Rice & Gravy

Stimela to TKZ: South African Pop and Hip Hop

I am not saying this just because I used to live there, but I think South African black people are highly creative in blending their own cultures with others and turning them into something new and better.

Take for example South African Jazz and Pop music. The most famous in the US may be Hugh Masekela, Abdullah Ibrahim and Miriam Makeba. My favorites are Sakhile, Bayete, Stimela and Sankomota. I am also a big fan of Lucky Dube, who has been leading South African Reggae scenes. These artists are common in that they have blended conventional Jazz, Pop, R&B, and Reggae music with traditional South African music and rhythms; and created something so unique and distinctive as South African.  At the same time, they have conveyed their political messages through their songs, which were born out of the context of anti-Apartheid movements.

Since Mandela was released from the Robben Island, South African music has undergone some changes, particularly in its "messages" that they convey, though its blending of different cultures has continued. For example, Kwaito, a mixture of house, hip hop and traditional rhythms originated in Johannesburg in 1990's, talks more about apolitical stuff and gears more towards empowerment and integration as well as "street" issues, reflecting contemporary (post-Mandela) South African social realities. Artists like TKZee and Bongo Muffin have got really cool vibes.

By the way, when I was writing this post, I came across a news piece from BBC in 2003 about a group of white supremacists held in a prison in Pretoria, South Africa. They were apparently complaining about loud Kwaito music played all day long in the prison, claiming that they were "tortured." Remember - these guys were the ones who had perpetrated all types of violence against South African black populations!!

Evolution of Japanese Hip Hop Music

"Japan is good at copying American technologies and using them to create better products than its American counterparts, like cars and electronics" - so I have been told about Japan's economic success. I'd say that the same can be said about Japan's copying American sub-cultures. In particular, I've been overwhelmed by influence and impact that American hip hop culture has made on Japan during the past decade. I really did not know, for example, Def Jam Japan was established until very recently.

I have been really impressed with how R&B has been absorbed by the Japanese music industry and come out as truly unique like Toshi Kubota, Kiyoshi Matsuo and so many others (also see Japanese R&B (J-R&B)), but I did not have good impressions about Japanese Rap. It's primarily because it sounds "funny" when Japanese rappers try to rhyme; Japanese finds its beauty in lyrics through making the number of Japanese alphabets, or phonetic units, limited in each line and not through making rhymes. For example in Haiku, a poet needs to limit his/her use of alphabets (which are like mono-syllables in English) to 5 in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 again in the third. The art of Haiku comes from how the poet can express his/her messages beautifully and phonetically within his/her limited use of alphabets (hence words). So, Japanese are not used to rhyming, which to me is part of what makes rap music a form of art.

Yet, I must admit: Recent years, Japanese rap music has evolved and leveraged itself to a great extent. Japanese rappers still try to rhyme; but, they do choose (seemingly) words carefully so that rhyming doesn't sound really funny (which has been a great discovery to me as a Japanese!). On the top of it, they add a bit of Japanese pop flava. So, they do sound really cool and unique. Dragon Ash and other artists under the Def Jam Japan label are really good. I think they can't be merely labeled as Japanese Hip Hop any more - so how can we call it?