Joga
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Joga is an Italian Europop act produced by Nick Ferrando with Nathalie Aarts featured on vocals, who had released four singles: Dam Dariram, Bye Bye Baby Balloon, Nobody's Love, and White Christmas, all released commercially in Europe. Joga's popularity is claimed to be quite high among listeners of Toshiba-EMI's Dancemania non-stop megamix series, and among players of Bemani games. Of their three major songs, Dam Dariram and Bye Bye Baby Balloon are considered the most famous releases, with Nobody's Love coming in as still being popular among fans, but not being featured outside of Dancemania X7. White Christmas was a song that was added to a compilation published by Polystar Records in 2003 entitled Trance X-Mas, and this song has been their last collaboration as producer and singer.
As for Joga's appearance in Bemani games:
- Dam Dariram first appeared in Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix, and appeared in Dance Dance Revolution BEST HITS, Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix, Dance Dance Revolution 5th Mix, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, Dance Dance Revolution Party Collection, and Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 2
- Bye Bye Baby Balloon first appeared in DDRMAX: Dance Dance Revolution 6thMIX, and appeared in Dance Dance Revolution ULTRAMIX 3
- Dam Dariram was remixed for Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix by Japanese DJ, KCP, as a 170-bpm hardcore remix, and was playable again in Dance Dance Revolution 5th Mix. It has not appeared again in any newer DDR games.
- Dam Dariram was also remixed for DancemaniaX 2nd Mix by another Japanese DJ, B4 ZA BEAT.
- All songs listed above are edited to approximately 1min 30sec in length, and those can be found on the soundtrack for the Bemani game it first appeared on.
- Nobody's Love was not available in any DDR incarnation, but has remained a favourite choice in the DDR simfile community.
A cover of Dam Dariram appeared on Dancemania BASS #9, sung by BOOM TOWN CREW.
Nathalie, whose nick name is Joga, has moved on to other smaller projects in her home town of Venice, Italy, such as singing in bars or clubs. As for what Joga means, Nathalie has stated it means "beautiful eyes" in an old European language.
Nick has moved on to manage his own record label, "Music In Head". Taken from Nick's page on Discogs, "...He defines [Music In Head] as "My ideal space to share my music vision along with top songwriters and producers around the globe". Few months after the birth of Music in Head, his first works as an independent producer were topping charts around UK, Germany, Australia, Canada, Benelux and Scandinavia. His own discography features now more than 50 records released in more than 40 countries worldwide."
Photos for both Nick and Nathalie can be found on their page on Discogs, located here and here
