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Japanese hip hop (or J-hip hop〔() 〕) is said to have begun when Hiroshi Fujiwara returned to Japan and started playing hip hop records in the early 1980s.〔() 〕 Japanese hip hop generally tends to be most directly influenced by old school hip hop, taking from the era's catchy beats, dance culture, and overall fun and carefree nature and incorporating it into their music. As a result, hip hop stands as one of the most commercially viable mainstream music genres in Japan, and the line between it and pop music is frequently blurred. ==History of Rapanese== Although rather informal and small scale, the early days of Japanese hip-hop provide the history for the emergence of the cultural movement. Early hip-hop was not led by corporate interests, but rather was largely ignored by large record companies and performance venues. In this respect, Japanese hip-hop offers a representation of cultural globalization, as it expanded despite criticism on the part of record companies and major media outlets. The history shows that certain kinds of cultural exchange are not initiated through cultural understanding, but instead from some interaction that can incite a desire to learn, to participate, and to contribute individuality. In Japan, this motivation to represent individuality was breakdancing, which was one of the leading edges of hip-hop at the time.〔Condry, Ian (2007). Hip Hop Japan. California: Duke University Press, 61-63〕 An important spark for Japanese hip-hop occurred in 1983, when breakdancing appeared in Tokyo through film and live performances even though American hip hop records could previously be heard in Tokyo discos. According to Takagi Kan, a first generation Japanese MC, "I couldn't tell what was with the rap and the DJing...but with the breakdancing and graffiti art, you could understand it visually. Or rather, it wasn't understanding so much as, 'Whoa, that's cool' ''()''. With rap and DJing, I couldn't imagine what could be cool about it." Dancing has a visual impact that everyone can understand, when it comes to dance there is not a language barrier. Break dancing represented the foundation for the spread of Japanese hip-hop and served as a medium for globalization.〔Condry, Ian (2007). Hip Hop Japan. California: Duke University Press, 61-63〕 As in Germany, Japan was introduced to hip hop in the fall of 1983 in the movie ''Wild Style''. The film is "the classic hip-hop flick, full of great subway shots, breakdancing, freestyle MCing and rare footage of one of the godfathers of hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash, pulling off an awesome scratch-mix set on a pair of ancient turntables."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Wild Style (1983) : Plot Summary )〕 The popularity of the film led to many of the artists involved in it to make a trip to Japan to promote the film and they even performed in some of the department stores while they were there.〔 Shortly after, Japanese took up breakdancing in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park, where street musicians gather every Sunday to perform. Crazy-A, now the leader of Rock Steady Crew Japan," was one of the pioneers of break dancing in Yoyogi back in the early 1984". Crazy-A organizes the annual "B-Boy Park," which happens every August, and draws a large number of fans and dozens of break dancing groups. This was all considered the Old School Era of rap in Tokyo. There was much of what they called Soul Dancing, which helped the Japanese culture accept the street dance culture.〔() 〕 The rise of DJs was really the next step for the Japanese hip hop scene. Before 1985, there weren't very many DJs on the radio, but with the increase in the number that year, it led to the opening of the first all hip hop club in 1986. But despite the fact that DJing caught on rather quickly, it was initially thought that rapping wasn't going to have the same cache as it would be hard to rap in Japanese.〔 Street musicians began to breakdance in Yoyogi Park, including DJ Krush who has become a world-renowned DJ after arising from the Yoyogi Park scene. In 1986 an all hip hop club opened in Shibuya. While interest in hip-hop in Japan grew some during the 1980s and early 1990s, the rap scene remained fairly small and rather marginalized.〔Condry, Ian. Hip-hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.〕 One reason for the rap scene to remain so small and a little bit less popular compared to hip hop is because of the fact that the Japanese language does "not contain stress accents and sentences must end with one of a few simple verb endings."〔Condry, Ian. Japanese Hip Hop.〕 Ito Seiko, Chikado Haruo, Tinnie Punx and Takagi Kan were rappers that emerged from Japan at this time, and they proved to be rather successful.〔J-Hip-Hop. Japanese Music. www.music.3yen.com/category/j-hip-hop/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese hip hop」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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