18 Japanese hip-hop: alternative stories
In 2013, Major Force, Japan’s first hip-hop label, enjoyed its twenty-fifth anniversary. During those years, hip-hop has influenced the musical sensibilities of several generations of Japanese youths. However, in terms of record sales in Japan’s music market – the world’s largest in terms of recording sales1 – hip-hop is more on the margins in the early 2010s than it was in the previous decade. With the industry increasingly concentrated on boy bands and idol pop, the only hip-hop albums in Oricon’s 100 best-selling chart for 2012 were best-of albums by Ketsumeishi, whose pitched-rap verses sound closer to J-Pop than hip-hop.2 Condry’s ethnography for his 2006 monograph was conducted from the mid 1990s to about 2004,3 when the poppier elements of hip-hop like m-flo and Rip Slyme were making inroads into the mainstream music industry. Since then, the focus of the hip-hop scene itself has shifted from such pop-friendly groups to harder-edged rappers like Anarchy, Seeda, MSC, Shingo Nishinari, and Dengaryū. While this hardness has always existed in Japanese hip-hop, the severe contraction in the Japanese economy since the mid 2000s4 has provided an authenticity to hard-edged tales and made them more sympathetic to a larger swath of youth. In this chapter, I will introduce some of the expressions of marginalization that have intensified since the mid 2000s – a shift to hardcore rap, focus on the local, involvement in social movements, neo-nationalism, and moral panics. I begin with a brief discussion of the scene’s history and its aesthetic considerations, which are part of the localization process.
Multiple histories, multiple markets
Japan has long been the site of home-grown scenes of African-diasporic musics; its jazz scene dates to the early 1900s.5 In the 1960s, some youths began imitating the appearance of African American servicemen in the army bases, with their afros and thin suits. These servicemen – many coming through on the way to or from Vietnam – frequented R&B and soul spots in Shinjuku.6 These spots were succeeded by the disco boom of the 1970s, which established the infrastructure and fan base for dance-oriented Black music; Soul Train was rebroadcast in Japan.7 One group that appeared on that show – the Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra – recorded what could arguably be the first Japanese rap track: “Rap Phenomena” (1981), a pun on hearing non-existent noises and the growth of rap music. Films like Wild Style (released in 1983 in Japan) and Flashdance (1983) raised awareness of hip-hop and directly inspired such hip-hop pioneers as DJ Krush and Crazy-A.8
In the 1980s, hip-hop developed along two separate trajectories: smart clubs, with performers like Chikada Haruo and Itō Seikō – alumni of the elite Keiō and Waseda universities respectively – and in pedestrianized Yoyogi Park on Sundays (Hokoten), with the likes of b-boy Crazy-A and DJ Krush, both of whom came from rough working-class backgrounds. Rap gained its first commercial successes in Japan in 1994, with Scha Dara Parr’s “Konya wa Boogie Back” and East End x Yuri’s “Dayone” and “Maicca,” in what became known as J-rap.9 As a counter to this commercialism, rapper ECD organized the Thumpin’ Camp concert in Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall on July 7, 1996, featuring twenty-seven artists then in the underground scene, including King Giddra, Rhymester, Buddha Brand, Muro, and others. The sold-out concert, which was made into a DVD, was a landmark event that is still cited as an inspiration to younger generations of rappers like Infumiai Kumiai and Punpee. Also in the mid 1990s, DJ Krush released a string of solo albums that were released to positive reviews overseas, launching him on an international career. Today, it is the Hokoten side of Japanese hip-hop origins that have come to dominate the scene.
