As a young girl growing up in Japan, TOMOKO was swept away by American pop soul music, with Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece ‘Key Of Life’ changing her life forever. Everybody, including her family members laughed at her when she told them she wanted to be a soul singer. One day she packed up her stuff and moved to New York.
Tomoko's catchy music is filled with heartfelt but somewhat up-in-your-face lyrics about her life between the Land of the Rising Sun and the Big Apple, as in ‘Geisha Girl’, along with love songs like ‘Love Me’, and ‘Should I’, and Gospel-feel ballads ‘Hold On’, and ‘Promise’.
On her potential single-cut New York anthem, ‘Mercy, Joy and the City’, she sings about the strength and beauty of the people in New York City, with a retro R&B feeling reminiscent of Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’.
With her silky smooth sultry voice, she is heralding not only a new talent, but also perhaps the establishment of the very first big cross-over Asian singer/songwriter to be noted in the American Music Scene.
Produced by Brazilian musician/producer/composer JAMBA, all the tracks are arranged with live instrumentation and programming that combine for a funky and soulful mix, also features some impressive musicians.
World renoun trombone player Wycliffe Gordon, best known from the Wynton Marsalis Septet, plays on a few cuts as well as being her label partner. Brazilian guitarists Eli Menezes the drummer/producer Richie Pena, and the Grammy Award-winning engineer/producer Scott Jacoby all add to the mix. more
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