Akkogorilla is a new hip-hop artist from Sony Music. She’s known for her powerful performance and kitsch style. But in this age, music has come to be something passively consumed. The old style of distributing music data and CDs to media companies by itself is not enough to generate interest. Making an artist’s debut not get buried under the 500 new artists every year in Japan alone, is a difficult task.

We tried to create a cool promotion kit that matched the hip-hop roots of Akkogorilla. Something that stands out from the rest by creating an encounter with new music, an experience that simply wouldn’t be consumed, and an element of surprise people would talk about.

We made an original trial listening tool called the Goriradicase. (A portmanteau of “gorilla” and “raji-kase”, short for Radio Cassette Recorder) A chip stores music data inside a banana-shaped card. This radio-cassette style player reads it, and plays the music.

A limited 100 units of the Gorirajicase were distributed. All types of media were quick to cover it, leading to increased artist recognition, and boosting album sales. It served as an example of a new form of promotion for the music industry.