Localizing aesthetics: rapping and DJing
Since the mid nineteenth century, many Japanese songwriters have complained about the difficulties of setting lyrics in the Japanese language to Western idioms. For rappers, the initial challenges included the lack of stress accents,10 patterns on which American rappers base their flow, and the multi-moraic11 nature of the Japanese language, which make it difficult to fit a message into a sixteen-pulse line.12 Furthermore, Itō Seikō noted that the habit of constructing lines according to the seven-and-five morae of Japanese poetry and modern song lyrics tended to leave long, awkward silences at the end of lines, which would be filled by call-and-responses in minyō songs. Listening closely to LL Cool J’s “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” (1985), he found a groove that allowed him to flow in Japanese, using enjambment and putting rests in untraditional points.13
In addition, the Japanese literary tradition did not emphasize end-rhymes, as most sentences end with auxiliary verbs like -desu and -masu, of which there are a fixed number. Nonetheless, rappers felt end-rhymes were a necessary element of the rhythm. Furthermore, the idea of what constituted a rhyme was not firm; in his album Mess/age (1989), Itō included a rhyming dictionary, in which many of the rhymes were English phrases in Japanese pronunciation. Japanese rhyming technique took a step forward with King Giddra’s 1995 album Sora kara no chikara. K Dub Shine, one of King Giddra’s rappers, developed a technique akin to newspaper headlines. Mirroring this format, he broke normal Japanese syntax, forming sentence fragments ending with the key word. As this word could be a noun, verb, or adjective, it had an infinite number of rhyming possibilities, which could be fulfilled using Sino-Japanese compounds,14 English phrases, or Japanese vocabulary. This rhyming scheme was widely adopted among Japanese rappers. Meanwhile, various flow techniques were developed by exaggerating pitch accents or playing with the duration or characteristics of morae.15
Since the mid 1990s, some rappers like K Dub Shine have loosened their conception of rhymes to matching vowels (rather than consonants and vowels; K Dub Shine, interview with the author, August 2008). Many have made their verses into more natural-sounding Japanese. In “Sho senpai gata kara no okotoba” (Words from the Elders, 2007), Shingo Nishinari builds rhymes on “nice day” (nais dee) by constructing a series of rhymes ending in the conjunction/prepositions -te (and, because of, since) and -de (emphasis, from, with). The rhymes are in italics:
Rappers and fans credit Boss of Tha Blue Herb with popularizing a kind of flow reminiscent of spoken word, whereby he spits out dense textures of words without attempting to fit them exactly into beats and their subdivisions; the rappers of MSC also use metrically complex flow. Several rappers simultaneously operate in the worlds of poetry slams and spoken word (e.g. Suika), and Itō Seikō and Shing02 both have tracks with spoken-word delivery styles. Boss’s style of “imperfect” rhythm was also present in earlier rappers (e.g. Rino’s verse in DJ Krush’s “Kiro” [1995]).
Indeed, these “imperfections” – slight deviations from pitch and beat – are also part of DJ Krush’s aesthetic, which are reminiscent of the wabi-sabi aesthetic of imperfection in the traditional Japanese arts. Krush has also collaborated with players of traditional Japanese instruments such as shakuhachi, shamisen, and taiko; in order to capture their “flavor,” he records them in improvisation rather than in samples. In contrast, Evis Beats takes a parodic approach, sampling distorted minyō in Infumiai Kumiai’s “Evis Sound,” imitating matsuri rhythms in their “Oatsui no ga osuki,” or taking a theme song from the 1960s anime, Obake no Q-Tarō.16
Generally speaking, the music used in background tracks encompasses an eclectic mixture of genres, enabled by the existence of record stores with large specialist selections. This creativity and originality is highly prized by Japanese DJs, several of whom have risen to the top at the D.M.C. World DJ competitions in London: DJ Kentarō and DJ Izoh have won the World DJ Championship; DJ Akakabe and DJ Coma, the Battle Championship; and Kireek, the Team Championship five times.17
Growth in hardcore and local hip-hop
The journalist Futatsugi Shin cites Shinjuku-based hip-hop crew MSC’s debut album Matador (2003) as a landmark event that inspired him to become a hip-hop critic.18 The group’s verses about exhausted laborers, criminals, drug deals, and violence against foreigners lent an authenticity to the lyrics not often seen in a scene dominated by middle-class artists at the time. Since then, several rappers who show off their lower-class status with pride have emerged. Many are from regions outside of Tokyo, whose economies have suffered more than the capital since the financial bubble burst in 1990.
