Juju or Ju-Ju are objects, such as amulets, and spells used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa. Juju historically referred to traditional West African religions.
The term "juju", and the practices associated with it, travelled to the Americas from West Africa with the influx of slaves via the Atlantic slave trade and still survives in some areas, particularly among the various groups of Maroons, who have preserved their African traditions.
Juju is sometimes used to enforce a contract or ensure compliance. In a typical scenario, a juju spell will be placed on a Nigerian woman before she is trafficked into Europe for a life in prostitution, to ensure that she will pay back her traffickers and won't escape. The witch doctor casting the spell requires a payment for this service. Juju is also commonly used in an attempt to affect the outcome of football games.
Contrary to common belief, Vodun is not related to juju, despite the linguistic and spiritual similarities. Juju has acquired some karmic attributes in more recent times: good juju can stem from almost any good deed; bad juju can be spread just as easily. These ideas revolve around the luck and fortune portions of juju. The use of juju to describe an object usually involves small items worn or carried; these generally contain medicines produced by witch doctors.
Juju (ジュジュ) (stylized as JUJU) (born February 14, 1976) is a Japanese jazz singer. She is represented by Sony Music Associated Records Inc.
She currently resides in New York City. She dreamed of being a jazz singer while growing up in Kyoto, and participated in all sorts of music-related activities. At age 18, she left for the US alone. While in New York, she was very taken with the "New York sound," including jazz, R&B, hip-hop, soul, Latin music, and house. Around 2001, Juju began to be featured in a number of works by other artists. In 2002, she provided music for the film Kyōki no Sakura. In 2004, she debuted with her first single "Hikaru no Naka e". The same year, concurrent with her musical activities in New York, she started performing live in Japan. When her third single, "Kiseki o Nozomu nara", was released, it topped the USEN charts and remained on the chart for a record length of 22 weeks. At this point, while she received support from a small group of listeners, she remained mostly unknown. On August 23, 2008, with the release of "Kimi no Subete ni", a collaboration between Spontania and Juju, she broke out onto the Japanese popular music scene, with the single receiving over 2.5 million downloads. Again, on November 26, 2008, another collaboration with Spontania named "Sunao ni Naretara" earned her even more fame, with the song receiving 2.2 million downloads.In 2010, Juju released her third album called Juju and it won the Excellence Album Award at the 52nd Japan Record Awards.
Julius Sarisalmi, professionally known as Juju, is a Finnish rapper. To date, he has released four solo albums, the latest of which in June 2014. Juju has also appeared as a featured guest on songs by such artists as Julma-Henri, Teflon Brothers and Aste.
Capsule (カプセル, Kapuseru, stylized as CAPSULE since autumn 2013) is a Japanese electronica duo consisting of vocalist Toshiko Koshijima and producer Yasutaka Nakata.
Capsule formed in November 1997, after Nakata Yasutaka and Koshijima Toshiko met at the Teens' Music Festival in the Hokuriku area convention when they were 17 years old. Their first single was "Sakura", released in March 2001 on Yamaha Music Communications. Their first album, High Collar Girl, was significantly different from their later works in that it did not involve nearly as much use of synthesizers or contain futuristic/electronic sounds.
Capsule's style in albums up to L.D.K. Lounge Designers Killer (2005) was frequently referred to as "neo-Shibuya-kei" due to their stylistic similarities, both aesthetically and musically, to acts from the Shibuya-kei movement of the 1990s, most notably Pizzicato Five. It contained elements of bossa nova, lounge and breakbeat. From Fruits Clipper (2006) on their style was increasingly electro house.
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Yasunori Sakurazawa (櫻澤 泰徳, Sakurazawa Yasunori, born on November 20, 1969), known by his stage name Sakura, is a Japanese musician. He is probably best known as former drummer of the rock band L'Arc-en-Ciel. After leaving them in 1997, he formed the supergroup Zigzo, the trio Sons of All Pussys with his former L'Arc-en-Ciel bandmate Ken, and his solo project Lion Heads.
Currently he performs with the bands Rayflower, Circuit9 and The Madcap Laughs, the reformed Zigzo and By-Sex, and supports Dead End frontman Morrie in his solo project Creature Creature.
Sakura was born in Nerima, Tokyo, the youngest of three children. He started taking piano lessons when he was a child. When he was in junior high school he became very interested in rock music, later taking formal music training. Initially he wanted to play guitar but soon changed his mind and devoted himself to percussion.
When Sakura was in high school, he was already playing in the percussion and brass sections for three different school bands. He started working as a roadie for well-known metal band Dead End when he was nineteen. Soon he began playing drums professionally and joined the bands Die+Kusse and the Harem Q, the latter released an album entitled Opium in 1991.
Urusei Yatsura, a manga (1978–1987) and anime (1981–1986) series created by Rumiko Takahashi, has a large ensemble cast which includes many cameo appearances from Japanese mythology and history. Names of some of the characters are below. They are in Western order, with the surname after the given name.
(諸星あたる)
Ataru Moroboshi is the main protagonist of the series. A lazy student at Tomobiki High School, Class 2-4, Ataru suffers from an incredible amount of bad luck, having been born on Friday the Thirteenth, during a major earthquake, and Butsumetsu, the unluckiest day of the Buddhist calendar. Thanks to this lack of good fortune, his triumph in the game of tag that saved Earth from Oni invasion turned into a defeat for him. His victory statement, intended to confirm his then-girlfriend Shinobu's promise to marry him if he won, was misinterpreted by Lum to be a marriage proposal. Much to his chagrin, she accepted.
Ataru is very lecherous. His main goal in life is to live in the center of a harem composed of exotic and beautiful women, including Lum and most of her alien friends. Usually, he just walks up to a woman he's never met before and asks for her name, phone number, and address. If Lum, who views him as her husband, should witness these usually futile flirting efforts, she regularly zaps him with massive quantities of electricity, but they do nothing to slow him down.