Singers Ayaka and Daichi Miura will be teaming up for a collaborative single titled HEART UP. The song will be produced by both Takeshi Kobayashi and Ayaka, she was also responsible for writing the lyrics and helping out with the composition. Additionally, HEART UP will be the main image song for an unannounced major CM campaign that is set to begin airing nationwide in April.

Both artists have interesting parallels, they were born in 1987 and had also debuted around the same time. Miura got his start in the group folder. After parting ways in 1999 he took a break from the music industry and returned in 2005 with the single Keep It Goin’ On. One year later in 2006 Ayaka took the J-pop world by storm with her hit single I believe.  The pair began meeting with Kobayashi over the summer, and started to record shortly after headlining “908 FESTIVAL 2017”, a concert organized by rapper KREVA.

Ayaka commented that a heart goes through various emotions when it comes to love, but with this song it’s about a broken heart. In the title she paired it with the word “up” because she wanted to portray that even a broken heart can fly even higher than where it was prior to the relationship, and become more strong. While feelings of love can result in a lot of pain and sadness, it will make your heart grow stronger. She went on to praise Miura’s vocals saying you can really hear the emotion when he sings!

Miura was also complimentary of Ayaka’s voice, saying that they overlap together perfectly. When he heard HEART UP‘s demo for the first time he was instantly hooked.

The single will be released in the standard CD only and CD+DVD versions. The b-sides feature a karaoke version of the song one only with Ayaka’s vocals, and the other with Miura’s vocals. HEART UP will be released on February 14th, 2018.

(natalie)