Anarchy, a former gang leader from the Mukaijima housing projects in outer Kyoto, gained critical acclaim with his debut album Rob the World (2006), full of painful autobiographical stories of growing up without a mother in a drug-infested environment, but also pride in his local milieu and his friends. Also noteworthy is Shingo Nishinari, who has taken as his stage name his home neighborhood – Nishinari, Japan’s largest gathering place for day-laborers. At the bottom of the social order, these workers are often old men, abandoned by their families, many living in makeshift homes under shantytown conditions. Alcoholism, gambling, crime, and death are rampant. Shingo had been to college and had a salaried job for eight years when he came back to help the neighborhood. Songs like “Ill Nishinari Blues” and the previously quoted “Words from the Elders” encapsulate scenes from this difficult life, while “U.Y.C.” expresses disappointment with the hypocrisy of politicians, teachers, businesses, and society.19 Farther afield from major cities, Dengaryū, a rapper from a rural town in Yamanashi Prefecture, has gained attention for his criticisms of neglected regional cities (“Ice City”) and national energy and entertainment policies (“Straight Outta 138”), in addition to some hopeful songs.20
Taking up political causes
Since the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident on March 11, 2011, called “3/11,” hip-hoppers have become more active in political commentary. The members of Gagle, from tsunami-battered Sendai, were among the many hip-hoppers who volunteered in the stricken region; they released “Ubugoe” (2011), a song of encouragement, and donated the proceeds to charity.
Hip-hoppers have been at the forefront of the antinuclear movement, performing at demonstrations on top of trucks loaded with sound equipment; these demonstrations have attracted tens of thousands, with 200,000 participating on July 29, 2012. These performers have included reggae pioneer Rankin Taxi; DJ Shinco of Scha Dara Parr; rappers ECD, Akuryō, Rumi, and Deli; and the sound unit i Zoom i Rockers (composed of rapper ATS and music critic Noma Yasumichi, often joined by Akuryō and ECD).21 In addition to performing pre-written antinuclear songs, this last unit has developed a new participatory style of performance, rapping antinuclear slogans like “Saikadō hantai” (We oppose restarting nuclear reactors) to beats in a call and response with the protesters.22
Hip-hoppers have also released antinuclear recordings, many of which make references to music from the African diaspora. Public Enemy’s “Don’t Believe the Hype” has been reinterpreted by Deli and by DJ Honda, Zeebra, Anarchy, and others, who use the refrain to comment on the slanted nature of news coverage. The media is also criticized by Shing02 and Hunger (of Gagle) in “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” (2011),23 in which they take Gil Scott-Heron’s original track and premise of the media as a distortive presenter of hegemonic views (by whites about African Americans) and apply it to the Japanese case, where the media has broadcast primarily the official views of the nuclear industry and the government. In “Safe is Dangerous” (2012), Darthreider plays on the homonyms seifu (government) and se-efu (Japanese pronunciation of “safe”), sampling the word “dangerous” from Peter Tosh’s “Stepping Razor” and applying it to several government institutions. The references were sometimes domestic: Scha Dara Parr’s “Kaese! Chikyū o” (Return the Earth to Us, 2011) mashes the guitar riff from Tone-Loc’s “Wild Thing” with the sung melody of “Kaese! Taiyō o” (Return the Sun to Us), a song from the movie Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971). The original song lists industrial pollutants from the 1970s, to which MCs Bose and Ani add the names of radioisotopes; in between are interspersed samples of Flavor Flav’s exclaiming “Don’t Believe the Hype!”24
As the demonstrations went on, the intertextual references moved to protests themselves. Sakamoto Ryūichi sampled the calls of protesters at the Ōi nuclear power plant, to which Shing02 added a rap, calling for people to demonstrate; the track’s title, “Odakias” (2012), is “saikadō” (restart [nuclear reactors]) spelled backwards.25 In “Baby Cart and Placard” (2012), ECD tips his hat to mothers at demonstrations, with “a baby cart in one hand, a placard in the other…They will surely be the ones that stop nuclear power.”26 In “Straight Outta 138” (2012), his collaboration with Dengaryū, ECD references the refrain from his own anthem of the 2003 antiwar protests. He flips its meaning by taking the key words, yūkoto kiku (listen to what one’s told), and changing them into yūkoto kikaseru (make others listen). The retained words and their translations are underlined:
He implores citizens to make their views known – “sign petitions, vote, demonstrate.”27
Other rappers have also encouraged the youth to vote: with voting participation rates among those in their 20s about 30 percentage points lower than those over 50, their votes amount to only about 9 percent of the total vote, disempowering them in the electorate. Dengaryū, Rhymester, and Akuryō all released songs prior to the Lower House Election in December 2012, encouraging people to think for themselves about the nation’s problems.28 In July 2013, reggae musician Miyake Yōhei ran for a seat in the Upper House; as a campaign tactic, he held “Election Festivals” in front of central train stations across the country, in which he and other musicians – including Dengaryū and K Dub Shine – performed and talked politics. These festivals attracted thousands; many more watched them through simulcasts and video uploads. Although Miyake lost his bid, he raised interest in politics among youth and arguably helped Yamamoto Tarō, an actor fired from his television series after appearing in an antinuclear video, to win his Upper House seat.
