Toshi

Through my Flickr account, I received the following request:

• "My name is Mayumi from Healing World Co., Ltd. which is an independent music label in Japan. We're currently creating a series of promotional movies for our artist, TOSHI with a lot of nice pictures from over the world. We would like to use your photo "Strolling In Budapest" if possible"...

This is the picture (to the right):

Here's the part which I found of interest:

• ..."It would also be very nice if you could allow us to use it without giving you a credit, not showing your name on the movie"...

It is fairly standard if you're not going to buy a photographer's shot, then you at least will traditionally ask for permission and tell people who took it. The alternative is basically cheating the system and working it completely for free. Here's more:

• ..."Here's our artist, TOSHI's official MySpace at www.myspace.com/toshioffice for your reference."

So, I was curious to see what calibre artist Toshi might be and started some research based on his MySpace profile.

On first glance, it's a little hard to decipher since some of his MySpace material is in Japanese, but this is what we can determine. His music is Pop (you can hear that, kind of like Josh Groban), he plays concerts in Tokyo, he has CDs, his music is on iTunes (in Japan at least). Here he is on YouTube.

There are more clues from his biography which describes him as a "legendary" vocalist who has given more than 2500 concerts, has "steady and honest activities", and has created "big sensations". Toshi says, “I have seen so many people shed tears to hear my songs for as long as 8 years, and I sincerely feel that is such a blessing and a great pleasure for me.”

The biography later relates that after splitting from the band that made him legendary and going solo, they had reunion concerts at the Tokyo Dome in March 2008. The Tokyo Dome is a 55,000 seat stadium where the Yomiuri Giants play in Japan. Hmmm.... I am concluding that Toshi may be a major artist.

I further find that Toshi has 6786 MySpace friends. Looking up Britney Spears for comparison, we see that she has 505,795 friends on her space. Well, I guess he's not in her league.

At any rate, I decided to allow the picture to be used without credits (or money) out of curiosity and because he seemed to have a good heart. I did ask to have a link to the video when done.

And, in the end, he does appear to be trying to cheat the system, but since his bio says he is a "healing artist"it will be my contribution to the good of society.