For those of you who haven`t heard yet (or thought I was just joking when I mentioned it before) here is a clip of Vicent Wouassi performing his original fusion of African rhythm and Japanese Shamisen! He calls his own style “Afro Shamisen”.
Oh sweet! This is really cool. I’ve only seen his performance from your videos a few years ago, as well as a picture of him on Katoh’s blog. Very tasteful fusion!
I feel this is one way shamisen will spread. Not just to be an instrument for traditional Japanese music, but to also be an instrument of the world!*
*Ironic coming from me. Another bit of Kyle/Kevin history: Kevin used to try to teach me modern songs on shamisen, but I would insist that traditional minyou is all I wanted to do. 
I still love the traditional folk songs, but I’ve opened up a bit since then.
These days all that Kyle does is: "HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME! Deng diliilillilililiilliliil deng deng dliliililillililili “Damn I really nailed that song.”
I also find this cool, too bad the recording didn’t capture the other instruments very well. It was hard to hear the tones.
And it’s also a blond afro, which is even more jaw dropping.
This is EXACTLY what i want from bachido!
I’m thinking the minyou songs as “practice stage” and when you know how to play you create your own style and songs… Well not necessarily the OWN style but own songs and make up something awesome like this video here!
And i’m so eager to create good jazz music using shamisen… That’s my dream at the moment regarding shamisen or trying to fuse the elements of Kalevala (finnish national opus) to shamisen music… But also i want to know how to play traditional japanese music.
Hahaa!! Oh yes, Karl.
On a similar note… Ortjo, since you are from Finland, I expect you to cover some Children of Bodom on shamisen! 
Haha i’ll think it as my duty