Neo-nationalism, race, and Japanese hip-hop
The Japanese hip-hop scene has several successful artists from non-Japanese or mixed ethnicities including Verbal of m-flo (zainichi29 resident Korean), Aoyama Teruma (quarter-Trinidadian), Ilmari of Rip Slyme (half-Finnish), Rino (half-Filipino, quarter-Chinese), and Simi Lab, whose members include Dyypride (half-Ghanaian), Maria (half-Caucasian American), and OMSB (half-African American). In addition, rappers have paid respect to their multi-ethnic neighbors: Norikiyo mentions his Korean and Latin American friends in Sagamihara (“Do My Thing”),30 and Dengaryū and Stillichimiya’s “Yabee ikioi de sugee moriagaru” (2012) contains a line in Mandarin inviting people to join the revelry.31 The major record labels typically do not release, or actively recall, recordings with discriminatory content.32
On the other hand, Tanaka,33 Morris,34 and Thomas35 have highlighted the neo-nationalist rhetoric and racism (against Koreans and Chinese) behind some Japanese hip-hop. Thomas notes that Zeebra holds up Blacks and the Japanese as both victims oppressed by white America. My observation is that this view is held by a number of hip-hoppers, but this perception of US oppression runs deeper than the Allied Occupation, which Thomas takes as the starting point: it began before World War II, with unfavorable international trade, peace, and immigration treaties in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and continues to the US military’s use of bases in Japan and perceived pressure on economic and international policy today. Furthermore, the most vivid memories of Japanese alive at the time is the American firebombing that destroyed sixty-seven civilian cities (in addition to Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and the starvation that was rampant in the last two years of World War II.36 Most Japanese have heard personal stories of traumatic hardships directly from those then present, and they empathize with these victims. It is these depictions of bombings that occur frequently in hip-hop imagery, e.g. Zeebra’s recalling the Hiroshima bomb in “911”; “Atomic Bomb,” the name of K Dub Shine’s management company; “Yakenohara” (“burnt field,” the name given to cities after a bombing), a DJ and rapper’s stage name; and the frequent occurrence of bombers in hip-hop gig posters and CD inserts. Nonetheless, many hip-hoppers find the USA–Japan relationship to be unrelated to their choice of hip-hop as a mode of self-expression;37 Futatsugi finds K Dub Shine and Zeebra to be more concerned with the USA than most other hip-hoppers.38 Furthermore, seeing one’s relatives as victims of the war doesn’t necessarily translate into a hostile view of Koreans and Chinese (or Americans). Nonetheless, since the mid 1990s, there has been a revival of neo-nationalists, who harken back to propagandistic beliefs of the 1940s: they believe that Japan’s war in the Pacific was justified, deny Japanese atrocities as fabrications, and fear the economic power and cultural influence of the former colonies.
In a 2009 interview, Morris caught Zeebra – Japan’s most commercially successful rapper to date and highly influential in the community – making statements denying Japan’s wartime atrocities.39 His King Giddra crewmate K Dub Shine served as music director for Kyōki no sakura (2002), a violent film about neo-nationalist, anti-foreigner vigilantes.40 In an interview with Futatsugi Shin, K Dub made clear his neo-nationalist leanings, saying that all the demands for apologies had made Japan into suckers.41 Thomas quotes him as saying to a zainichi Korean in 2009, “Going way back into history, and saying stuff like ‘Japanese people back then were mean’ doesn’t help anything.” Family history may have played a role in both rappers’ outlooks: K Dub’s father, who lived apart from him and his mother but maintained a relationship with them, was the scion of a family of army officers and a prisoner of war in Siberia during World War II; the father frequently paid his respects to his fallen colleagues at Yasukuni Shrine – a controversial site, as it houses the souls of all of the war dead, including war criminals.42 Morris points out that Zeebra’s grandfather, the late real estate mogul Yokoi Hideki,43 benefited from doing business with the Imperial Army during the war and in the black market after it. Morris criticizes Condry (and global hip-hop studies more generally) for insisting on a postcolonial, progressive lens for Japanese hip-hop and thereby turning a blind eye to right-wing rhetoric.44
Neo-nationalist rhetoric is well illustrated in the recordings of Arei Raise. The group came to attention through a song contest at Yasukuni Shrine. Although it did not win, the group’s entry, “Kyōji” (Pride, 2007),45 was included in a compilation CD and sold at Yasukuni Shrine.46 The song calls the Pacific War a “holy war” that was “noble and grand.” The video is shot in Yasukuni itself. A step further is “8.30” (2009),47 a xenophobic rant fearing that the Chinese would taking over Japan, which asks, “Are we going to turn our backs on the blood and tears of our ancestors?/ We keep repeating the defeat in war.” Their records are issued under their label, Great Far East Records – a reference to the wartime pan-Asian “co-prosperity” sphere.
