“Mukatsuku Hodo Fresh” by Joel Dechant
I’ve been in Japan for 5 years on and off, and I’ve heard everything. All the pop crap that sounds the same, cute faces, money-making vomit-inducing etc. etc, but what I want to talk about today is Japanese rap!
Yes, the Japanese rap. Linguistically nothing really rhymes in the sense that English rap rhymes. All verbs have the same ending and a lot of words are pronounced the same with different kanji characters. But pedagogic pettiness aside, Japanese rap is downright funky stuff. As with most everything American, the Japanese import it, adore it, and then find some way to make it Japanese. Hip-hop is no exception.
t all started in the mid 80s. Back then it was strictly underground stuff, but nowadays rap artists are crossing over into mainstream pop circles. Pop stars like Utada Hikaru have been know to take the stage with old school rap legends such as Schadarapa(SDP)! So let’s take a listen. Sound good? Sound like stuff you’ve heard. Probably, I’m pretty sure you can pick out a hip-hop beat the world over, but the cool thing about J-Rap is the culture behind it. At first an import, a bunch of wanna-be Americans, at least that’s what I imagine. But for those of you who know about Japanese culture you’ll know that they can’t possibly rap about the same stuff US rappers do. Take the extreme, gangsta rap. Topics typically include sex, drugs, money, gang-banging, souped up cars, the ghetto, among others. I’m not saying all rappers rap this stuff, they don’t. I’m taking the extreme case. Now look at Japan. There’s no “ghetto culture” here. Cities like Tokyo and Osaka are monotonous urban sprawl, and there’s no real race factor. You can hardly tell if you’re in a “good” neighborhood or a “bad” neighborhood except by maybe looking at cars in the driveway or hearing something by word of mouth. So what do Japanese rappers rap about? All kinds of stuff. Like US rappers, they do a lot of bragging. I’m number one, or we’re so original etc. Now, to be honest I can’t understand everything they say, but I do notice a lot of rapping about ideas more than things or money. And since J-rap isn’t totally new anymore, they do have their own urban culture to rap about now. Not to mention the impact they’ve had on the Japanese language itself. Rap, a foreign borrowing, precipitates the borrowing of even more foreign words. And rap the art form requires the artists to push the phonetic boundaries of the language itself. Just take a listen, and you’re bound to hear some snippets you understand “Check it out” “Fresh” “New Style” “ Original” and many more. My hunch is that these rappers could quite possibly be some of the best colloquial English speakers in Japan.I predict that Japanese rap, like many other aspects of Japanese culture will continue to create its own, new, different-from-America subculture and new and old rappers alike will thrive therein. I look forward to finding new artists and rediscovering the old schoolers, and taking a moment to ponder it all. Kinda neat, don’t you think?
Suggested Listening:
Suchadarapa(SDP) especially “The Fun-Key LP” or “DoCompact Disc”
Kohei Japan (formerly of Mellow Yellow)
Soul Scream
Buddha Brand
Rhymester
Rappagariya
Rip Slyme
Ketsu Meishi