lecca

The singer and dancer lecca is one of the most prominent missionaries of dancehall and reggae in Japan, promoting the Jamaican grooves since her debut in 2005. She entered show biz a few years before, enrolling in Plastudy Music School in 1999 and spending her years there not just studying, but performing solo and in the company of schoolmates in the most hip Tokyo clubs. Her love for reggae, however, blossomed after graduation in 2002, when she spent half a year in New York and Toronto, working with local musicians and participating in open-mike nights. Back in Japan in 2003, she joined the hip-hop band Legnis as a singer and songwriter, but soon quit to record with the reggae performer Pang, and then to work solo. Her indie debut, Recca (2005), featuring guest appearance by Pang, was delivered in 2005; it was acclaimed as one of the best reggae/ska releases of the year, allowing lecca to play festivals along with the greats like Gregory Issacs and Marcia Griffiths and bringing her a contract with Cutting Edge, where she debuted in 2006 with the EP Dreamer, followed by Urban Pirates (2006), which charted at number 57. The '80s dance-tinged Otaku Girls no Utage (2007) climbed still higher, reaching number 33. The 2008 EP, Mado no Mukou, featured the Jamaican producer Christopher Birch, who worked with Shaggy, and her third full-length, City Caravan (2008), on which lecca was joined by Voicemail and Diggy-MO of Soul'd Out, cracked the Oricon Top 20. In 2009, lecca proceeded to release her first single, "For You," and her fourth album, Big Popper, which stated in the Top 20 for five weeks.