The hip-hop world has attempted to counter racism. When Show-K released “Nihonjin Stand Up!” (2010),48 a rant against China in the wake of the Senkaku Islands fishing incident, Takuma the Great and Haiiro de Rossi released “We’re the Same Asian,” calling for peaceful solutions.49 In 2013, music critic Noma Yasumichi formed the Counter-Racist Action Collective (CRAC, formerly Shibaki-tai) to impede demonstrations by the Zaitokukai, an anti-zainichi Korean group who have been spewing hate speech at children in ethnic Korean neighborhoods. Rappers ECD, ATS, and Akuryō have been active in this antiracist group; the latter two have performed in antiracist demonstrations.50 ECD and Illreme have released “The Bridge Anti-Racist Remix” (2013) in reaction to these anti-zainichi demonstrations.51 Journalists like Futatsugi Shin, who has participated in liberal causes through Shirōto no Ran, have ignored Show-K, even though the latter approached him to be interviewed.
Under these circumstances, one might expect to see more engagement with racism by zainichi artists themselves than one does. Armstrong noted that zainichi rappers in the Kansai generally shied away from addressing their ethnicity; he singled out 02 and Youngi as exceptions who highlighted their Korean identity and rapped about discrimination.52 When Show-K presented an answer song to “We’re All the Same Asian,” Haiiro responded without Takuma, later explaining that Takuma – a zainichi Taiwanese whose family lived in Chinese districts – had felt it had become too dangerous for him to continue the battle.53Zainichi reggae artists like Chehon or Pushim are more upfront about their ethnicity, but (quarter-Chinese) brothers of Mighty Crown tend to avoid it in conversation. These actions suggest that it is difficult for multi-ethnic artists (or residents) to start a discussion about race themselves.
Last dance? Japan’s entertainment laws and moral panics
Recently, the Japanese hip-hop scene has been under pressure from the Entertainment Business Control and Improvement Law (fūeihō). This law was enacted during the Allied Occupation in 1948, over fears that dancehalls were hotbeds of prostitution. The law, which extends to ballroom dancing schools as well as dance clubs, specifies that an establishment that serves drinks and whose customers dance must be properly licensed and close by midnight or 1 a.m.54
In reality, clubs that stay open all night have been an important part of the nightlife scene for decades. These all-night clubs, where people enter when the trains have stopped running past midnight and leave when they start running again around 5 a.m., have comprised the primary genba (site) in the ecosystem of Japanese hip-hop, as highlighted by Condry.55 In my experience, these clubs typically peak between 2 and 3:30 a.m. and remain open until 6 or 7 a.m.56 For decades, the police had turned a blind eye: for the past twenty years, an average of only seven clubs a year had been closed due to violations of the law. As Chikada Haruo rapped in his 1987 single “Hoo! Ei! Ho!,” “The fūeihō is mere harassment. If you follow it, you’ll lose out. Just close the door, and you won’t be found out.”
The situation changed after a college student died after a fistfight at a club in the Osaka district of Amerika Mura in 2010.57 Citing local complaints about noise and drunkenness – and acting on suspicions of drug use and wanton behavior – the police cracked down on clubs, closing six in Amerika Mura alone in 2011. Between 2008 and 2013, the number of clubs in the district fell from 134 to 102, and the number of customers from 8.1 million to 5.9 million; once perpetually teeming with people, the district became a shadow of its former self.58 The crackdown widened to other parts of Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Tokyo. Police pressure in Tokyo intensified after an organized crime group beat a man to death at Roppongi club Flower in September 2012, calling attention to their presence in the club scene;59 at least two Roppongi clubs have been shut down in 2013.
