Japan is the country that opens her arms to hip hop culture in its early stage.
Japanese hip hop is first discovered in the early 1980s with a small group of people in local clubs, where youngsters practice and battled their skills with remixing, sampling and breakdancing before it grew mature and reached mainstream success. Ian Condry, the author of Hip Hop Japan (2006), explicitly investigates and analyzes the history of hip hop in Japan and how it has evolved and transformed the black (or African-American) culture into Japanese. In Hip Hop Japan, Condry deals with various facets of Japanese hip hop comprehensively. He begins from the early stages of the
underground Japanese hip hop in the 1980s, finding out the premier links between the imitation of the music and dancing style to the later issue of mimicking the “black”
and how hip hop turns into Japanese forms under the flow of globalization.
Initially, the radicalized topic regarding the globalization of hip hop culture, whether there is any connection of Japaneseness existing in the blackness: two dialectic debates upon how Japanese hip hoppers reinforce and reproduce the black style by themselves and how they seek to develop the unique and distinctive forms to
fight against in the other way. Condry then states that even if race issues does trigger controversy in Japan, it is not as the same as that of the United States. For the reason, he tends to clarify that
hip hop creates a space of questioning race and power by laying bare the constructedness of racial identity. Japanese hip hoppers are not engaged solely in transforming hip hop style into something pure indigenous, but rather in reconfiguring the cultural politics of race such that the issues do not revolve primarily around dichotomies of Japanese versus other. (46) Moreover, Condry continues to explain the phenomenon in an alternative account, eschewing from the local versus global debates, but more depending on the new model of transnational cultural politic of difference. As Japanese rappers called themselves “yellow B-boys”, it is a means to remind people that “race forms a necessary part of hip hop consciousness than in asserting a pan-Asian racial identity”
(48).
Then, Condry also focuses on the language usage applied in Japanese rap. He reckons that during early hip hop era, rap in Japanese language was considered an impossible act because early Japanese rappers thought the Japanese language pattern
“simply would not ride the rhythm” (149). Yet, except for some bilingual rappers, rapping in solely English language never actually occurs in J-rap. For the issue, Condry goes to two explanations: first, as Japan confronted the high peak of bubble economy, it was the political-economic factor that Japan attempted to resist the Western economic power to thus build a healthier domestic music industry itself.
Second, Japanese rappers learned to innovate and exchange the Japanese language pattern so as to meet the rhyme and to adopt new approach by mixing English and Japanese or using Japanese vernacular to thus “liberate” the Japanese language in rap.
To Condry, this is all about “finding a language that can crack the fissures of artificial
language, the standard Japanese, and in so doing, change society” (152). In this case, Japanese rap lyrics construct its uniqueness by creating the new patterns of language and using local slang to feel domestic. Consequently, the newly invented language pattern of Japanese has conquered the language barrier of rap verses; in other words,
English then tends to be less adopted in the composition of Japanese rap music.
More importantly, Condry, who spends numerous years studying Japanese hip hop, discovering and asserting that “genba” (generally referring “sites of
performance” or “sites of cultural production” in Japanese but the actual definition of
genba would vary, depending on the performative and social accounts regarding
Condy’s concept) can provide “a window on some cultural processes better than others” (13). Genba, as the most indispensable factor in breeding the local Japanese hip hop culture in performative and media contexts, which Condry believes “[genba]was very useful for broadening our understanding of the mutual construction of cultural forms (like hip hop) beyond ‘producers vs. consumers’ to include to other actors (artists, record companies, media, fans, etc.) in dynamic feedback loops” (13).
For this reason, Genba is where Japanese underground and mainstream hip hop lies its cornerstone and also the most essential cultural site that cradles, localizes and
diversifies the culture.
However, according to Condry, it is not until around 1994 and 1995 that Japanese hip hop finally jumps up to the mainstream popular culture and wins the commercial recognition not only by those underground artists but also by the cooperation with the record companies and music producers. Yet, the key factor that accelerates hip hop music to be widely spread in Japan is the combination of female vocals and male rap by mainstream music production around late 1990s right after the success of several female R&B artists. This new music style that comprises rap with the arrangement of hip hop and urban R&B15 music has soon started to be noticed.
