J-pop diva Amuro Namie releases collaboration album in Korea

Amuro Namie's album cover for compilation album "Checkmate" [SM Entertainment]

J-pop diva Amuro Namie’s latest collaboration album has gone on sale in Korea, announced SM Entertainment on Wednesday.

According to a press release by SM today, Amuro’s latest record “Checkmate,” which features her performances with several top J-pop artists, went on sale in Korea today.

The album released in a CD+DVD format, is made up of 13 tracks including songs such as “UNUSUAL” that the diva performed with Yamashita Tomohisa, “Wonder Woman" with songstresses AI and Tsuchiya Anna, “#1” with duo band CHEMISTRY member Kawabata Kaname, and “make it happen” with Korean girl group After School.

Other famous Japanese musicians such as m-flo, ZEBRA and Ravex did featurings for the album while the DVD contains music videos to seven tracks in the album including “FAKE,” “BLACK DIAMOND,” and “Do What U Gotta Do.”

The album has already claimed first place on Japan’s prestigious Oricon daily chart upon its release on April 27.

Amuro Namie is a highly popular singer, actor and entertainer in Japan who debuted as a member to idol girl group Super Monkey’s at the age of 14 and rose to stardom in 1997 with her single album “Can You Celebrate?”

Since then she has produced number of hit albums including “Don’t Wanna Cry” (1996), “Sweet19 Blues” (1996), “I Have Never Seen” (1998), “Play” (2007) “60s, 70s, 80s” (2008) and “Best Fiction” (2008).

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