Since 2010, the police have shut down forty-six clubs nationwide (as of October 2013). Many more clubs closed “voluntarily,” as club operators claimed that they could not make a profit on shortened hours (Taku Takahashi, interviews, July–August 2012). The police also harassed customers at clubs: on February 11, 2012, 150 police stormed into hip-hop club Ikebukuro Bed and tested people present for drugs; none were found.60 Even daytime clubs were not immune: in September 2013, the seaside venue Otodama closed following apparent pressure from locals looking to “restore public peace and morals.”61 The law is so controversial that managers of well-known artists have run after me following interviews, asking that I not write about their charges’ comments.
The club industry has fought back. The citizens’ group Let’s Dance has collected 176,000 signatures, including those from well-known musicians and writers representing several generations and genres, for the deletion of dancing from the Entertainment Law. Artists formed the Society to Preserve Clubs and Club Culture (CCCC), led by Zeebra and the rapper Darthreider, among others. These groups, along with representatives of ballroom-dancing and tango clubs, have lobbied with legislators to change the law. In October 2014, the Cabinet approved a bill revising the law to allow dance clubs to operate past midnight, if their lighting exceeded 10 luxes and they received a license from the local public safety committee. Nonetheless, many important venues have closed in the past few years, and it will take time for momentum at clubs to rebuild or for Japan’s hip-hop community to find other genba.
Conclusion
In a country where the charts are topped by professionally written pop songs sung by large teams of girls not allowed to date,62 hip-hop offers an alternative of self-written tracks, often expressing real emotions about real life. They may be witty takes by middle-class youth or desperate stories of poverty from the people who have lived it. As the genre has become more hardcore, critics are revising its past to emphasize its lower-class roots, thereby presenting an alternative history of Japanese musical culture.
Hip-hop’s reputation as a frank expression has made it an ideal vehicle for protests against government policies and societal injustice. This characteristic of frankness has also made it a vehicle for neo-nationalist and racist rhetoric. As of early 2014, Japan sits at a crossroads: on the one hand, most citizens are against the Secrecy Law, which many fear would limit freedom of the press and the right to demonstrate; on the other hand, some citizens agree with the neo-nationalist leanings of the Abe Cabinet and want Japan to remilitarize. Not beholden to any point of view except to keep it real, hip-hop is being used to express the views of both sides. Its directness in a culture that avoids such expression makes it the ideal vehicle for alternative stories.
Discography
Notes
1 “Japan Outranks US in Recorded-Music Sales,” Japan Times, April 11, 2013. Available at www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/04/11/music/japan-outranks-u-s-in-recorded-music-sales/ (accessed June 1, 2014).
2 CD arubamu nenkan rankingu, Oricon Style. Available at www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/y/2012/ (accessed October 23, 2013). Exile, a dance-pop boy band whose dance moves show hip-hop influence, had the number five album for the year. Also included in the Oricon top-100 albums of 2012 was a best-of album by Def Tech, classified as “Jawaiian reggae,” and an album by Malaysian R&B singer Che’Nelle.
3 , Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
4 Japan’s real GDP fell by 1 percent in 2008 and 5.5 percent in 2009.
5 , Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001).
6 , “Yankii to hippu hoppu: Souru zoku kara B-Boy to tsuzuku mou hitotsu no yankii no rekishi,” in (ed.), Yankii bunkaron josetsu (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2009). Japanese personal names are presented with family name first as per Japanese convention.
7 , Kuroku odore! Sutoriito dansaazu retsuden (Tokyo: Ginga Shuppan, 2008).
8 Condry, Hip-Hop Japan; , “Representing Japan: ‘National’ Style among Japanese Hip-hop DJs,” Popular Music32/1 (2013): 35–50.
9 Condry, Hip-Hop Japan.
10 Stress accents mark a syllable by volume, duration, and sometimes pitch.
11 The shortest prosodic unit in the Japanese language is a mora, which is akin to a short syllable. A Japanese mora consists of a single vowel (with or without a consonant), a double consonant, or the nasal “N.” Long vowels are pronounced as two morae: e.g. “Tokyo” is pronounced as four morae (To-o-kyo-o) but heard as two syllables (Tō.kyō).
12 , “Globalization and Japanese Creativity: Adaptations of Japanese Language to Rap,” Ethnomusicology50/1 (2006): 1–36.
