Ai Kawashima Encore 2009 Sakuri Matsuri

Ai was pushed to do an unexpected encore at the Cherry Blossom Festival held every year at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. A lot of her songs are on the Internet but this may be a new one. It was obviously pleasing to the audience. See my earlier video where she talks about founding schools for poor kids in third world countries. For those unaware of her unusual story, I share an excerpt from her wikipedia profile: "Text: Expedia says: "Ai had the dream of becoming a singer since she was little. The dream was made by her and her mother together. Her mother was her only family since she had lost her father when she was just a child. However, Ai's mother died before she became a famous singer. Now she is singing not only for her mother, who has died, but also for people who listen to her song, wishing world peace. She has helped establish schools in poor countries.

Before she became a famous singer, she established a goal--to perform 1000 times on the street--and accomplished it after she became a great singer. Her voice is called "angel's voice". At first, there were only a few people listening to her song on the street, however, gradually she attracted a lot of people. Ultimately, her last street performance in Shibuya attracted a great number of people.

At some point she and "Nao" formed the duo I WiSH and had a decent level of success, but the band was dissolved in 2005 so that Ai and Nao could concentrate on solo projects.

Some of Ai's songs have been used as theme songs for anime and videogames. Zetsubou to Kibou (絶望と希 ?) is the theme song of Shining Force Neo; "Compass" was is the theme song of the eighth One Piece movie Episode of Alabasta: The Desert Princess and the Pirates, and "Kimi No Koe" is the ending theme song of The Place Promised in our Early Days. One of her newest songs, "Door Crawl", is the theme song of Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon."