Hello! Project turns 20 this year, and everyone celebrates in their own way, I’m sure. If you are Japanese artist Dale Nixon, you call up your Tokyo rapper friend Valknee and you record a hip-hop EP celebrating the agency behind Morning Musume and many others. Hello comes advertised as “HelloHop,” and Dale Nixon exclusively samples…
Another year draws to a close, and that means its time for the annual rush of year-end blog posts looking back on the year that was. And, again, I try to write an intro to this collection trying to say something original, about putting together lists and what it all means. But at this point,…
Part two, which was actually written before part one, here Japanese hip-hop music that get media attention tends to either embrace stereotypes to an almost comical degree (Kohh) or radically different enough to just barely receive the rap designation (Charisma.com, Suiyoubi No Campanella). That’s a broad view of things, though, only focusing on what tends…