Condry specifically addresses the music form and explains how it has affected the Japanese mainstream music industry,
[i]n the late 1990s, a Japanese R&B boom led by women singers helped to bring (male) Japanese hip hop into mainstream consciousness. Sparkled by female artists like Misia, Utada Hikaru, and groups like Double and Sugar Soul, this ‘new R&B’ (nyū aru ando bii) was characterized by melodic and attractive young women singers. The music tends to be bass heavy with an emphasis on the rhythms and always with a token DJ scratch solo. As these singers and groups produce hit songs, they often record remix versions with Japanese rappers accompanying them. (171, original italics)
The “new R&B” trend is believed to have much to do with the rise of the female artist, Utada Hikaru (宇多田 光), whose music creates a large space for J-R&B and hip hop to be disseminated over Japanese mainstream as Condry concludes “it was the new R&B boom that brought a variety of the underground hip hop artists into the national spotlight” (Condry 171).” and “Utada defined the pinnacle of Japanese pop music in the late 1990s with the style that drew on hip hop production methods of sampled, bass-heavy music” (Condry 172). This new R&B style exalted by Utada’s songs not only sheds light upon Japan’s hip hop music but also alters the
arrangements of hip hop, R&B and soul music in other East-Asian countries adjacent to Japan since then. Although Condry argues that the J-R&B trend brought by Utada __________________
15. According to the definition of the American credible website “AMG” (All Music Guide), urban R&B is the subgenre that derived from the R&B/soul music of the 1980s and 1990s. However, music producers, such as Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson), Denzil Foster & Thomas McElroy (En Vogue), and Antonio “L.A.” Reid & Babyface, who “dominated urban music at the turn of the decade, with Babyface going on to a hugely successful singing career in his own right.” Accordingly,
“[u]rban R&B and hip-hop continued to cross-pollinate during the early '90s, eventually resulting in a new hybrid tagged “hip-hop soul.” In the context of J-R&B, hip hop and R&B music are incorporated as a novel music form, which combines Japanese (or English) rap, DJ scratching effects, soulful vocals and the arrangement of syncopation and heavy rhythms.
Website link: http://www.allmusic.com/style/urban-ma0000011965
Hikaru formed a standard female language (as a comparatively vulnerable or generalized feminine expression) use in her song lyrics to sound more “kawaii”
(cuteness or loveliness in Japanese) for the sake of marketing, which somewhat contrasts and weakens the masculine image of the collaborated hip hop and rap artists, and the language choices of women’s speech might also construct a notion of
Japaneseness that “women tend to be regarded as ‘more Japanese’ than men, at least of their language use” (172-173). Nevertheless, around early 2000, more male J-R&B and hip hop artists came into view, such as Ki-yo (清貴), Hirai Ken (平井 堅), and the male duo CHEMISTRY. These “male” singers tend to collaborate with different rappers so that there are not merely “female singers vs. male rappers” but more male singers involved to break the image of female R&B singers being “kawaii” in the music production. And along with music producer Kiyoshi Matsuo’s promotion on the mass music production of R&B and hip hop in the market, the new R&B trend have thus acquired the rank in Japanese pop music to embrace more audience.
Simultaneously, the popularity of the Japanese new R&B shone on the pop music in Taiwan in early 2000 as well. Followed by tremendous inspiration of Utada Hikaru, Hirai Ken, A.I. CHEMISTRY, and Misia, Taiwan’s music industry begins to notice and produce hip hop and R&B music similar to that of Japan, initially adopting female vocals with male rap vocals, e.g. Elva Hsiao and music producer Jae Chong’s
“Cappuccino” (1999), Jay Chou and Coco Lee’s collaboration “Daw Ma Dan (刀馬
旦)” (2001), and Will Pan and Jill Hsu’s “Tell me” (2003). This kind of music style has thus formed a model for Taiwan’s R&B and hip hop music.In fact, before the new J-R&B trend, the group Tokyo D once sweeps over Taiwan’s pop music industry in the early 1990s, a music band constituted by eight Japanese breaking dancers. They often present their stage performance with breaking and new jazz dance and style with dreadlock hair and in saggy tops and jeans,
accompanying catchy candy pop songs or dynamic dance rhythm in both Mandarin and Japanese language. Although the Tokyo D fad on Taiwanese pop music does not seem to last long, even less than L.A. Boyz during the period, their influence, whether on hip hop music or dance style, uncover a path to transnational collaboration by introducing the new wave of hip hop into Taiwan’s mainstream popular music industry at the time, in a rather Japanese fashion.
As a matter of fact, the other part of the rise of Taiwan’s hip hop and R&B music (which will be discussed and elaborated in Chapter 3) also flourishes during the early 2000. It can often be traced respectively to the overwhelming success of Jay Chou and David Tao, whose musical composition and arrangement contain the elements of R&B, hip hop and soulful vocals. In addition, MC Hot Dog and Dwagie’s (aka 大支) hardcore rap also generates a series of controversies because of the sharp rap lyrics and the political ideology. Still, I would like to assert and conclude again that the J-R&B and hip hop trend has been positively played an essential role in introducing a novel form of R&B and hip hop music to Taiwan no matter in singing, composing or performative style and until now, the influence of this kind of pan-Asian J-R&B style still lasts in Taiwan’s pop music production.