The Gospellers

The Gospellers (ゴスペラーズ) are a Japanese a cappella vocal group made up of Tetsuya Murakami, Kaoru Kurosawa, Yuji Sakai, Yoichi Kitayama and Yutaka Yasuoka. Originally formed by Murakami and Kurosawa (along with 4 other members) in 1991 as a group within a college chorus club "Street Corner Symphony" at the University of Waseda, they recruited 3 new members in order to fill the vacancy (4 members previously left the group due to their job placement activities) for the recording of The Gospellers, their first major label release in 1994. They spent the next 6 years working towards national recognition, releasing 13 singles and 5 albums, until they finally came up with a hit single "Towa ni," which stayed in the Oricon chart ranking for 44 consecutive weeks in 2000 and 2001. They became the first a cappella group to be in the top 3 of the chart in Japan with their 16th single, "Hitori." In early 2006, the group made a side-project release, Gosperats, which featured the members in blackface and singing with more soul and jazz-like accompaniment, with Rats & Star members Masayuki Suzuki, Nobuyoshi Kuwano and Yoshio Sato, who originally, along with such a style, established the popularity of R&B and Doo-wop in the 1980s in Japan.