CMJK

Kitagawa Jun (北川潤), better known as CMJK, is a Japanese synthpop artist, DJ, composer, arranger, and music producer. He is a member of the duo Cutemen and a former sequencer for Denki Groove.

Biography[]

Kitagawa Jun was born on August 21, 1967 in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan.^[1]

In 1983, while in his first year of high school, he formed a neo-psychedelic group named The Cutemen.^[2] They moved to Tokyo after high school, but eventually broke up as a result of the live houses refusing to book them because they "sounded too Western" and their disappointment in Tokyo's mostly rock music scene.

When the Second Summer of Love began, Kitagawa started looking for members for a new unit. He eventually met Picorin, who got his nickname for liking "picopico music" (or chiptunes), and they decided to make music together. Because they could not think of a good name, they took Kitagawa's former group name The Cutemen and removed "The" from it.

In 1990,^[1] Kitagawa was approached by Ishino Takkyu, who once applied to join Kitagawa's unit and hung out at the same live house as the Cutemen. Ishino asked Kitagawa for help in his new unit Denki Groove with Pierre Taki. He joined as their sequencer and came up with the stage name Cut Master JK (JK from his initials) because of his respect for Cutmaster Swift, a British DMC World DJ Champion; however, the name was accidentally written as CMJK on promotional material and he went along with it.

CMJK left Denki Groove in 1991 after they released their first major album FLASH PAPA and went on tour. He returned to the underground scene, resuming Cutemen activities with Picorin and briefly joining other units such as CONFUSION, CT.SCAN, and ALEX inc.^[3] Cutemen released three singles, two mini albums and two full albums before stopping in 1994. At this time, CMJK began producing, composing and arranging songs for J-pop artists.

In 2016, Cutemen reunited for their 25th anniversary and fully restarted activities.^[4]