, were a Japanese J-pop duo consisting of Halca and Yucali from

Meguro, Tokyo is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in the Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. The English translation of its Japanese self-designation is Meguro City. The ward was founded on March 15, 1947. Meguro is predominantly residential in character ...

, Japan. Its name is a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of and . Their debut album, '' Halcali Bacon'', reached #5 on the Oricon charts, making it the first album by a female hip-hop artist to enter the top ten in Japanese history. Halcali also made their American debut in May 2008 as the musical guests of honor at the

Anime Central Anime Central (ACen) is an annual three-day anime convention held during May at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare & Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. The convention is organized by the Midwest Animation Promotion Society (MAPS) ...

convention. They performed again in America at

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

, New York City on June 1, 2008 as part of a

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Day Festival as part of a Japanese tourism campaign.''Just Doing It the Halcali Way!''
June 13, 2008, by Dennis A. Amith ndy retrieved June 13, 2008 As Halcali did not renew their contracts with

Epic Records Japan Epic Records Japan is a Japanese record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Its founder was Shigeo Maruyama. Between 1978 and 1988 the label operated as a wholly owned subsidiary: Epic/Sony Inc. () was established in August 1978

, they have had no outstanding entertainment activity as a unit as of 2013.

Creation

Pre-debut

Haruka and Yukari were close friends since elementary school and also attended the same local Meguro dance school. Both girls were only interested in becoming dancers in the future and had no aspiration to become singers. In 2002, Haruka and Yukari noticed a pink flier for an audition to become a "female hip hop unit" which was held by the group

Rip Slyme Rip Slyme (often stylized as RIP SLYME) is a Japanese hip hop group composed of four Master of ceremonies, MCs (Ryo-Z, Ilmari, Pes & Su) and a Disc jockey, DJ, Fumiya. Their sound is influenced by old-school hip hop and other Rapping, western rap ...

. Yukari admitted that the both of them entered the competition simply to see what it was. Among hundreds of entrants, Haruka and Yukari were chosen to form Halcali. The girls modestly spoke of their formation, saying that although there were many girls cuter than themselves,

and Oshare Toy Factory riskily chose them. Yukari stated, "Sometimes it's like you want to have a piece of really gross gum- Just to see!"

Debut

Halcali debuted at a free concert held by

at the Budokan theatre. There, Halcali performed with Rip Slyme and were introduced along with their debut single, . "Tandem" was released on January 8, 2003 and was marketed on several

Japanese television Television in Japan was introduced in 1939. However, experiments date back to the 1920s, with Kenjiro Takayanagi's pioneering experiments in electronic television. Television broadcasting was halted by World War II, after which regular television ...

networks, along with

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

. The single entered into the

Oricon Charts , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in N ...

at position 19.Epic Records, et al. (2007),Rough translation (past-tense) -- "''1st single, "Tandem" is announced or releaseon January 8, 2003, with the music video being played on elevision networksWOW WOW, Space Shower TV,

and M-ON to coincide with the release of the single. In ranking, it reached position 19 on the Oricon Charts.''" HALCALI Japan Day 2008 4

The time between the release of their first single to that of their debut album Halcali moved away from mainstream J-pop and toward a style combining pop and rap; an airy, self-parody "bubblegum" rap in the vein of earlier groups such as '' East End X Yuri''. This was evident in their second and third singles, and released in mid-2003. Both singles focused on rap rather than pop. The latter song attracted attention from Western audiences when it appeared on Adam and Joe Go Tokyo.

Discography

Studio albums

* '' Halcali Bacon'' (2003) * '' Ongaku no Susume'' (2004) * '' Cyborg Oretachi'' (2007) * Tokyo Groove'' (2010) * ''Halcali no Okawari'' (2012)

Singles

* "Tandem" (2003) * "Electric Sensei" (2003) * "GiriGiri Surf Rider" (2003) * "Strawberry Chips" (2003) * "Marching March" (2004) * "Baby Blue!" (2004) * "Tip Taps Tip" (2005) * "Twinkle Star" (2006) * "Look" (2006) * "Tougenkyou / Lights, Camera. Action!" (2007) * "It's Party Time!" (2007) * "Long Kiss Good Bye" (2008) * "Re:Yasashii Kimochi" (2009) * "Konya wa Boogie Back" (2009) * "Endless Night / YES" (2010) * "You May Dream" (2010) * "Roman Hikou" (2010)

References

External links

{{Authority control Epic Records Japan artists Japanese hip-hop groups Japanese pop music groups Musical groups established in 2002 Musical groups from Tokyo 2002 establishments in Japan Japanese musical duos Pop music duos Hip-hop duos Female musical duos Women hip-hop groups