13 Itō Seikō, interview with the author, January 7, 2009.
14 Sino-Japanese compounds are derived from the Chinese language. Like Latinate words in English, many of them constitute technical vocabulary that is less used in common speech.
15 Manabe, “Globalization and Japanese Creativity”: 1–36.
16 Manabe, “Representing Japan.” “Matsuri” is a traditional festival.
17 Ibid. The D.M.C. World DJ Championship is the most widely recognized international competition of virtuosic turntabling. It has been held annually in London since 1985.
18 , Shikujirunayo, Ruudii (Tokyo: P-Vine, 2013).
19 Andrew Armstrong, “The Japanese ‘Ghetto Gangsta’: Searching for Prestige in Kansai Hip Hop Performance,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University, 2012.
20 , “Straight Outta Ichimiya: The Appeal of a Rural Japanese Rapper,” The Asia Pacific Journal11/1 (2013). Available at www.japanfocus.org/-Noriko-MANABE/3889 (accessed June 1, 2014).
21 In addition, several techno DJs have performed in antinuclear demonstrations, including DJs Mayuri and Tasaka, among others.
22 , “Music in Japanese Antinuclear Demonstrations: The Evolution of a Contentious Performance Model,” The Asia-Pacific Journal11/3 (2013). Available at http://japanfocus.org/-Noriko-MANABE/4015 (accessed June 1, 2014).
23 Shing02 and Hunger, “Kakumei wa terebi ni utsuranai.” Available at http://e22.com/notv/.
24 Noriko Manabe, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Music, Musicians, and Anti-Nuclear Protest in Post-Fukushima Japan,” paper presented at Inter-Asia Popular Music Studies Group Conference, Taipei, Taiwan, July 15, 2012; see also Noriko Manabe, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Music in the Antinuclear Movement Post-Fukushima Daiichi (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
25 Shing02, Sakamoto Ryūichi, and Tokimonsta, “ODAKIAS,” SoundCloud, July 1, 2012. Available at http://soundcloud.com/ryuichi_sakamoto/odakias (accessed June 1, 2014).
26 ECD, “Bebii kaa to purakaado,” ECD, SoundCloud, December 2011. Available at https://soundcloud.com/ecd-1/ecd (accessed June 1, 2014).
27 Manabe, “Straight Outta Ichimiya.”
28 The songs are Dengaryū, “Senkyo ni ikō” (Let’s Go Vote, December 2012; available at https://soundcloud.com/dengaryu/senkyo-ni-ikou); Rhymester, “The Choice is Yours” (released as a single, August 2012); and Akuryō, “The Choice is Yours Remix” (unrelated to Rhymester, December 2012). Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwfSK02_aA0).
29 Japan has a large ethnic Korean community, most of whom are descendants of laborers who arrived in Japan in large waves from the 1920s through World War II, when Korea was a Japanese colony. In 1947, the government began regarding residents from the former colonies as foreigners, and the zainichi residents lost their Japanese citizenship and their right to vote unless they naturalized. As of 2010, there are 570,000 ethnically Korean residents and another 285,000 ethnic Koreans who have been naturalized as Japanese citizens. In addition, there are zainichi Chinese, who have been joined by more recent waves of immigrants; as of 2010, there are 687,000 ethnic Chinese residents, not including those who have been naturalized. While these groups together only account for 1.2 percent of Japan’s population, they are visible and established communities.
30 “Do my thing,” Norikiyo, Youtube video. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=_70Zvs2tOSk (accessed June 1, 2014). See also Futatsugi, Shikujirunayo.
31 Manabe, “Straight Outta Ichimiya.”
32 King Giddra’s single, “Unstoppable”/“FFB”/“Drive-By” (2002), was pulled from the shelves due to complaints from a gay rights organization regarding “Drive-By”; it was re-released without this song and with edits to “FFB” which was found to be offensive to HIV patients.
33 , “The Songs of Nippon, the Yamato Museum and the Inculcation of Japanese Nationalism,” Asia-Pacific Journal (2008). Available at www.japanfocus.org/-Yuki-TANAKA/2746 (accessed June 1, 2014).
34 , “The Sakura of Madness: Japan’s Nationalist Hip Hop and the Parallax of Globalized Identity Politics,” Communication, Culture & Critique6/3 (2013): 459–480.
35 Dexter Thomas, “Niggas and Japs: Race, Identity, and the Right Wing in Japanese Hip-Hop,” paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies Conference, San Diego, March 23, 2013.
