hip-hop: political movement or consumer fetish?

In Hip-Hop Japan, Ian Condry makes the argument that the booming hip-hop culture in Japan is not merely a case of mass imitation, but rather, an important creative vehicle of (political) self-expression for young people. Specifically, Condry claims that this thriving community in Japan plays a key role on the global scale in the dynamic evolution of hip-hop, and that this continuous feeding of hip-hop progress cannot be without the vital genba interactions between multiple participants in Japanese hip-hop. I feel like Condry’s position is a bit of an optimistic hyperbole. As with young people anywhere else in the world, most hip-hop fans in Japan probably exist for the purpose of novelty and pseudo-rebellion. In other words, this cultural phenomenon is not unlike the popularity of the Rock Against Bush CDs around 2004-2005 in the United States: generally speaking, young people simply need something to rebel against to feel deviant and cool, and it is not necessary for them to understand their alleged cause at all. This theory of hip-hop’s popularity would explain: a) why the conservative political atmosphere perseveres in Japan (as Nori testified) in spite of the political agenda of the entire Japanese hip-hop community, and b) why there are virtually no hip-hop fans in Japan over the age of 30. Furthermore, the extensive inter- and intra-cultural exchange of information in the global hip-hop world doesn’t, in the end, lend any authenticity to the collective consciousness of the Japanese hip-hop community. Indeed, genba exchanges do not involve any creative contributions to the development of Japanese hip-hop; what happens is usually just the spread of newest musical and material products. In other words, the popularity of products, rather than that of any political progress, is what really holds the Japanese hip-hop community together, and these products are often derived from imitating other pre-existing products. This arbitrary trend to imitate the clothing, mannerisms, hairstyles, pastimes (ex. graffiti), and even skin color of leading figures in American hip-hop is enough to reveal that the lifestyle of the Japanese hip-hop culture (which, according to Condry, is integral to the spirit of Japanese hip-hop) is not only ahistorical, but also irrelevant to the various political causes of the hip-hop artists. Moreover, this irrelevance and lack of cultural coherence suggests that the hip-hop culture in Japan is, alas, nothing more than yet another consumer fetish.

Mimi246 on J-pop music (3)

Mimi246 wrote another entry on this topic on April 27, adding some more significant trends. -tomomi

After I finished writing the previous entry, I realized and thought “oh..!”. My list totally lacked the “visual-kei” artists.

The genres that I didn’t include as I knew their existence but didn’t know very well include Japanese Reggae, for example. I am not that knowledgable about R&B, too. Quite a few female R&B singers appeared after Hikaru Utada’s debut, but my memory is very vague about them.

One more thing that I think I should mention is the post-90s rock in Japan. Many bands with lots of personality appeared in this period.

Blankey Jet City “Pepin” (1)
Guitar Wolf “Jet Generation“
thee michelle gun elephant “Birdmen“
NUMBER GIRL “NUM-AMI-DABUTZ“
Quruli, “Akai Densha“

Mimi246 on J-pop music (2)

This is a part 2 of mini246’s entry. Again, very rough translation – sorry for my mistakes! -tomomi

There were quite a few musicians who were active abroad, but I had an impression that those who are supposed by local musicians and music lovers, regardless of the trend of “showbiz” promotions and hit charts, increased in the beginning of the 90s. Especially I remember Boredoms and Shonen Knife, who were supported by alternative rock lovers in the U.S. Boredoms were in touch with Sonic Youth, and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana claimed that he loved Shonen Knife. I got to know of the band, Shonen Knife, for the first time when I was in San Francisco and a guy there who loved alternative music taught me. At the time, I only knew of the bands that were commercially successful and covered in the mass media, and I couldn’t realize the greatness of their music at first. The alternative guy, however, said, “they are doing the “honest” music,” which, I think, shows why those who were not satisfied with commercialized music supported them. At the same time, both Boredoms and Shone Knife were not sticked with the imitation of British-American music,” despite the fact that they sing in English.

