Japanese hip hop refers to the local Hip Hop scene that arose in the 1980s, as DJs such as Hiroshi Fujiwara and DJ Krush brought American hip hop records into Japanese clubs. The popularity of such performances led to Japanese artists such as キングギドラ [King Giddra] and スチャダラパー [Scha Dara Parr] starting to produce their own music; heavily influenced by East Coast Hip Hop artists such as the Beastie Boys, even to the point of being considered derivative.
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Japanese hip hop refers to the local Hip Hop scene that arose in the 1980s, as DJs such as Hiroshi Fujiwara and DJ Krush brought American hip hop records into Japanese clubs. The popularity of such performances led to Japanese artists such as キングギドラ [King Giddra] and スチャダラパー [Scha Dara Parr] starting to produce their own music; heavily influenced by East Coast Hip Hop artists such as the Beastie Boys, even to the point of being considered derivative. However, throughout the 1990s, the sounds of Japanese hip hop became deeply engrained in Tokyo's culture, through the breakdancing and Disco scenes of the city.
The lyrics of the genre are often referential to aspects of Japanese culture; including food, fashion and shopping. In the early days of the scene, rappers performed in English to replicate American hip hop and also because the phonetics of the Japanese language did not translate very well into rap's conventional flows and rhyme schemes. However, over time, rappers started to use much more Japanese, often stressing syllables and forgoing conventions of the language to fit hip hop conventions. The music, even in the current day, retains much of the fun and light hearted attitude of very early American rap, and the commercial success of the genre has seen a variety of smaller scenes arise that fuse the Japanese hip hop sound with genres such as J-Pop, Hardcore Hip Hop, Conscious Hip Hop and Electronic Dance Music.
