend most of that time soaking in stories about Kong meeting Prince at an Osaka nightclub or having to organize a last-minute afterparty for Paul McCartney. The 72-year-old Kong wasn’t just a witness to Japan’s halcyon days but an active participant in its music industry — particularly in shaping the city pop sound.
His influence on city pop goes back to his time as a radio host in Honolulu, Hawaii, in the ’70s. Though the genre was unknown to most of the island then, he played songs like Tatsuro Yamashita’s “Windy Lady” on his radio program, “The Kamasami Kong Show.”
“I heard Japanese music, I liked it, I thought, ‘I’m going to share it,’” he says of that time. His distinctive broadcast style made him a cult hit in Japan and eventually led him here, where he became a recognizable voice on city pop staples.
Today, city pop and ’90s J-pop are receiving newfound love by going viral online and being sampled by major Western pop acts like The Weeknd. Now, Kong is helping to expand the sonic vocabulary of the style even further. On major label Avex’s new compilation “FM Station 8090: City Pop and J-pop by Kamasami Kong,” he narrates a fictitious radio show that features city pop hits spanning from Omega Tribe 1986 to Anri, along with radical covers performed by acts such as Pizzicato Five and m-flo.
The radio show format is one that originated from albums Kong narrated for artists such as Yamashita, Toshiki Kadomatsu and Kiyotaka Sugiyama. Those albums served as a clever take on a best-of compilation and tapped into multiple music trends at once. They are also strong displays of city pop — a term, Kong points out, nobody he knew was using in the 1980s — and what makes the genre unique.
“It definitely has kind of a Western feel to it, and it has a groove,” Kong says, emphasizing the latter element as being most vital. “When I heard Tatsuro’s music for the first time, I was blown away. Especially this song called ‘Sparkle.’ It had elements of rock, elements of soul. It definitely had the Japanese language in it. It was one of the best produced songs I’d ever heard.”
Forward momentum
Born Bob W. Zix in 1949, Kong developed an early interest in radio while growing up in Hamilton, Ohio. As a teenager, he started his own radio station in his home with a makeshift antenna and broadcast music throughout his neighborhood. At age 15, Kong found himself helming a professional DJ slot after a regular host at a nearby station fell ill. A few years later, the U.S. government drafted him for duty in the rapidly escalating Vietnam War, and he landed a gig as a DJ for the Armed Forces Network radio in South Korea.
“I was doing a nighttime radio program, television news and a dance party for the military brats,” he says.
His position allowed him to listen to Japanese radio and hear emerging music from the country for the first time. “I was always listening to a program called ‘All Night Nippon,’ and the DJ was Katsuya Kobayashi ... he was my idol DJ,” Kong says.
Though a whirlwind holiday in Japan left an indelible mark on him and he continued to visit the country over the next few years, he chose to settle in Honolulu in 1976, where he became an important media figure. He hosted radio shows on local stations KKUA and KIKI, while also appearing on a variety of local television shows, including a breakdancing competition. During this time, he adopted the “Kamasami Kong” moniker and developed his “forward momentum” style of speech wherein he “surfed” over the start of songs to introduce them and jumped out right as the vocals hit.
“People in Japan were recording my shows when they were in Hawaii because I was doing the ‘forward momentum’ show and no DJs in Japan were doing that,” he says.
Listeners began recording Kong’s shows on cassettes and taking them back to Japan where they were duplicated and sold independently. Kong had no idea about the popularity of these bootleg recordings until a representative from CBS-Sony visited him in Hawaii to propose an album of just him talking. The resulting album, “DJ in Hawaii,” was sold with turntables and a mixer with the aim of allowing customers to create their own bedroom radio shows using Kong’s voice.
Soon enough, Kong became in demand in Japan thanks to his vocal stylings and the country’s general interest in all things Hawaii, which went well with the resort-ready sound of city pop. He traveled from his homebase in Honolulu to Tokyo several times a year to host events, appear on TV shows (including recurring spots on comedian Tamori’s “Waratte Iitomo”) and, most importantly, interact with prominent artists.
“I went out with Tatsuro and his wife, Mariya Takeuchi, on several occasions. They always liked Italian food,” he says. “With Toshiki, after a recording we did in one night, we went out to a disco in Shibuya and just hung out. I just remember him being a young kid who was so shy. I was like, ‘Where are the girls, what’s going on, get me another drink.’ And Anri and I became really good friends. We closed down some places.”
Oldies but goodies
The “FM Station 8090” release isn’t a return to the spotlight for Kong, though, because he never left. After relocating to Japan in the mid 2000s, Kong continued his high life by living in the Osaka Ritz Carlton for 10 years while helming various radio shows. He now lives in Tokyo and hosts two programs, one on the Kansai region’s FM Cocolo and another on Kyushu’s Love FM, which feature eclectic mixes of music ranging from Elvis Presely classics to contemporary hits from Billie Eilish, respectively.
His voice, however, will always be linked to city pop. The albums he contributed to in the ‘80s have helped many expand their knowledge of artists like Yamshita and Kadomatsu. In recent years, users have uploaded these albums online, spreading city pop to curious ears while also offering a record of a very bubble-era boom in radio-style albums.
“FM Station 8090” nods to both this ’80s trend and the radio broadcast format as a path to discovery and uses it to shine a light on even more acts from a wider range of time.
“I’ll try to compare it to sushi,” Kong says when asked why he thinks city pop has been embraced abroad. “For a long time in the United States, nobody would eat raw fish. Try it. Once you try it, you’re like, ‘Wow this is really good.’ And with a little bit of sake, hey, now that’s an experience. It caught on like that.
“City pop has been around (in Japan) for years ... sushi has been around forever. But for the Western world, it (is still) something new, something to be discovered.”
For more information about “FM Station 8090: City Pop and J-pop by Kamasami Kong,” visit avexnet.jp/release (Japanese only).
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