PANG, short for her full name PangHyang, grew up in the port city of Kobe. She had an interest in music from an early age and took piano lessons during her childhood. When she turned 19, she had serious plans to become a professional singer and began taking vocal lessons. She started performing live in 2000, playing in various clubs around Tokyo.
In 2002, she managed to attract the attention of the legendary reggae artist NAHKI when the two of them performed at the same event. NAHKI was so impressed with her that he took her under his wing and is still supporting her to this day. PANG recorded a few demo songs and, thanks to the help of NAHKI, was able to sign with an independent label.
In the same year, she was invited to the event Reggae-Festa, organized by a popular radio station. Other artists such as PUSHIM and FIRE BALL also performed at this event. With her originality and touching singing voice, PANG managed to move the audience and finally got to show what she was worth.
In the following year, she made her indies debut with the mini-album Pezora. Her major debut followed shortly afterwards with the release of her second mini-album, Hare, on the Avex label Cutting Edge. The female urban artist lecca was featured in a few of PANG’s songs, and PANG in two songs on lecca’s album Rekka. lecca also joined PANG to perform at a reggae event in Okinawa.
Then, in April 2005, PANG released the single Tropical Island c/w SMILE, which was limited to Okinawa and caused quite a stir in the Okinawan scene. In the same year, her much anticipated first album PANG was released. In August, a song of hers was chosen for the animated film "Madagascar" by the American film studio DreamWorks, which was the first time a Japanese song had been selected for one of their productions.
Her first performance overseas was in November 2006 when she performed alongside MEGARYU and NAHKI in New York.
After the release of the single Kizuna, featuring her fellow label mates MEGARYU, and her third full album PANG III ~kizuna~ around the summer of 2007, she mostly focused on performing. Although the number of her releases decreased in comparison to previous years, 2008 saw the release of the mini-album Moshimo as well as her fourth album PANG 4 YOU in the summer. The following two years saw two more albums, one of them LOVER BEAT in July 2010 which was her first album without ‘PANG’ and a number in the title. In the meantime, PANG continued to perform at both reggae events and her own one-man shows.
PANG already has a few events scheduled for the summer. Seeing as the reggae hype hasn’t left Japan yet, we are sure that she will continue to work steadily on her career and continue to enamor people with her positive sound.