Japanese blogger, mimi246, on the history of pop music (1)

Here is my translation of the blog enty by mini246 – this is just a casual and rough translation, and forgive me for my gramatical errors etc. But I hope you could see what mini246 wants to introduce, based on her own experience of growing up in Japan. And she introduces us so many youtube links!
-Tomomi

———————

The class on Japanese culture at the University of Chicago was something! So I will try to add my personal take on the history of postwar Japanese pop music

I saw Popular Culture In/Out of Japan blog, of a class taught by Tomomi Yamaguchi at the University of Chicago, via the April 14 entry of her blog. I initially thought that the class focuses on manga and anime, because Phoenix and Genshiken were introduced as required readings. When I saw the content, however, it wasn’t limited to only manga and anime. I was surprised to see how deep the content related to music was. Rather than deep, the content was filled with love (for music), and especially, I wonder where they could research so much on Shinbuya-kei. I had so much fun reading this entry. Bravo!

Japanese blogger responded to this blog!

A Japanese blogger, mimi246, wrote an entry in response to the entry in this blog posted by Sean.

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/mimi246/20070425

I will translate her entry into English and post it onto this blog very soon, so stay tuned!

Stylin’ Pose (with addition!)

I happened upon this while at Walgreens, and originally thought that it was a female Polly Pocket DJ figure, and thought “oh, this is interesting.”

But upon uploading the picture, I found out that it was actually a male figure. And that the box encouraged you to “Style his hair!” and even comes with a little brush.

Just thought it was interesting that, while there are now “girl” dolls for DJs, the DJ isn’t actually a girl, and it’s made so that you can play with it just as you play with your other dolls. As if DJ is really just a fashion statement.

So I guess this gets girls ready for the dance-party culture waiting for them in 10 years?

dumb type on youtube

Found some “dumb type” vids, that Kiku introduced in class, on youtube.

dumb type-memorandum (Chapter 2-1)

The rest..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5uGjjAvNI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbSXbK-EpYY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35s5IobfwRQ

music-related links

Wow, thanks to the music presentation group, this blog is becoming a great resource site on popular culture!

I will add some links.

Oto

Stop Rokkasho

(From “Hear” category, you can download “Before Then” by Norma Field and Oto. )

Ian Condry’s website (author, Hip-hop Japan) – You can see a music video by King Giddra with anti-war theme.

Japan Times on Hip-hop in Japan

youtube – Toshiko Akiyoshi “The Village” performance

More on our presentation

Just to briefly add to what my group-mates have already done concerning our presentation on Japanese pop music since WWII;

 

One of the main themes is the interplay between imported American styles of music and their adoption by a Japanese audience. With this, as we also saw in both Blue Nippon and Hip Hop Japan, came a desire for validation of the music as both an “accurate” expression of whichever musical genre as well as an expression of Japanese-ness, or rather that a Japanese twist was put on it.

 

I have a couple of mp3s that I thought might be a nice addendum to the work my group-mates have done before me:

 

Sakamoto Kyu: “Ue o muite arukō” often referred to in the US as “Sukiyaki”:

http://download.yousendit.com/20666EEC3F620BED

 

The Happy End: “Kaze Wo Atsumete” from the earl 1970’s:

http://download.yousendit.com/5C23E32D5A920882

 

Zeebra: “Untouchable” an example of more hardcore hip hop:

http://download.yousendit.com/2CDD4E6F6EDA39F5

 

The Pillows: “Crazy Sunshine” a recent rock band

http://download.yousendit.com/61BB2F104A08F5C4

 

Boris: “Farewell” a fairly recent noise/doom/sludge release:

http://download.yousendit.com/C62BF84223FA32DF

 

Utada Hikaru: “This is Love” One of the most famous J-Pop artists from her 2006 release:

http://download.yousendit.com/EC835E844E3DDA0B

-Julian

Artists from the Presentation

Here is a list of the artists we mentioned/played from our presentation. The list isn’t quite complete – but it’s close (Julian, Alex, or Tiffany can fill in the gaps if they so desire). If anyone was interested in any particular artist/style, feel free to inquire.

