[Kacku]

MONKEY MAJIK did something really fun and interesting on their new music video and song! I've never seen a band or artist pull a trick like this so I want to talk about it, but in case someone doesn't want to see the joke explained beforehand, I'll put my thoughts under a spoiler tag. Watch the video below (even if you don't care about the fun thing, it's a great song!):

Spoiler:

The song is mostly in English and the video is subtitled with the lyrics and their "translations" into Japanese... but the "translations" are actually more like Japanese approximations of the original words/phonemes, and they create a bit of an additional story, which the guest artist acts out in the video. I'm not proficient enough in Japanese, reading especially, to know whether the Japanese "translations" make any sense at all (doesn't seem like they do), but it's a really fun trick, especially in the video!

But beyond the sight gags this trick enables, it also makes you listen to the song in a new way: after my listen, every time I come back to this song, I really try to hang on to the words and hear the hidden jokes, and I'm paying special attention to the Japanese bits to try and hear if there are any "hidden English words" in those passages. And they really seem to be encouraging this, 'cuz I could swear that towards the end, they start intentionally slurring their words more and more so that the English and Japanese really blur together and pop out almost simultaneously.

I think this is the best possible use of a songwriter fluent in two languages. Also the song is really fun, this '70s funk/disco thing suits MONKEY MAJIK so well!