Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization

by Ian Condry

In this lively ethnography Ian Condry interprets Japan’s vibrant hip-hop scene, explaining how a music and culture that originated halfway around the world is appropriated and remade in Tokyo clubs and recording studios. Illuminating different aspects of Japanese hip-hop, Condry chronicles how self-described “yellow B-Boys” express their devotion to “black culture,” how they combine the figure of the samurai with American rapping techniques and gangsta imagery, and how underground artists compete with pop icons to define “real” Japanese hip-hop. He discusses how rappers manipulate the Japanese language to achieve rhyme and rhythmic flow and how Japan’s female rappers struggle to find a place in a male-dominated genre. Condry pays particular attention to the messages of emcees, considering how their raps take on subjects including Japan’s education system, its sex industry, teenage bullying victims turned schoolyard murderers, and even America’s handling of the war on terror. Condry attended more than 120 hip-hop performances in clubs in and around Tokyo, sat in on dozens of studio recording sessions, and interviewed rappers, music company executives, music store owners, and journalists. Situating the voices of Japanese artists in the specific nightclubs where hip-hop is performed—what musicians and fans call the genba (actual site) of the scene—he draws attention to the collaborative, improvisatory character of cultural globalization. He contends that it was the pull of grassroots connections and individual performers rather than the push of big media corporations that initially energized and popularized hip-hop in Japan. Zeebra, DJ Krush, Crazy-A, Rhymester, and a host of other artists created Japanese rap, one performance at a time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Japan, Academic, Hip Hop, Research, Anthropology

264 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Ian Condry is Associate Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization.

Reviews

[Siqi Qin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learn some ethnography methods through Condry’s field research (about genba), and am inspired by some new ways to think about culture collisions (assimilation). However, the tone of the book makes me fell like he is attempting to represent a group that he is not qualified enough to represent, and the arguments, for me, are hard to identify in this book.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's so much densely packed in this ethnographic study of Hip Hop in Japan that I can't do it justice here. What I most appreciate about Condry's work here is how he bends over backwards - should I bring in a b-boy-ism to avoide the cliche, like 'he windmills around'? - to avoid dichotomies and binaries. He shows how Hip Hop in Japan can be progressive in its addressing Japan's racism towards Koreans, Ainu, Burakamin, etc., while still fueling homophobia. He shows how uses of English in the lyrics do not verify American cultural imperialism but are often used to re-work rhymes with Japanese phonetics. And just as the Japanese appropriation of the German word arbeit into Japanese doesn't mean Japan is being Germanized (since the Japanese, and Koreans, use it to mean part-time work), the Japanese appropriation of English words results in nuanced redefinitions of those English words, always (w)rapped up in a Japanese phonetics.

Condry works his expansion beyond the binary through the genba, a Japanese word he uses to describe a space of performance where culture is defined and redefined through negotiations between artists and fans. It's less about moving the product (making money) and more about moving the crowd. Pushing product comes into it, but all nodes in the network of the genba (rappers, djs, b-boys/girls, graffiti writers, fans, tag-a-longs, club promoters, record execs, etc.) have their place in the movement of bodies along with the movement of product. Condry also underscores through indepth examples how we can not make claims on what Hip Hop (or any genre) is in Japan from the top of the pyramid of million-selling artists, since the base gets more diverse as the larger pyramid of artists grows.

Again, there is so much packed in here to challenge essentialist and cynical and overly-celebratory views on Hip Hop, globaliation, Japanese culture, etc., that it's definitely worth your time. The chapter on Women in Japanese Hip Hop has further motivated me to finally get my hands on a Miss Monday CD.

[Rafael Munia · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has been a long time since I read this, but I still remember that the main appeal of this book was that it was one of the few books to tackle the topic of the Japanese hip hop scene in the English language. Out of that, the book falls short of being an innovative account of rap scene, focusing less on Japanese Rap, and more in Japanese Rap as a phenomena of 'cultural globalization' and its comparisons to the American scene. This would be an ok choice if it didn't result in many other problems, such as unnecessary emphasis on what part of it was more or less Japanese and more or less american, innocuous discussion of 'cultural appropriation', and the a priori assumption that America was the source of the Japanese rap scene without much further investigation about it. To the books credit, however, the author does problematize certain assumptions of Rap in Japan as merely a imitation of American black culture and/or hiphop culture, which is indeed a breath of fresh air if we take most of books written about Japan by american authors. Also, I ended up feeling that the book gave too little in relation to discussion on the reality of those involved in the rap scene and how this realities helped shaped their own songs and personas in the scene; something that gets obfuscated by a distracting and, in my opinion, unimportant discussion about the separations between "pop" rap and "real" rap. Not only I think it was one of the less interesting aspects of the Japanese rap scene to be investigated, but I also feel the whole binary distinction goes largely unproblematized, making little to no philosophical discussion of the very idea of "authenticity" and "commercial" that would be relevant to the topic, and instead taking a certain "pragmatist" approach to this issues that, on my view, impoverishes the debate it itself tries to establish. It is not a bad book, since you can still learn a lot through it, but it is a book that could have certainly been much better, not only as a book on Japanese rap, but as a book on Cultural Studies in general.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 2 out of 5]

