King Giddra - Group Career

Group Career

The group's debut album would help them launch solo careers with major labels. K DUB signed with Japanese music label juggernaut, avex, under their "cutting edge" imprint, releasing his solo album (Present Time) in 1997. ZEEBRA signed with Pony Canyon and released his debut album "The Rhyme Animal", a moniker inspired by Chuck D of Public Enemy, the following year in 1998. Both artists would go on to sign their own artists under their group. K DUB SHINE already had his Atomic Bomb Crew (which was responsible for developing King Giddra), and ZEEBRA with UBG (Urbarian Gym) a wordplay in Japanese of (Tokai no Yabanjin/Barbarians of the City). Urbarian plays off the word "urban" and "barbarian". Gym plays off the Japanese pronunciation of (jin) from which means "people".

With the success of their respective solo ventures, the group would go on a long hiatus until the eventual release of their second, and possibly last album, The Ultimate Weapon(Saishuu Heiki). It was released in 2002. Unlike the debut album which saw beatmaking duties split largely between ZEEBRA and DJ OASIS, "Saishuu Heiki" was mostly produced by DJ OASIS.

The simultaneous release of two of their singles "F.F.B." and "UNSTOPPABLE" saw commercial success with them reaching the 5th and 6th spot on the Oricon charts. They made their first and only appearance as a group to perform in the famously popular Japanese music shows, "HEY!HEY!HEY! MUSIC CHAMP" and "MUSICSTATION". However both singles dealt with controversy. "F.F.B." contained a line that offended people with HIV, while the song (Driveby) offended the gay community accusing it of discrimination. The original "UNSTOPPABLE" single was discontinued and re-released without the song "Driveby" . The track was replaced with their song, (Heisei Ishin/Heisei Restoration; a concept borrowed from the "Meiji Restoration". Heisei being the present-day Japanese era). On Sept. 11, 2002, they released their last single for the album "911", exactly one year after the incident. King Giddra's song "911" addressing America's misguided "war on terror," and the complicity of the Japanese media and the national government. The song reflects on ground zero and its aftermath in two eras: August 1945 and September 11, 2001. Their music video opens with an image of ground zero Hiroshima. The group song video uses images of Hiroshima's ground zero after the bombing as a way of rethinking ground zero New York. According to Ian Condry the image, "at the center of the picture, the government building now known as the Peace Dome figures prominently." The group lyricist raps about America's hypocrisy in always telling Japan "to follow the path of peace" but then starts bombing Baghdad. On the other hand, they see the Japanese government as equally at fault because of their complicity. Also the first and third verses of the song appear on their 2002 video Saishuu Heiki, or the Ultimate Weapon (Defstar Records). The song is inspiring because it great to see that some rappers from Japanese tackling issues of social opposition and bringing more voices to the call for peace.

The album was released in October and featured "F.F.B." with edited lyrics, and the song (Koukai Shokei/Public Execution) which was a diss track. ZEEBRA airs out KJ from the group Dragon Ash, while K DUB SHINE's verse aims at "sell-out rappers" and calls out Kick The Can Crew, and Rip Slyme through word play of their names, while allowing his point to flow through his verse:
(kiku to kan kuruu, RIRIKU tsurai, herikutsu RAIMU/ listening to it makes me mad as hell, annoying lyrics, pointless rhymes).

The song (Generation Next) is the album version of a song they contributed to the movie (Kyouki no Sakura/The Sakura of Madness), directed by Sonoda Kenji, who is the longtime music video director of King Giddra, as well as some of their solo work's videos.