"Feel this kid, Hakim Bey style." (!!!!!)
Dope post. I haven't listened to all the tracks yet but thanks a ton for posting this, holmes.
Definitely hot man. Thanks for posting.
Awesome. That was extremely informative - Japanese hip-hop isn't exactly something I run into often, neh? - and I'm always up for learning something new. Thanks!
feelin this post!
Nippon kills it
This post made my motherfucking millenium. I'm in Tokyo right now taking language courses and trying to figure out what's up with hip hop here, which is difficult when you, at best, only sort of speak the language.
So much good information in a few short paragraphs, including the Wenod link, I'll have to check that out before I leave. One thing I did pick up at Diskunion that sounded really good was mehlentrips - Nanorumomanai. Very spacy.
Good luck with the documentary, and looking forward to the next post.
Oh, and a very important question - why are albums by Japanese artists so insanely expensive in Japan, while American stuff is relatively reasonable? It's a real mystery to me.
Took me a day, but I just realized that the CD I bought the other day is the solo record from one of the Origami guys, Nanorunamonai. It's some great stuff. I think I'll be seeing them (or actually, maybe just one of their boys, can't quite tell for sure) at a show in Shibuya next thursday.
So that new nanorunamonai is all spacy huh? Origami's second album is like that, pretty tripped.
If you ask a person that grew up here why albums are so expensive here compared to the states they'll put it down to lack of pressing plants and expensive studio time. I think that's horseshit, that it goes a lot deeper into issues of monopolistic ownership and straight up generalized censorship. That's something I want to mention in the next post actually. You can hardly FIND Japanese hip-hop because first off, cats can't even put out albums because a) it's so expensive b)no one will support them and c)the cd they put out will cost at least 25 bucks. Then, you've got basically no mixtape culture moving at all because of copyright laws that everyone just seems terrified of breaking, so the momentum is very very slight with very few taking any risks. Those who are taking risks are the ones I'm trying to recognize here.
Glad you dug the post. I figure the next one will be up in a month or so.
hex
' the classic-break sampling tendencies of Japanese hip hop' - exactly. althought it's strange since the shops in Osaka & Tokyo are ridiculously up to date on crunk & reggaeton & synthed up american beats.
& the many weed references in japanese hiphop have greater social oomph since over there marijuana & heroin share the same legal classification as heavy criminal drugs; japanese kids can get serious jailtime for minor weed possession.
great writeup, lookin fwd to part 2.
thanks for the complements, jace. i've been bangin your shit since gold teef, keep it going strong.
incidentally i'm always at docore and elsewhere, bangin with isao and co. i've been thinking (if i can actually get some tracks off him) of scrawling on mc nouji who rhymes over breakcore or whatever chaos the osaka networks come up with. put the nets out there, see what comes up.
people on the islands don't know shit about grime yet that's for sure. they know crunk, reggaeton and all modern hip hop but for some reason with rare exceptions, hip hop here is the same shit after the same shit. went through some pretty whack shit during the interviews, like boy band shit ugh.
sphinx
Wow, celebrities in the house. I too am a fan from way back, I got that recent one off Lemon Red, it's simply astounding. Thanks.
Back on topic - I actually talked to a Japanese social scientist a few days ago who let me know that the high price of albums by Japanese artists is all down to the sort of industrial collusion and price-fixing that basically infiltrates every other aspect of the Japanese economy. I figure this must be at the level of pressing plants, because otherwise the indies would have already figured out how to undercut the majors on price.
Still though, how hard can it be to get something pressed in China and shipped back?
Oh, and what's this about copyright? Funny, the Doujinshi kids have absolutely no fear of the copyright police when it's time to make hardcore pornography featuring the stars of Street Fighter (more on that on my site soon), but hip hop kids can't make a fucking mixtape?
This is a good discussion, the sort that I need to be having more of. Nnyone know of a message board that might be of interest re: Japanese hip hop (either in Japanese or English)?
I'm out today to (try to) interview people in Shimo-Kitazawa about their album buying habits, we'll see how that goes.
Hey yo,
My name is Ebenezer Bond. I run a non-profit in NYC called World Up! that focuses on cross cultural education through Hip Hop....teaching American kids about global issues through a language they can relate too... we are also working towards putting together the first Interational Hip Hop Festival.
I followed the link through Jace's blog and now all the tracks have expired.
How can I get my hands on these tracks. I'm very interested to learn more.
peace
eb
ps - our site is underconstruction but we just did an event on Friday here in NYC peep the flyer www.africanunderground.com
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