Soul Brothers, which landed on the first place of Oricon Albums Chart on the first day of its release. At the same time, Naoki made his major debut in the music industry. 2009–present: Exile and Sandaime J Soul Brothers On 1 March 2009, as all members of Nidaime J Soul Brothers migrated to Exile, Naoki joined Exile. In July 2010, LDH announced that they wanted to revive J Soul Brothers and formed Sandaime J Soul Brothers ("The Third Generation of J Soul Brothers"). Hiro, the producer of the new J Soul Brothers, appointed Naoki and Naoto, the two youngest members of Exile, as the co-leaders of the new dance and vocal group. While remaining as performers of Exile, Naoki and Naoto also started to serve as performers of the Sandaime J Soul Brothers. As the leader of the new Sandaime J Soul Brothers, Naoki actively participated in the selection of the group's members, recommending then-EXPG's instructor Kenjiro Yamashita and Rag Pound's member Takanori Iwata, a university student at that time, to join the audition. On 27 September, Naoki appeared and performed first time as a member of Sandaime J Soul Brothers on the stage of Exile's Live FANTASY After Night Festival ～EXILE Soul～. On 10 November, the birthday of Naoki, Sandaime J Soul Brothers debuted with their first single "Best Friend's Girl". In February and March 2013, Naoki performed in Shunichi Okamura's play Atami Satsujin Jiken 40years' NEW and played the character Kintaro Oyama. With 2014 becoming an important year for both Sandaime J Soul Brothers, it was also marked as an important year for Naoki. As EXILE's Chapter 4 kicked off in 2014, Naoki switched from his stage name NAOKI to his real name Naoki Kobayashi (stylized as 小林直己). On 25 June, Sandaime J Soul Brothers' major hit R.Y.U.S.E.I. was released. The song topped the Oricon Single Charts at number one selling 162,174 copies on its first week. The song also won Naoki and Sandaime J Soul Brothers the Japan Record Award for the first time and skyrocketed the group to mainstream success. In December 2014, Naoki debuted on television with the drama Ishi Mondai Nashinosuke. On 28 January 2015, Naoki and Sandaime J Soul Brothers released their fifth album, Planet Seven, which sold 508 thousand copies in the first week after its release. In 2015, Krump dance tram Rag Pound revived as ®AG POUND, and Naoki joined the