Release Date: December 16, 2015
Track Listing
- Intro
- Mirrorball
- Happy Lucky
- 365
- I’m a dreaming girl
- skit
- Ingaryoku
- Fly High
- Outro ~a letter from~
- 365 ~acoustic version~
- Fly High (Live Version) [Limited Edition Track]
- Rhyme Hate Roku (Live Version) [Limited Edition Track]
Review
Rhymeberry is a Japanese idol group formed in 2011. Originally a quartet consisting of 3 MCs (Hime, Yuka and Miri) and one DJ (DJ Hikaru), they made their debut with the single Hey! Brother, in July of 2012 and later in the same year they signed with T-Palette Records.
In April 2014, MC Yuka (Otawara Yuka) withdrew from the group due to family circumstances. The group continued as a 3-member unit until DJ Hikaru, and MC Hime announced their graduations in February 2015.
The group’s producer at the time (Kuwashima Yoshikazu) also left with them due to the expiration of his contract.
The only remaining member of Rhymeberry was MC Miri. All was not lost for the group as a replacement for the departed members was found in the form of former Aither member MC Misaki, and in May of 2015, they released their single Mirrorball as the 2-member version of Rhymeberry.
Which leads to this self-titled album. Released in December 2015, it features beats produced by Daihatsu, Sagawa Hiroki, Josh White and DJ-S.A.L.
The question that is brought up is whether you will get that Hip-Hop flavour that the group was known for before all the member and producer changes. The answer is no if you go by the lead single Mirrorball or Ingaryoku. They are more like the rave dance floor attack of Stereo Japan and about as far away from what long-time followers of Rhymeberry know and love. How you take these songs will probably depend on if you are of that type of dance music.
One should instead look to other songs on the album, such as 365, Happy Lucky, I’m a dreaming girl and, to an extent, Fly High if you want a taste of the old school. These will probably be most pleasing to those hooked by this group’s idol rap aspect.
And that is still the main appeal of Rhymeberry as 5 of the 7 songs on this album (excluding the intro, outro, skit and acoustic version of 365) are firmly within what works for them. And for idols, they are fairly decent MCs. They will not be winning any rap battles, but they show fairly good competence on the mic.
This self-titled album builds on the promise that the previous versions of Rhymeberry showed before they imploded. If this current 2-member version of the group is stable, there’s a lot to look forward to in the future.
