Hip-Hop Japan

Hip-Hop Japan
Author: Ian Condry
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2006-11
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780822338925

An ethnographic study of Japanese hip-hop.

24 Bars to Kill

24 Bars to Kill
Author: Andrew B. Armstrong
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2019-06-06
Genre: Music
ISBN: 178920268X

The most clearly identifiable and popular form of Japanese hip-hop, “ghetto” or “gangsta” music has much in common with its corresponding American subgenres, including its portrayal of life on the margins, confrontational style, and aspirational “rags-to-riches” narratives. Contrary to depictions of an ethnically and economically homogeneous Japan, gangsta J-hop gives voice to the suffering, deprivation, and social exclusion experienced by many modern Japanese. 24 Bars to Kill offers a fascinating ethnographic account of this music as well as the subculture around it, showing how gangsta hip-hop arises from widespread dissatisfaction and malaise.

Global Noise

Global Noise
Author: Tony Mitchell
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2001
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9780819565020

International scholars explore the hip hop scenes of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production
Author: William H. Bridges
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2015-06-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498505481

Traveling Texts and the Work of Afro-Japanese Cultural Production analyzes the complex conversations taking place in texts of all sorts traveling between Africans, African Diasporas, and Japanese across disciplinary, geographic, racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural borders. Be it focused on the make-up of the blackface ganguro or the haiku of Richard Wright, Rastafari communities in Japan or the black enka singer Jero, the volume turns its attention away from questions of representation to ones concerning the generative aspects of transcultural production. The contributors are interested primarily in texts in motion—the contradictory motion within texts, the traveling of texts, and the action that such kinetic energy inspires in readers, viewers, listeners, and travelers. As our texts travel and travail, the originary nodal points that anchor them to set significations loosen and are transformed; the essays trace how, in the process of traveling, the bodies and subjectivities of those working to reimagine the text(s) in new sites moderate, accommodate, and transfigure both the texts and themselves.

Tokyo Urban-hip Hop Culture

Tokyo Urban-hip Hop Culture
Author: Makoto Nakajima
Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2004
Genre: Comic books, strips, etc
ISBN: 9781569709696

Instructed by Japanese street experts and drawn by industry veterans of manga, this valuable instructional guide helps readers depict the fast-pace urban lifestyle of Tokyo, Japan's largest mecca for the Hip Hop subculture it bears by its youth today. Through a series of studied drawings of various character designs, urban environments, city living conditions and youth entertainment, which are essential elements to creating this unique genre, this book presents to the novice artist step-by-step illustrations and design instructions which ultimately lead up to formulating a short urban story. With focus on creating characters with the hippest hairstyles and latest trends in fashion, down to constructing the various local youth settings, this book makes the perfect uniquely themed reference guide for anyone wanting to draw on urban manga drama!

The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop

The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop
Author: Justin A. Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2015-02-12
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1107037468

This Companion covers the hip-hop elements, methods of studying hip-hop, and case studies from Nerdcore to Turkish-German and Japanese hip-hop.

Hiroshi Fujiwara: Fragment, #2

Hiroshi Fujiwara: Fragment, #2
Author: Hiroshi Fuijwara
Publisher: Rizzoli Publications
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2020-10-20
Genre: Design
ISBN: 0847868710

The continuing adventures of Hiroshi Fujiwara, "godfather of streetwear." Commanding the hothouse environment of Harajuku, the street fashion and culture district of Tokyo, Hiroshi Fujiwara is recognized the world over as a pioneer in streetwear, music, and art and is the ultimate arbiter of cool. Known internationally as one of the founding fathers of the 1990s Tokyo scene, Fujiwara exerts a disproportionate influence over contemporary design culture. With recent and highly successful collaborations with Louis Vuitton and Moncler, and with his mainstay work at Nike and Medicom, Fujiwara refines an aesthetic immersed in punk, hip-hop, and skate culture and translates it into pure luxury. A musician and producer originally from western Japan, Fujiwara is one of the most prolific of sneaker designers, and his kicks remain some of the most sought-after collectibles. In addition to his very visible and long-standing collaborations with major Western brands, he has long associations with Japanese disruptors like Jun Takahashi of Undercover and is head of the Tokyo-based Fragment Design. Chronicling his reign as the arbiter of hip for more than thirty years, this book presents his current preoccupations, with chapters on his highly sought-after artwork and graphics, sneakers, product design, and curated personal effects, giving readers a unique glimpse into one of the most influential tastemakers of our time.

The Games Black Girls Play

The Games Black Girls Play
Author: Kyra D. Gaunt
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2006-02-06
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0814731201

Illustrates how black musical styles are incorporated into the earliest games African American girls learn--how, in effect, these games contain the DNA of black music. Drawing on interviews, recordings of handclapping games and cheers, and her own observation and memories of gameplaying, Gaunt argues that black girls' games are connected to long traditions of African and African American musicmaking, and that they teach vital musical and social lessons that are carried into adulthood. - from publisher information.

To the Break of Dawn

To the Break of Dawn
Author: William Jelani Cobb
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2008-05
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0814716717

With roots that stretch from West Africa through the black pulpit, hip hop emerged in the streets of the South Bronx in the 1970s and has spread to the farthest corners of the earth. "To the Break of Dawn" uniquely examines this freestyle verbal artistry on its own terms. A kid from Queens who spent his youth at the epicenter of this new art form, music critic William Jelani Cobb takes readers inside the beats, the lyrics, and the flow of hip hop, separating mere corporate rappers from the creative MCs that forged the art in the crucible of the street jam.The four pillars of hip hop - break dancing, graffiti art, deejaying, and rapping - find their origins in traditions as diverse as the Afro-Brazilian martial art Capoeira and Caribbean immigrants' turnstile artistry.