Thursday, April 12, 2007

This One's for Ian Condry, Halifu Osumare, Suzuko Morikawa, Oliver Wang, Deborah Whaley, Gary Okihiro, Nikhil Pal Singh....

The plot thickens. The mystery deepens. A new category--Japanese hip hop--comes to Mostly Harmless.

Ian Condry's new book Hip Hop Japan (2006) and web site Japanese Hip Hop, along with Halifu Osumare's "Beat Streets in the Global Hood" (2001), get pride of place in this post.

But it turns out many people are working on the globalization of hip hop culture, including the contributors to Global Noise, Fanning the Flames, Black Cultural Traffic, The Afro-Asian Century (positions: east asia cultures critique 11.1 [Spring 2003]), and AfroAsian Encounters.

While you're waiting for the books to arrive, you can also check out Caleb Kinney's "hip hop influences Japanese culture" and Hip Hop Japan.

Enjoy!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

well, i had a good dose of live Stephen Marley last night, so hip-hop/rap jamaican style is floating around behind the heavy Bob influenced reggae in my head. But what i really really want to know is if the hype about Blonde RedHead is expressing accurately the band's performance?????

Anonymous said...

Japanese hip hop is quite different that US Hip Hip. I find it is so much more positive and happy. My fave band is Ketsumeishi
http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/fun-jpop-group-ketsumeishis-new-single-features-hot-model-yuri-ebihara/