36 , “A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities and the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq,” Asia-Pacific Journal (2007). Available at www.japanfocus.org/-mark-selden/2414 (accessed June 1, 2014).
37 Erone, interview with the author, April 2008.
38 and , “K Dub Shine: Long Interview,” Remix215 (2009): 54–61.
39 David Morris, “Zeebra Pt. II: The Correction,” Tiny Mix Tapes, September 11, 2009. Available at www.tinymixtapes.com/column/zeebra-pt-ii (accessed June 1, 2014).
40 Morris (Reference Morris2013) interprets the film as morally ambiguous, as the extreme violence of the vigilantes equates them with the yakuza. K Dub says the film has a “strong message” (K Dub Shine Reference Krims2007, pp. 82–83). The title is a multi-layered play on words: kyōki is an amalgamation of “murder weapon” and “insanity,” while kyōki no sakura is a reference to dōki no sakura (cadets of the same class, 1944), a wartime military song about two pilots who fully expect to die. Falling sakura (cherry blossoms) were a metaphor for young soldiers dying in battle; the metaphor is aligned with the spectacular sakura trees at Yasukuni Shrine. See , Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms, and Nationalisms: The Militarization of Aesthetics in Japanese History (University of Chicago Press, 2002).
41 K Dub Shine and Futatsugi, “Long interview,” p. 55.
42 , Shibuya no don (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 2007); K Dub Shine and Futatsugi, “Long interview.”
43 Yokoi was convicted for negligence in the 1982 fire at his Hotel New Japan, in the high-end business district of Akasaka, which killed thirty-three people (Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1987). He was also spectacularly rich, having once owned the Empire State Building. This vast family wealth gave Zeebra a privileged lifestyle and education (in the Keio prep system) until he dropped out.
44 Morris, “Sakura of Madness,” 472.
45 Arei Raise, “Kyōji,” Youtube video, August 27, 2007. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=snDrZKBZx1Y(accessed June 1, 2014).
46 Tanaka, “Songs of Nippon.”
47 Arei Raise, “8.30,” Youtube video, August 18, 2009. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77kO26eQGE (accessed June 1, 2014).
48 Show-K, “Nihonjin, Stand Up!!,” Youtube video, September 30, 2010. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB_S2R4VkqY (accessed June 1, 2014).
49 Thomas, “Niggas and Japs”; Futatsugi, Shikujirunayo.
50 Manabe, “Music in Japanese Antinuclear Demonstrations.”
51 ECD and Illreme, “The Bridge han reishizumu Remix,” Youtube video, March 8, 2013. Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYvCwIaw3JM.
52 Armstrong, “The Japanese ‘ghetto gangsta.’”
53 Futatsugi, Shikujirunayo; Thomas, “Niggas and Japs.”
54 “Fūzoku eigyō nado no kisei oyobi gyōmu no tekisei ka nado ni kansuru hōritu,” E-Gov. Available at http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S23/S23HO122.html (accessed October 26, 2013).
55 Condry, Hip-Hop Japan.
56 Often the same venue hosts several different genres – hip-hop, dub, house, techno, dubstep, electro, etc. – which are segregated into different days.
57 (ed.), Odotte wa ikenai kuni, nihon: Fūeihō mondai to kajō kisei sareru shakai (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 2012), p. 20.
58 “Kurabu gyōkai ‘Kisei teppai de 1000 oku en’: Keizai kōka de fujō nerau,” Asahi Digital. Available at www.asahi.com/articles/TKY201310230188.html (accessed October 26, 2013).
59 Jake Adelstein, “What’s with the Police Purge on Dance Clubs?,” The Japan Times, April 7, 2013. Available at www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/07/national/whats-with-the-police-purge-on-dance-clubs/#.UWBdwKvwJGE (accessed October 26, 2013).
60 “Tōkyō no kurabu ni daikibo na gasa-ire. Shikashi nani mo dezu,” Togetter. Available at http://togetter.com/li/256312 (accessed October 26, 2013).
61 “Kimaguren keiei, ontama OTODAMA shī STUDIO konka de shūryō,” Natalie. Available at http://natalie.mu/music/news/97834 (accessed October 26, 2013).
62 The idol-pop group AKB48, consisting of eighty-nine girls from their teens to mid-twenties, had the four best-selling singles of 2013. The girls’ contracts forbid them from dating.
