Overview
“5th Wheel 2 the Coach” is the fifth studio album by Scha Dara Parr, a three-member Japanese hip-hop group formed by Ani (MC), Bose (MC) and Shinco (DJ) in 1988.
Commentary
Scha Dara Parr is a group who became known for their hip-hop featuring comical and loose rap in Japanese, which is influenced by the U.S. Native Tongues, such as Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest.
They participated in De La Soul’s album “Buhloone Mindstate” as guests in 1993, and released the single “Kon’ya wa Boogie-Back” featuring Kenji Ozawa in 1994. Then, they released the album from Toshiba EMI in 1995. It reached number 4 on the Oricon Weekly Chart.
The album has been highly regarded as a musically polished masterpiece by music fans and critics in Japan.
It is characterized by its jazzy and psychedelic back tracks produced by use of sampler E-mu SP-1200.
It includes the singles, “Dubidu What?”, “From Kidoairaku”, and “Summer Jam ’95”.
“From Kidoairaku” was used as the opening theme for the NHK music program “Pop Jam”.
“Summer Jam ’95” sampled Bobby Hutcherson’s “Montara” (1975). It is known as a chill-out classic in summer.
“Ultimate Breakfast & Beats” is a parody of “Ultimate Breaks and Beats” (1986–1991), a series of breakbeat compilation albums. It uses “Synthetic Substitution”, one of the tracks of “Ultimate Breaks and Beats”.
In 2007, “Rolling Stone Japan” selected the album as number 74 on their list of the “100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time”.
