New York, NY (Top40 Charts) After over 2 years, Japanese singer-songwriter and music producer, Kenshi Yonezu, has officially released his long-awaited 5th studio album, STRAY SHEEP; along with a music video for "
Campanella". Fans all over the world showcased their excitement, as pre-sales for the album skyrocketed to 1 million copies, shipped out yesterday, August 4th. Over 65K fans eagerly waited in the YouTube Premiere Chatroom to watch Yonezu's "
Campanella" release last night, which is now sitting at over 2 million views. To celebrate this release, Yonezu will be collaborating with Fortnite, as the first Asian artist ever, for a virtual 2020 Event / STRAY SHEEP in Fortnite. It will be held within the
Battle Royale Game, Fortnite on August 7th @ 7:00AM Eastern Daylight Time, simultaneously around the world. For those who are unavailable at this time, 2 encore shows are scheduled to take place at 1:00PM and 7:00PM on August 7th (Friday). With over 350 million registered players worldwide,
Kenshi Yonezu will be able to showcase his talents globally appearing on the Fortnite Main Stage. For more information visit: https://www.epicgames.com/fortnite/en-US/news/kenshi-yonezu-at-party-royale
STRAY SHEEP consists of 15 songs; including Yonezu's previously released smash hit "Lemon," which ranked #1 on Billboard Japan's annual cumulative charts for 2 years consecutively, making history as the first-ever act to do so. Furthermore, it's been certified by the Japan Record Association for the fastest to achieve 3 million downloads, and the music video has broken the Japanese record for the most views; sitting at almost 600 million currently [watch here].
During these uncertain times and unconventional work environment due to Covid-19, Yonezu reflected a lot while working on the album, stating; "When I thought about how I'm going to live in this country from now on, I realized that many things were getting me emotional with anger, disappointment, and despair. But in the end, my only choice is to live in this country - in this world. Which led to the conclusion that all I can do is make pop songs. In the end, we need to affirm that we exist and need to live. It's really easy to be pessimistic and let creativity flow with anger and sadness, but I felt that is not my role. So, I thought about the distant future, where people were living a healthy life reminiscing about "what happened during those times". I may have been envisioning those scenes when creating this song."
Kenshi Yonezu is no stranger to breaking records and making history; he recently became the first Japanese Artist to hit 5M Youtube subscribers, with music video views reaching over 2.8 billion total, and counting [Billboard article here]. On July 10th, Yonezu released the music video for "Kanden," skyrocketed to 1M views in under 2 hours, and it currently sits at 30M. This single is off his upcoming album, and it debuted at No. 2 on the Japan Hot 100, blasting in at No. 1 for downloads with 158,572 units after dropping digitally July 6; stated by Billboard. The music video for "Kanden" marks Yonezu's 13th music video to reach over 100 million views throughout his career.
