The Rap Issue: Favorite Rap of 2020 So Far
A round-up of the year's best from 5lack, Haruru Inu Love Dog Tenshi, Normcore Boyz and more, plus looking back at Oricon's first rap number-one
Hello! Welcome to the special rap edition of This Side of Japan, a newsletter about Japanese music, new and old! (You can check out previous issues here.) We’re kicking things differently for issue 10. Instead of choosing one record for Album of the Week, I blurbed about some of my favorite Japanese rap albums of 2020 so far. Singles Club features a row of great rap singles from this year as well. And for This Week In… we look back at the rap hit of Oricon around this week back in 1999. Can you guess which one it is?
You can check out the artists featured in this issue, plus a few bonus ones, in this Spotify playlist! Happy listening!
Favorite Rap Albums of 2020 So Far
Your Wonderland by 4s4ki
Recommended track: “Nexus” ft. Rinahamu | Listen to it on Spotify
4s4ki finds the dreamy soundscapes best suited for her depressive raps in her first full-length album, Your Wonderland. She taps the right names, like KOTONOHOUSE, and Snail’s House, to locate the sweet middle between the bedroom boom-bap of her earliest work and the busy electronica of last year’s NEMNEM EP. The twinkling beats channel an introvert’s mind yet the album draws out one pop-friendly performance from the rapper. She’s nimble as ever laying down her verses over the frazzled dance beats, and she spins antisocial themes into fun sing-alongs. Your Wonderland is the kind of record where “you want to see your friends/ I want to see my friends” becomes a legitimate hook without a hint of irony.
Kono Keshiki Mo Kohete by 5lack
Recommended track: “Hadaka No Ousama” | Listen to it on Spotify
Less percussion on a beat, the better 5lack’s rapping sounds on Kono Keshiki Mo Kohete. While he’s smooth when he squarely follows the beats of traditional boom-bap, like the brisk “Michibata Nite,” his verses compel when he recites them as if drums are mere suggestions. The best songs unspool like a stream of consciousness with the rapper musing about money, art, and the intermingling of both. He freely switches flows at will, and his quick asides only aid the overall spontaneity, like he’s trying to make sense of the big picture in real time.
The World of Tiffany by Gummyboy
Recommended track: “fuckin’ boy” | Listen to it on Spotify
The World of Tiffany is over in a flash, clocking in at a brisk 18 minutes. The load-and-go approach benefits a delirious track like “fuckin’ boy” with Gummyboy knowing to leave before the hook gets stale and the jokes turn flat: “I got all this power, I’m drinking fucking Milo,” he raps. Short as the album is, though, the rapper manages to unravel more of his character other than this chaos-stirring kid. He later tips into a more sensitive side, crooning about a crush in “thinking?,” that he once made an entire EP out of. Gummyboy remains more elusive than vapid when he shows so little in The World of Tiffany, and the record’s incomplete nature is frustrating in the way it makes you want to know more.
Lonely by Haruru Inu Love Dog Tenshi
Recommended track: “Disappear” | Listen to it on Spotify
The title explains the mood upfront. The synths of Lonely give a rather downcast sigh despite its sweet candy glow, and the drums bashfully shuffle along like it’s recuperating after hearing some bad news. Haruru Inu Love Dog Tenshi further indulges in the melancholia with her melodic raps sticking to a depressive state of mind throughout her six-song EP. The rapper ends up writing a mood piece rather than specific narratives, shouting in the dark with Auto-Tune about a general sadness. But her singular mix in Lonely remains potent enough for her raps to the void to hit sharply poignant.
Distortion by kZm
Recommended track: “Teenage Vibe” ft. Tohji | Listen to it on Spotify
If you want to quickly survey the production styles prevalent in Japanese rap, Distortion offers a pretty comprehensive tour on what’s out there. Once kZM finishes howling on the rap-rock hybrid “Star Fish,” he presses more aggression on a series of hellish trap beats. The mid-album skit gives way to sounds sourced more from dance music than hip hop, with the rapper hopping on blown-out electro, acid squelches and shuffling 2-step. The layers finally get peeled down to a more intimate core by the last third. “I need your love,” kZm cries out in solitude in the climactic “Kyoka Suigetsu.” While the rapper remains emotionally lost at the end of Distortion, his brave identity-searching doesn’t go to waste.
Mediage by Normcore Boyz
Recommended track: “Under the Building” | Listen to it on Spotify
Camaraderie drives the music of Normcore Boyz and the crew’s second album Mediage. Rolling deep with a line-up of five rappers, the members keep each other grounded with the suave voices balancing out the antics of the eccentrics. The immediate standouts from the latter are the twisted growls of Gucci Prince and the high-pitched yelps of Spada; Osami, Young Dalu and Night Flow Mike are more laid back but not afraid to play around with style. A lot of Mediage is the five just shooting the shit about being fly, making money and seeing women shake their ass. All they need are a series of solid rap beats with good bass or a silly loop to get started on some simple fun together.
#AFLOW by Week Dudus
Recommended track: “Sonn Na Baai Ja Nai” | Listen to it on Spotify
Week Dudus’s low, gravelly mumbles caught my attention back in February when he collaborated with rapper Merry Delo for “Anfang Town.” It turns out he had more to share in technique as #AFLOW reveals several other ways to utilize his voice during its 21-minute run. His flow in “Sonn Na Baai Ja Nai” is melodic as it is monotone; if the drums didn’t bounce enough, his ad libs ensure the performance pops. He’s equally adaptive, smoothly fitting in a elastic house beat as well as a loop of the horn riff from “Amores Como El Nuestro”—yes, the intro to “Hips Don’t Lie.” Week Dudus has yet to settle into a single lane, and it only makes his releases more exciting.
