Discogs PWA

Mr. Itagaki

Mr. Itagaki aka Ita-cho, is one of Japan's leading record dealers and digger who knew all about records even before Japan went crazy for records, and an original member of KODP (King Of Diggin' Productions) together with [a9965]. As a customer Ita-cho was asked by the owner of Manhattan Records in Shibuya in 1990 to create a "must-buy" list of underground Hip Hop artists. Since then, he has gotten involved in the vinyl business as a living and officially became a buyer for new and vintage vinyls for the store. He travelled all over the States many times buying records and introducing a lot of unknown soul/funk/jazz titles, drum breaks and samples to the Japanese market, building credibility with local DJs, track makers and heavyweight vinyl collectors. Reportedly, at one point, Manhattan Records held a record for most copies of 12 inch Hip Hop single vinyl sold in the world. At the same time, Ita-cho operated 12inch Hip Hop classic reissue projects of B-Boy Records, Wild Pitch, Tommy Boy, Def Jam and Mercury in Japan. Once Manhattan Records opened an office in New York City, he organized projects with Source magazine, exclusively releasing a lot of titles of independent artists who were introduced on the Unsigned Hype page on the magazine to the Japanese market. In 2000, Ita-cho left Manhattan Records and started his own store carrying lots of little known titles that were useful for sampling/track making as well as vintage original posters from Blacksploitation and Kung-Fu movies and head shop items. Along with store management, Ita-cho concentrated on production works for local Hip Hop acts like group called [a1023923], [a1833620], Black Coffeez, [a1635314], [a4506652], Aktion, Black Rain (B.D. (4) and [a341018]), [a3246693] and [a1277891]. In 2006, he finally released his own album [r10771496]. In 2008, Ita-cho dropped his mix CD [r6866300] which hit the number one spot on charts of UK's Hip Hop website SPIN magazine. DOD 23(?) Nov 2020

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Mr. Itagaki

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