JAPANESE CITY POP AT THE GRAMMYs®!

City Pop makes it to the GRAMMY® ballot in the form of the hot new genre, City Pop Salsa or J-Pop Salsa, which fuses 80's Japanese Pop music with Latin rhythms to make a fresh new Salsa that is taking the Latin American and Asian markets by storm.

City pop is a form of Japanese pop music that emerged in the late 1970s and peaked in popularity during the 1980s. It was originally termed as an offshoot of Japan's Western- influenced "new music", but came to include a wide range of styles – including funk, disco, R&B, and soft rock– that were associated with the country's nascent economic boom and leisure class.

When Japan’s economic bubble burst in 1991, City Pop faded into obscurity. In 2017, an anonymous user uploaded Mariya Takeuchi’s classic, Plastic Love, to YouTube, which gave this dead genre a viral rebirth. Now, Willy Calderon’s latest album titled, Project Neon: The Birth Of City Pop Salsa, marks the first ever “City Pop Salsa” crossover consisting of 8 of Japan’s most beloved songs from the 80’s. Japanese radio DJ and founder of SALSA.ORG/SalsaJapan!, dubbed the first single off the album, Stay With Me, the “birth of city pop salsa,” inspiring the name of the album and, in turn, creating a brand new genre of music.

The album is now nominated in the category of Best Latin Album in the World Entertainment Awards and is now on the ballot in the 67th GRAMMY® awards.