Singles Club
“Jet Set” by Leosteez ft. Week Dudus [self-released]
Hailing from the rap crew Cozy Room, Leosteez finds a great stylistic foil in the young Week Dudus for their collaboration “Jet Set.” The latter starts off the track by burying his thick mumbles in the jingling, bass-heavy beat. Despite the dazed chorus, Leosteez springs into action even more so following his deep-voiced guest. He quickly gets in the zone, laying down a hopscotching flow as he raps about his everyday antics in the city.
Jet Set is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Season” by Lil Soft Tennis [self-released]
Lil Soft Tennis loves to play with his voice in the rapper’s new album, Season. That much is well evident in the title track alone with him crooning at length and really letting the reverb of his voice hit as he indulges in his elongated sing-along flow. Other songs get lathered with more effects, one even aping the Playboi Carti baby voice, but “Season” is at his most earnest and free of any ironic distance. “I want to be with the season,” he declares as though his arms are stretched out, “never the same thing twice.” From his echoing voice and the beat’s electric-guitar squeals, Lil Soft Tennis lets you feel the grandeur.
Season is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Fast Lane & Slow Dive” by Saint Vega ft. Gokou Kuyt [Ourlanguage]
Saint Vega and Gokou Kuyt both daydream about escaping to Tokyo in “Fast Lane & Slow Dive,” a standout from the former’s Noudouteki Silece album, but for slightly different reasons. The shiny toybox beat suits the more private musings of Gokou Kuyt, who struggle to get over a heartbreak while living in his small town: “‘Wait a minute, why do I bump into you in place like this?’/ stuff like that happens all the time, and I’m getting sick of it,” he quips. Saint Vega, meanwhile, just wants a life that’s less boring, where he can get lost in the crowd and bump into someone he might have seen before. The two would rather be anywhere but the present, and the beat lets them get away if only for a time.
Noudouteki Siece is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Akuma Emoji” by (sic)boy & KM [add.some.label]
Emo rapper (sic)boy returns with another single not long after putting out the (sic)’s sense EP back in February. While KM went for maudlin, slow-burning guitar loops for that EP, the aptly titled “Akuma Emoji” laces the rapper with a fast shot of pop-punk. (sic)boy sounds right at home especially when he gets into a nasally sing-along about his crush that he can’t forget like he’s covering an imaginary blink-182 song.
Akuma Emoji is out now. Listen to it on Spotify.
“Ringtone” by Valknee x Lingna [self-released]
Launched this April, YouTube channel 2021 Survive has been home to new music by several rappers responding to life during quarantine. The exhausting, repetitive lifestyle gets flipped into a catchy pop-rap hook in the hands of Valknee, who opens up about her daily struggles through an Auto-Tune-laced verse. “No one can even watch this stream/ it’s apparently going to be gone at the end of the week,” she raps self-deprecatingly about live-stream life. The beat may be shiny, and her flow melodic, but there’s nothing sweet about this hamster wheel of a situation.
The 2021 Survive compilation is out now. Listen to it on Soundcloud/Bandcamp.
This Week in 1999…
“Grateful Days” by Dragon Ash ft. Zeebra & Aco
No. 1 during the week of May 17, 1999 | Listen to it on YouTube
Dragon Ash’s “Grateful Days” is the first rap single to hit number one on the Oricon, but it’s not the first time rap got on the singles chart. Hip-hop group East One and former idol Yuri of Tokyo Performance Dolls put out “DA YO NE” in 1994. With it charting no. 7 on the Oricon, and eventually hitting platinum, their single has properly earned its place as the first rap single to break into popular culture. That same year also saw another famous collaboration, “Konya Wa Boogie Back,” between Flipper’s Guitar singer Kenji Ozawa and rap trio Scha Dara Parr land on the Oricon (charted no. 15).
Dragon Ash’s success with “Grateful Days” couldn’t have been possible without records like those two classics further introducing the vocabulary of rap and hip hop to the general audience. The band, however, approach their music a bit differently by expanding rap more as a pop idea.
Thanks to the growing success of R&B, pop producers have been already employing this idea of rapping in isolation as a creative pop trope. Though it’s tough to label it as an legitimate act of rapping, hit songs like SPEED’s “Nettaiya,” Morning Musume’s “Daite Hold on Me!” and Namie Amuro’s “Chase the Chance” adapt rap-derived vocal cadences to give them more personality, rhythmic bounce or just a stylistic quirk.
The structure of Dragon Ash incorporates a lot more traditional hip hop elements than those listed pop acts. They began as a post-grunge act but quickly turned into what they called a “mixture band,” adding hip-hop breaks, sampling and a turntablist to the mix. The mannerisms of frontman Kenji Furuya also began to resemble a rapper’s than a rock vocalist’s.
Compared to their preceding singles, “Grateful Days” points the attention more to the emcee. The music video highlights only the band’s vocalist Kenji Furuya alongside singer Aco and guest rapper Zeebra from the famous group King Ghidorah. The band sounds more anonymous in the music, too. The lead guitar riff is a sample, swiped from Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today,” and the boom-bap drums sound more like a loop sequenced on a drum machine.
As committed Dragon Ash are with rap in “Grateful Days,” though, the genre ultimately served a secondary purpose for the band as a trope to elevate rock music. The success of Dragon Ash didn’t blaze a trail for rap acts like M-Flo and Rip Slyme to hit the charts more than it did for a rock band like Orange Range who similarly adapted rapping to their non-hip hop music. For better or worse, “Grateful Days” confirmed not so much that rap is pop but rapping is pop, removing a vital part of the genre from its roots.
Next issue is out May 27. You can check out previous issues here.