Shuhei Nogae (é‡Žæ›¿æ„ å¹³, Nogae Shuhei, born June 9, 1986), better
known with his stage name "SWAY" is a Japanese rapper, actor, lyricist
and producer managed by LDH and signed to Def Jam Recordings. He is a
member of the group Doberman Infinity, of EXILE's theater company
(Gekidan EXILE) and is also a soloist.Shuhei Nogae was born on June 9,
1986, in Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Growing up, Shuhei was a
huge fan of basketball, especially the NBA. He would regularly buy the
sports magazine Hoop and at one point, he read an article about Allen
Iverson and Kobe Bryant doing some rapping. Since they were his idols
during his junior high school years, he became interested in rap music
and hip-hop culture. For this reason he started singing and DJing as a
hobby. In the 3rd grade of junior high school, he started learning
graphic design and break dance besides his other activities. He also
produced a dance track, wrote lyrics and started to rap.At the age of
16, his mindset changed and he became serious about a career as a
rapper after watching the movie 8 Mile. The impact of the movie led
him to choose a stage name by searching through an English-Japanese
dictionary. The word 'sway' stuck with him since its sound was close
to his birth name and he also liked the meaning. However, he faced a
huge problem starting as a rapper: He didn't know what he should write
about in his lyrics and felt like his experiences didn't matter since
his life had been so different from the American rappers he listened
to. He overcame this obstacle by realizing there were also famous
rappers who talked about fairly normal things in their lyrics, such as
Kanye West for example.
known with his stage name "SWAY" is a Japanese rapper, actor, lyricist
and producer managed by LDH and signed to Def Jam Recordings. He is a
member of the group Doberman Infinity, of EXILE's theater company
(Gekidan EXILE) and is also a soloist.Shuhei Nogae was born on June 9,
1986, in Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. Growing up, Shuhei was a
huge fan of basketball, especially the NBA. He would regularly buy the
sports magazine Hoop and at one point, he read an article about Allen
Iverson and Kobe Bryant doing some rapping. Since they were his idols
during his junior high school years, he became interested in rap music
and hip-hop culture. For this reason he started singing and DJing as a
hobby. In the 3rd grade of junior high school, he started learning
graphic design and break dance besides his other activities. He also
produced a dance track, wrote lyrics and started to rap.At the age of
16, his mindset changed and he became serious about a career as a
rapper after watching the movie 8 Mile. The impact of the movie led
him to choose a stage name by searching through an English-Japanese
dictionary. The word 'sway' stuck with him since its sound was close
to his birth name and he also liked the meaning. However, he faced a
huge problem starting as a rapper: He didn't know what he should write
about in his lyrics and felt like his experiences didn't matter since
his life had been so different from the American rappers he listened
to. He overcame this obstacle by realizing there were also famous
rappers who talked about fairly normal things in their lyrics, such as
Kanye West for example.
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