Ahmmad Brown

New Locales

It is an extremely hot and humid morning in the midst of Tokyo's rainy season.  After spending an hour split amongst three overcrowded trains, I am in the final stretch of my journey to school.  Already a few minutes late, I scurry past the slower moving traffic as quickly as my overheated body will take me.  As I approach a construction site near the entrance of my campus, I hastily map out a route to avoid being slowed by congestion in the narrow walkway.  Just as I pass the construction area, a male construction worker that looks to be around forty years old crosses my path.  We make eye contact and I nod to him in greeting.  In the split second that we are side by side, along with a smile, he offers the following greeting in poorly accented English, "What's up my nigga?"  Perhaps it was the fact that I was late for class.  Or maybe it was because I was already tired and the heat had got to me.  It even quite possibly could have been the fact that I didn't want to hear what I had heard or even believe that I heard it.  Whatever the reason, it was not until fifteen minutes into class that it dawned on me and I whispered to myself, "Damn, some forty year old Japanese guy just called me 'nigga.'"

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Within a week of arrival in Tokyo, it became apparent to me that unlike most of my other fellow exchange students, I would have to deal with misinformed racially charged situations on a consistent basis.  While walking through areas of Tokyo like Shibuya where many hip-hop inspired Japanese youth congregate, I would often receive head nods from young Japanese males with darkened skin and intricately braided hair while my white or Asian friends would be ignored.  On some level, it seemed as if these individuals felt a bond with me that they did not share with my non-Black friends.  Specifically, it felt as though they identified with me through the commonality of Blackness or an appreciation of Blackness.  The most glaring example of this occurred as I was transferring trains at Akihabara station.  Just before mounting the escalator, I noticed a middle aged Japanese man in dread locks with unnaturally tanned skin riding the escalator in the opposite direction.  He wore a loose Caribbean style button up short sleeved shirt along with baggy khakis, brown sandals, and large black sunglasses.  As we neared each other, he looked directly at me and said, "Peace brotha."  As if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred, he dismounted the elevator and continued on his way. 

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The two examples above hint to the type of perceptions that Japanese people have of Black people.  Perhaps more importantly, they illustrate the extent to which Blackness has been interpreted by Japanese society.  In each of the situations, it should be noted that I was greeted in what is generally recognized as Black language.  For the most part, both "nigga" and "brotha" are recognized as words that African-Americans and Black people use to greet or address one another, a fact that the two individuals mentioned above were evidently aware of.  But what are the reasons that they would want to show solidarity with me?  The answer to this question is rooted in the global proliferation of hip-hop and Black culture. 

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In Tokyo, Japan, youth are just as likely to know the title of the latest 50 Cent single as the most pop-culture savvy American teen.  If one is only familiar with the American version of hip-hop, it may be a mystery as to how it traveled 7,000 miles from the urban neighborhoods of New York to the streets of Tokyo, but the roots of this story are not so dissimilar to the manner in which hip-hop has come to dominate American pop culture.  The American public was introduced to hip-hop when it broke from its humble beginnings in the poorest areas of New York to mainstream media outlets in the form of radio, tapes, and movies.  At once, Americans were exposed to an art form that was more than a decade in the making.  Thanks to globalization, much of the world was exposed to the hip-hop movement through the same outlets only a few years later. 

 

The seed of hip-hop that was planted in Tokyo in the late eighties through films like Wild Style and Beat Street has grown into an environment that fosters youth hip-hop culture.  Although hip-hop has touched many more lives than its pioneers could have ever imagined, not all are happy about its growing influence in locales like Japan.  One particular point of contention in regards to the proliferation of hip-hop in international locales is the issue of imitation and authenticity as some believe that hip-hop culture is grounded in the circumstances in which hip-hop was born. 

Although Japan is certainly not the only international locale that has adopted hip-hop culture, the manner in which it has often been appropriated does deserve special consideration.  Unique to the Japanese version is the physical consumption of Black characteristics, specifically darker skin and Black hairstyles. While on the surface, such practices appear to be only aesthetic choices, in the context of Japanese society, they have deeper meanings.  But perhaps more so than anything else, Japanese hip-hop is an example through which we can examine globalization.  Specifically, the appropriation of hip-hop culture as a form of “Black” culture as opposed to an “American” culture speaks to the manner in which Japan and other international manifestations of hip-hop interact with the culture.  Rather than another example of American culture imposing its will abroad, hip-hop and Black culture are recontextualized in Japan to construct new meanings and identities. 

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