Translated by Drama Queen
February 2011

The press release says Namie got the idea to do a collaboration with Yamapi last summer, when they were on the same show (during the promo of Break It/Get Myself Back). She said she was very impressed by his performance and that she wanted to try and do a song with a male artist who was able to dance and sing at the same time (like her). The song is called Unusual, because it’s an unexpected collaboration, which came as a shock to both hers and his fanbases, and it was both challenging and gratifying to break the stereotypes that their images and genres convey.

She wanted to create a powerful song with multiple female artists with Wonder Woman and then asked AI & Anna Tsuchiya to collaborate with her on it. It ended up having more of a rock feeling that they’d imagine.

Namie had been paying attention to the k-pop scene for quite some time, so she ended up collaborating with the 8 piece girlgroup After School, making it their first venture in Japan. The song is described as a very catchy pop song, which stays in your head after one listen.

#1 has got a strong rnb feel and is an uptempo song. It’s a collaboration with Kawabata from Chemistry, with whom she hit it off from the get go after meeting him through mutual friends. It took a lot of time to decide in which direction they’d like the song to go, but they finally went with a high level rnb song which showcase their charming voices.