Matsuken Samba II (マツケンサンバII) is one of a song series named ''Matsuken Samba'' performed by a Japanese taiga drama actor and singer

Ken Matsudaira is a Japanese actor and musician from Toyohashi, Aichi, Japan. His real name is . Career In 1974, he joined Shintaro Katsu's production company and made his debut with the television series Zatoichi as a guest. For a quarter of a century, he ...

who is popular in Japan.

Overview

The song was made in 1994 and is performed in

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

s since then. He sings the song in an appearance of a person in

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

with florid golden

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...

, dancing with steps of samba and hip swaying, and with many male and female

backup dancer A backup dancer also known as background dancer is a performer who dances with or behind the lead performers in a live musical act or in a music video. Their movements (especially where there are many moving together) improve the visual aesthetic ...

s around also in figures of the period. Because he plays a serious ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamak ...

'' as an actor on

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

in the first place and had been performing the song only in theaters, the performance amazed people who did not know it upon being introduced on television in 2004. The song became the biggest hit in the ''Matsuken Samba'' series. All the songs in the series combine traditional-style Japanese vocals with a slight Latino flair from Brazilian samba music and the inclusion of several Brazilian Portuguese words and phrases in the lyrics, although Matsuken Samba II has a word "bongo" which is a musical instrument not used in samba. The performances of the songs have a very glitzy, showy production value trademarked by his glittery appearance. The ''Matsuken'' in the title is a shortened version of the singer's name, a combination of ''Matsu'' from Matsudaira and his stage name ''Ken''.

History

The first single of the line was this Matsuken Samba II, released on July 7, 2004. The song was officially a sequel to ''Matsuken Samba I'' that he had been performing at the close of his concerts prior to 2004, which was not released on CDs until it was added as one of the b-sides to Matsuken Samba II. Upon release, the song was a modest hit, mostly among Matsudaira's fanbase of primarily middle-aged women. But a gradual increase in media coverage and an affectionate parody of the song and dance by ''Katsuken'' on the popular idol group

SMAP SMAP was a Japanese boy band, composed of Masahiro Nakai, Takuya Kimura, Goro Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Shingo Katori. The group was created in 1988 by music producer Johnny Kitagawa, founder of Johnny & Associates, originally as a six- ...

's television show ''SMAP×SMAP'' made the song a certified hit. The single remained on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...

Top 100 chart for over a year, and spawned two additional single releases: ''Matsuken Samba II: Ole! EP'', a CD of remixes of the original single, and ''Matsuken Samba III'', a follow-up single that borrowed liberally from its predecessor. The latest in the series, released in 2014, is "Matsuken Samba 4 - Jounetsu no Salsa (マツケンサンバ4~情熱のサルサ~)", and as the title implies, it is more so a Salsa than a Samba. There are related songs such as , , , and , as well as and the Bollywood-themed "Matsuken Maharaja".

External links

Ken Matsudaira / Matsuken Samba II
- Official Website (in Japanese). {{authority control 2004 songs Japanese songs