The Japanese Christian Pop Music Scene
Japanese pop music, or J-pop as it is popularly known, is becoming widely known around the world, and especially in East Asia, thanks to rising popularity of anime. In recent years, several talented Japanese Christian musicians have become part of a new J-pop movement, blazing a path for contemporary Japanese expression of the Christian faith. Like many Christian music artistes around the world, the market for Christian music is small. On top of that, because their music is in Japanese, the market is at present limited to Japanese-speaking Christians and a small number of non-Christians who have been attracted to their music. Many of these musicians take on full-time or part-time jobs to support themselves. Despite the challenges facing them, the music they produce is of a very high quality. Please pray for non-Christians who are attracted to their music to know Christ, the source of the message of love and hope in these songs.
Here are some contemporary Christian artistes’ home page addresses:
Genuine Grace
http://genuinegrace.com/
http://jm.genuinegrace.com/
http://www.myspace.com/jmremix
(English)
Hide-c (pronounced as heeday-see)
http://www.hinodemusic.com/item/1356/catid/4
Kaori Yamamoto
http://www.geocities.jp/sunshine_gospel/
Yoshi Blessed
http://yoshiblessed.com/Japanese/J-top.htm