I stumbled upon EAST END X YURI by chance last week while watching a compilation of number one singles of the 90′s on youtube and was pleasantly surprised. EAST END consists of rapper Gaku and two DJ’s Rock Tee and Yoggy while the YURI part comes from former Tokyo Doll Performance idol Yuri Ichii. Initially DJ Yoggy was skeptical of collaborating with Yuri because he had only seen her as an idol and was unsure of her ability to perform live. He later came around after watching her perform which proved to be extremely beneficial for the group as East Ends first album failed to meet sales expectations, the addition of Yuri gave them another chance in the music industry. Their 1994 release Denim-ed Soul which contained their hit single Da.Yo.Ne broke them into the mainstream as the single went on to sell over a million units which was unprecedented at the time for Japanese hip hop. (To offer a little backstory, だよね or da yo ne is an informal phrase which basically translates to isn’t it or I know right, apparently it’s only used with Tokyo-ben (tokyo dialect, the most common and the only one I know how to speak) so I was surprised to find out about all of differing regional versions the song inspired from places like Osaka, Sapporo, Hiroshima and more) EAST END X YURI went on to release a follow up in 1995 Denim-ed Soul 2 but unfortunately weren’t able to maintain the popularity of the first release and single. There’s not a whole lot of solid information on them past this point. I read that they had another follow up in 2003 but I can’t find anything else on it. They also had some sort of game on the original playstation called Eexy Life which came out in 1996 but I have no idea what it’s about or how it plays. Yuri went on to marry Nigo of BBC and Bape fame in 1999 only to divorce three years later. He had apparently outfitted her in bape as EAST END X YURI were on the come up so maybe part of his success lies with them? You can download Denim-ed Soul HERE
