HIP HOP IN JAPAN

Once I was checking out Yo! MTV Raps back in 1994 I saw that Fab Five Freddy was down in Japan. He was checking out the hip hop parties. Hip hop arrived in Japan quite some time ago. Japanese rappers were rapping about guns and violence, but nowadays it is different. Japanese rappers are rapping about more peaceful things and mostly about everyday life. The rhymes are poetic.

Fashion and music is inseparable in Japan, because these two things are closely associated. Some retailers believe that hip hop fashion will become less popular, when the Japanese hip hop music becomes less popular.
The Japanese hip hop music was famous in Japan among a underground crowd. Nowadays Japanese hip hop is a mainstream phenomenon. The record stores are doing good business. Since the Japanese rappers started to produce hits of their own, Japanese rappers can gain more attention from the mainstream. Japanese hip hop can be claimed as the most popular music genre amongst the youth of Japan. The American rappers are left behind with the sales by the Japanese rappers. The record store owners believe that the success of the Japanese rappers lies in the originality. The Japanese rappers are not copying the American rappers.

The youth in Japan sees the hip hop also as a fashion. The baggy pants and baseball caps are seen as the trendy. There are about 300 stores selling hip hop clothing. I think if there is any new trend in the world. Japanese people will embrace it. I think Japanese people are very open minded.