Firstly, I would like to state that prior to reading this book I had no idea that Japan even had a hip-hop culture.

Coming into this book with no knowledge whatsoever, I found the topic very fascinating. The book at times was interesting enough to hold my attention continuously, while at other times the text got bogged down by deeply esoteric terms. While this is an ethnography, and in that an academic treatise, I do not feel that such language needs to alienate a casual reader. Condry did good to define his terms specifically and give context to each of his points - however, he also had a tendency to bog down the text with a surplus of data where the same point could have been made in a much more concise manner.

While I liked the book, I am hesitant to give it three stars as I felt it could have been written better. The book did give me reason to look up some of the songs and artists mentioned - I was surprised to find that I did enjoy the music. I would recommend some chapters to people who are already fans of the genre, but I would be hesitant to recommend the entire book to them. As I stated above (and at the risk of redundancy) the book falls short due to too huge an emphasis on academic terms. All the same, it is interesting and Condry does do a very good job of fully explaining the genre and what it means for the culture.

[Takumi · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this ethnography of Japanese hip hop, the author Condry focuses one of the four elements which constitute hip hop culture: rap. It is because rap has much more to do with language than deejaying, breaking or graffiti, and it, therefore, reflects the characteristics of Japanese hip hop most eloquently.
Condry consciously avoids using easy dichotomies and binaries; globalization or localization, party rap or underground hip hop, market success or hard core fandom, and the likes. Instead, he uses Japanese term genba, actual sites where interactions among many kinds of people(emcees, deejays, fans, club owners, executives of record companies and so on) take place, as a key tool of analysis.
Throughout the book, he cites many lyrics by placing both of romanized Japanese and its translation. I found some mistakes in the former. For non-Japanese speakers it may not matter at all, but since rap is embedded in the language I think he should have treated with more respect.
Japanese hip hop, as Condry explains, has been diversifying and hence more intriguing these days. I hope the author publish more books and introduce this country's hip hop to hip hop heads over the world.

[Sheehan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, academic investigation of the current (2006) state of hip hop in Japan.

I really liked the book in part because it did dispel some misconceptions I think I harbored as a longtime fan of hip hop domestically. Namely, that there was something imitative and lacking in authenticity in adapting the form to less racially charged, less heterogeneous demographic.

Clearly, from Condry's research I was not seeing the ways in which: a) Japan is also a heterogeneous culture (Korean Japanese and burakumin/outcastes), and b) that performative spaces, "genba" are supplanting corporate media outlets as definers of hip hop space and allowing a definitively Japanese style to flourish independent of and in dialogue with other international artists.

This book would definitely be dry for anyone not very invested in understanding hip hop internationally, and willing to delve into post-structuralist theories on globalization and media.

But I was, and enjoyed all of it.

[Snake_telegraph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely a scholarly approach to the subject, so if you're looking for something very personable and entertaining, you might be a bit disappointed. But if you're like me and interested in the global spread of hip-hop, you'll probably enjoy it more. I highly recommend reading this in a place internet is accessible so you can key up songs quoted or mentioned by the author and listen to them while you go (I was lucky enough to already have the majority of the mentioned songs on my mp3 player).

I liked it a lot, but if the author wrote a book entailing his adventures in Japan in the hip-hop scene, it would be amazing; his stories were really insightful, and he mostly used them to back up concepts, rather than just for the sake of telling them. This book could have used some more pictures, too, just for fun.

[Saya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twas sort of like being back at university, since it's an ethnography...Pretty self-indulgent one at that, since the guy basically goes clubbing, hangs out with his mates and writes about it. Not a bad life.

[Chi Chi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good look at how hip hop culture has taken root in Japan. Nice discussion of performance space, the music industry, linguistics, and gender.

[Rachel Holtzclaw · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok