Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T22:42:36.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representing Japan: ‘national’ style among Japanese hip-hop DJs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2013

Noriko Manabe
Noriko Manabe*
Affiliation:
Department of Music, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Based on ethnographic interviews, this paper examines how Japanese hip-hop DJs distinguish themselves in the global marketplace in ways that reflect on Japan's two self-images: its impenetrable uniqueness and its adeptness at assimilating other cultures (cf. Ivy, Iwabuchi). Following the autoexoticist strategies of Takemitsu and Akiyoshi, DJ Krush and Shing02 draw on Japanese uniqueness by integrating Japanese instruments (e.g. shakuhachi, shamisen, taiko), genres (biwa narrative), and aesthetics (ma, imperfection) into their works; Evis Beats takes a more parodic approach. At the DMC World Championships, Japanese DJs including DJ Kentarō have competed on the basis of eclecticism and originality in assimilating multiple sound sources. While countering the stereotype of the Japanese as imitators, this emphasis on originality may place some contestants too far from prevailing trends, putting them at a disadvantage. Both strategies imply that Japanese artists experience anxieties regarding their authenticity, necessitating strategies to differentiate themselves.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 32 , Issue 1: East Asian popular music and its (dis)contents , January 2013 , pp. 35 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Atkins, E.T. 2001. Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (Durham, Duke University)Google Scholar
Bhabha, H. 1987. ‘Of mimicry and man: the ambivalence of colonial discourse’, in October: The First Decade, 1976–1986, ed. Michelson, A., Krauss, R., Crimp, D. and Copjec, J. (Cambridge, MA, MIT), pp. 317–25Google Scholar
Bojko, T. 2007. ‘Out of darkness: new DVD follows DJ Krush's musical – and life – changes’, The Japan Times, 24 August. http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fm20070824a1.html (accessed 10 August 2009)Google Scholar
Born, G., and Hesmondhalgh, D. 2000. Western Music and Its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music (Berkeley, University of California)Google Scholar
Condry, I. 2006. Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization (Durham, Duke University)Google Scholar
Heine, S. 1997. The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace (Boston, Tuttle)Google Scholar
Hosokawa, S. 1999. ‘Soy sauce music: Haruomi Hosono and Japanese self-Orientalism’, in Widening the Horizon: Exoticism in Post-War Popular Music, ed. Hayward, P. (Sydney, John Libbey), pp. 114–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivy, M. 1995. Discourses of the Vanishing: Modernity, Phantasm, Japan (Chicago, University of Chicago)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iwabuchi, K. 1994. ‘Who imagines “Japaneseness”? Orientalism, Occidentalism and self-Orientalism’, Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture, 8. http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/8.2/Iwabuchi.html (accessed 24 June 2009)Google Scholar
Iwabuchi, K. 2002. Recentering Globalization: Popular Culture and Japanese Transnationalism (Durham, Duke University)Google Scholar
Katz, M. 2010 (first published 2004). Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music (Berkeley, University of California)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Locke, R. 2009. Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Marra, M. 2007. The Poetics of Motoori Norinaga: A Hermeneutical Journey (Honolulu, University of Hawaii)Google Scholar
Narazaki, Y., and Kanazawa, M. 2002. ‘Takemitsu, Tōru’, in Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/27403 (accessed 3 May 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharpe-Young, G. 2007. Metal: The Definitive Guide (London, Jawbone)Google Scholar
Stokes, M. 2004. ‘Music and the global order’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 33, pp. 47–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yasuda, M. 2000. ‘Whose united future? How Japanese DJs cut across market boundaries’, Perfect Beat: The Pacific Journal of Research into Contemporary Music and Popular Culture, 4, pp. 45–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Discography

Amida (Evis Beats), Amida. 2008Google Scholar
DJ Krush, Meiso. Mo'Wax, MW039CD. 1995Google Scholar
DJ Krush, Kakusei. Sony Japan, AICT25. 1998Google Scholar
DJ Krush, Zen. Sony Japan, SRCL 4995. 2001Google Scholar
DJ Krush, Jaku. Sony Music Works, COL5175782. 2004Google Scholar
DMC Presents: 2002 DMC World DJ Championship Video. DMC Records, VWF02. 2002Google Scholar
Infumiai Kumiai, Jangaru. P-Vine, PCD-5852. 2003Google Scholar
Shing02, Waikyoku. Mary Joy Recordings, IDCM 1045. 2008Google Scholar

Selected interviews

DJ Co-ma and DJ Izoh, December 2008Google Scholar
DJ Kentarō, December 2008Google Scholar
DJ Krush, June 2008, September 2009, October 2010, March 2011Google Scholar
DJ Ono, January 2009Google Scholar
DJ Shiftee, September 2010, November 2010Google Scholar
Evis Beats, January 2009Google Scholar
Infumiai Kumiai, April 2008Google Scholar
Pete Rock, May 2008Google Scholar
Shing02, June 2008, September 2008Google Scholar

Manabe supplementary audio files

Audio 1

Download Manabe supplementary audio files(Audio)
Audio 5.4 MB

Manabe supplementary audio file

Audio 2

Download Manabe supplementary audio file(Audio)
Audio 4.6 MB

Manabe supplementary audio file

Audio 3

Download Manabe supplementary audio file(Audio)
Audio 1.6 MB