-Sean

J-POP AND BEYOND!:
50s: jazz and the beginnings of rock ‘n roll
Key artists: jazz musicians (see Blue Nippon); Kosaka Kazuya & the Wagon Masters cover Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel, heralding in the rock age for Japan; Sakamoto Kyu scores an international smash with a song known in America as “Sukiyaki”, which translates to something like “beef soup.”

60s: cover pop and karaoke; the rise of Western pop and English-sung lyrics

70s: rock & pop continued; rise of “New Music,” a singer-songwriter type of approach that emphasizes personal expression over social messages
Key artists: Happy End, a rock band noted for singing in Japanese; Toshiko Akiyoshi, internationally-acclaimed jazz musician; Yellow Magic Orchestra (which includes one of Happy End’s original members) bring Kraftwerk-ian influence to their electropop offerings; Yosui Inoue and Takruo Yoshida are some of the more prominent “New Music” artists.

80s: citypop/wasei pop – the beginnings of J-Pop as we know it today
Key artists: Ryuichi Sakamoto, former member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, pioneers Japanese electronica; Eikichi Yazawa is one of the decade’s most prominent rock stars; female pop stars like Yoko Oginome, Seiko Matsuda, and Moritaka Chisato tackle the charts; Chage and Aska are considered “Asia’s most popular rock group;” meanwhile, Shibuya-kei godfathers Flipper’s Guitar (Keigo Oyamada and Kenji Ozawa) hit the scene in the late 80s, taking liberally from the English twee-pop scene, and later the British Madchester rave scene, as well as combining sounds of 60s French pop, and other international (primarily European) sonic styles.

90s: Shibuya-kei! – Translated to “Shibuya-style,” in reference to where it originally took off (thanks in large part to the well-stocked record stores of the Shibuya area), Shibuya-kei artists combine the best of 60s French pop, bossanova, lounge, hip-hop, rock ‘n roll, electronica, and most every other major musical movement of the past 20 years to create a swirling, kaleidoscopic pop sound both immediately familiar and distinctly Japanese. Most Shibuya-kei artists would receive huge success in Japan; many found success outside of Japan as well, inspiring Western artists like Momus and Bearsuit to imitate the Shibuya-kei sound.
Key artists: Pizzicato Five, the icons of the Shibuya-kei scene, received widespread international acclaim and success-I have a ton of their stuff, so if anyone is interested, let me know; other Shibuya-kei artists include Cornelius (ex-Flipper’s Guitar’s Keigo Oyamada), who’s lately gone on to more experimental/”rock” electronica (to use Kiku’s terminology) – he’s playing Park West in Chicago on May 7 if anyone’s interested; also see Takako Minekawa, Kahimi Karie, and others. Meanwhile, Japan becomes known for its burgeoning noise-rock scene as well, consisting of bands like Acid Mothers Temple (sprawling pysch), Melt-Banana (hyperspeed metal with helium vocals), the Boredoms (noise-chaos, but their later stuff is surprisingly organic and coherent), and the mother of all noise artists, Merzbow (layers upon layers of chaos listened to at unreasonably loud volume). Bands like Peatmos represent the lighthearted, lo-fi pop side of things. Basically, if it’s a genre in the West, you can find it represented somewhere in the highly diverse Japanese music scene.

00s: More J-Pop, hip-hop, and doom/sludge
Key artists: Utada Hikaru and Hamasaki Ayumi, the two behemoths of the J-Pop scene. Bands like L’Arc en Ciel and the Pillows take the sheen of J-Pop and add guitars, continuing in the J-Rock tradition. Hip-hop, after years of underground struggling, finally begins to crack the mainstream; continuing the 90s split between “real” rap and “party” rap are artists like Zeebra (real, “street cred” rap) and Scha Dara Parr (party rap; their breakthrough hit was actually produced in tandem with the other member of Flipper’s Guitar, Kenji Ozawa in the mid-90s). Also, Japanese band Boris revitalizes the international metal scene with their breakthrough album Pink, shedding light in the process on the doom/sludge movement that has risen in prominence as of late.

Phew! Most information taken from the books we read, wikipedia.org, allmusic.com, and our own personal stores of music knowledge (WHPK represent, w00t!)