[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzOWMGfpMXM]
Americans are often separated from the musical traditions of other countries and unaware of the cultural influence of American music, Hip-hop Japan: rap and the paths of cultural globalization covers one small corner of cross-cultural music that needs more explanation.
While many of the artist examples are dated in this 2006 book, as would be true with much cultural anthropology, overall the book includes discussions of the issues of perceptions of race, gender and music, and the influence of sales on the production of music. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in an academic view of the Japanese music industry, and there are some fascinating charts that discuss the interaction between fans, artists, record companies, and media.
That isn’t to say that there aren’t places where more discussion would have been appreciated (especially about cultural issues surrounding race and gender) — and I am dismayed by yet another book that lumps together hip-hop music, rap, and hip-hop culture. But the biggest failing of the book is not actually of the book — it is that there is so little discussion of Asian music outside of small subcultures — whether it is Japanese hip-hop, K-pop, K-rap, etc.
And when there are discussions, they are not mainstreamed! — SXSW 2010 had a very interesting panel discussion of the global influence of Japanese music, with a large focus on visual kei. Unfortunately, the podcast has been pulled. I know that many pay lots of money to attend SXSW, but it would be nice if the podcasts would be available after, say, six months. And no matter how much the website says earlier podcasts are available–they aren’t “(Also be sure and check out our extensive list of full panel podcasts from 2009.)”
The video above is from Suite Chic, a one-album Japanese collaboration; the singer is Namie Amuro, one of the biggest Japanese pop stars, the self-professed Queen of Hip-Pop; and the rapper is AI, a Japanese-American Japanese rap/singer (known in these parts as Japanese DaBrat). And they aren’t mentioned in the book.