Tigarah is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese Baile Funk

Funk carioca

Funk carioca , favela funk and, elsewhere in the world, baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from Miami bass....

 emcee whose music contains elements of Grime

Grime (music)

Grime is a style of music that emerged from Bow, East London, England in the early 2000s, primarily as a development of UK garage, dancehall, and hip hop...

, Crunk

Crunk

Crunk is a music style that originated in Memphis, Tennessee in the mid-to-late 1990s and gained mainstream success around 2003–2004. Performers of crunk music are sometimes referred to as crunksters. An archetypal crunk track most frequently uses a drum machine rhythm, heavy bassline, and...

, and Baltimore Club

Baltimore Club

Baltimore club, also called "Bmore Club" or "Club Music" is a breakbeat genre. As blend with hip hop and chopped, staccato house music, it was created in Baltimore, Maryland, United States in the late 1980s by 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell, Frank Ski, Big Tony , Scottie B...

. She performs both in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 and Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

, and has a growing following in both Japan and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. She currently splits her time between her home in Tokyo and Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

. Tigarah, by her admission, means "girl like a tiger."

Tigarah became acquainted with funk carioca

Funk carioca

Funk carioca , favela funk and, elsewhere in the world, baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from Miami bass....

, a Brazilian rhythm similar to Miami Bass

Miami bass

Miami bass , is a type of hip hop music, that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Its roots are directly linked to the Electro-funk sound of the early 1980s, pioneered by Afrika Bambataa & The Soulsonic Force and later on by UK-based musician Paul Hardcastle...

, by Brazilian classmates when she attended Keio University

Keio University

,abbreviated as Keio or Keidai , is a Japanese university located in Minato, Tokyo. It is known as the oldest institute of higher education in Japan. Founder Fukuzawa Yukichi originally established it as a school for Western studies in 1858 in Edo . It has eleven campuses in Tokyo and Kanagawa...

. The political science major was so captivated by the music that she traveled to São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

 and Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

 to learn more about the music and to immerse in culture it came from. During her stay in Rio de Janeiro, she met Mr. D, a Swiss-German DJ/producer who splits his time between there and Los Angeles. In 2003 the two decided to form a duo, having the same musical tastes and interests, performing under Tigarah's name. In 2006 they signed a major record deal with Universal.

Although without a major label deal for a long time, Tigarah has been featured on NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

 and by national American publications like Blender Magazine, URB, "XLR8R

XLR8R

XLR8R is a magazine and website thatcovers music, culture, style, and technology. It was founded as anewsprint ‘zine in 1993 by publisher Andrew Smith in Seattle; themagazine currently has offices in San Francisco and New York...

", "Dazed & Confused

Dazed & Confused (magazine)

Dazed & Confused is a British style magazine, that was set up in 1992 and published monthly. Its founding editors were Jefferson Hack and Rankin...

" and the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

. Her music has also been used in the television programs Numb3rs

NUMB3RS

Numb3rs is an American television drama which premiered on CBS on January 23, 2005, and concluded on March 12, 2010. The series was created by Nicolas Falacci and Cheryl Heuton, and follows FBI Special Agent Don Eppes and his mathematical genius brother, Charlie Eppes , who helps Don solve crimes...

and The L Word

The L Word

The L Word is an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood...

, in the games Need For Speed: Carbon, FIFA 07 and most recently in FIFA 08. She has also been featured on G4TV's FreeStyle 101, freestyling in Japanese. Her music has also been used in commercials for the mobile ring-tone service Mobizzo

Mobizzo

Mobizzo is an entertainment service offering trivia games on mobile phones and smartphones, from Fox Mobile Distribution . Trivia games are played via SMS-text and mobile web. Mobizzo has sites online and on mobile web/WAP.- Services :...

. She has been compared with fellow genre-bending emcee M.I.A., who also rose to prominence from Internet buzz.

Tigarah EP + Revolution

Tracklisting:

1. "Girl Fight!" (Featured in FIFA 07
   FIFA 07
   FIFA 07 is the 2007 edition of EA Sports' series of football simulator video games. Developed by EA Canada, it is published by Electronic Arts....
   
   )
2. "Fake Out"
3. "Japanese Queen"
4. "Roppongi-Dori"
5. "The Game In Rio"
6. "Money"
7. "Everything Is In Your Hand"
8. "Fake Out" (Mr. D Rio Disco Mix)
9. "Girl Fight!" (Mr. D Hyphy Mix) (Featured in Need For Speed: Carbon
   Need for Speed: Carbon
   Need for Speed: Carbon, also known as NFS Carbon or NFSC, is an Electronic Arts video game belonging to the Need for Speed series. Released in 2006, it is the tenth installment, preceded by Need for Speed: Most Wanted, succeeded by Need for Speed: ProStreet in release order and succeeded by Need...
   
   )
10. "Ishin Denshin" (Keane) feat. Tigarah

Tigarah!

Tracklisting:

1. "Space Travel"
2. "Much Music Generation" (English Version)
3. "Girl Fight"
4. "Supa Gurl RMX"
5. "Music Gets Me Free" (English Version)
6. "Space Travel RMX" (Morgan Quaintance from Does It Offend You, Yeah?)

The Funkeira goes BANG!

Tracklisting:

1. "Introduction -TIGARAH-"
2. "Space Travel"
3. "Girl Fight RMX 2009"
4. "SKIT1"
5. "Much Music Generation" (Japanese Version)
6. "The Bizness 2009 ver."
7. "Where You Headed For?" (Featuring Deize Tigrona)
8. "Color,Culture,Money,Beauty" (Featured in FIFA08)
9. "Japanese Queen"
10. "SKIT2"
11. "Let Me Plug USB Stick In"
12. "Roppongi Do-ri RMX 2009"
13. "Music Gets Me Free" (Japanese Version)
14. "Space Travel" (Neo Baile-Funk Mix) Remixed by DJ CHERNOBYL

External links

• Official site