Springroove '08

On 5th April it was Chrysanta's birthday (The ALT from Iide town, a little near Nanyo), it also just so happened that a big hip-hop concert was happening down in the Tokyo area on the same day. Chrissy invited some of us to go down with her and celebrate. We did a night bus down (once again we regretted it), had an overnight stay and then caught the shinkansen back.

The concert was huge and had loads of big acts both Japanese (Teriyaki Boys, AFRO - a great lively Japanese dancehall band!) and American (Sean Kingston, Rhianna, Kanye West, N.E.R.D - all really big names) spread between three stages. The place was very busy but not overly crowded, meaning we could often get some good positions in the crowd to see the performances. We saw quite an interesting mix of Japanese and Western people attending. Hip-hop culture in Japan has had quite an impact on the younger generation, who have fallen in love with the style of dress, music and dance. Unfortunately, I personally don't feel the Japanese culture and size and form of Japanese people fit well with the American hip-hop image.

Hip-hop in America is predominately produced and created by African-Americans. They are often very big guys, often very muscular, and the girls are typically curvacious. Japanese people are typically small, and the girls are usually incredibly thin, and have no curves! So we saw plenty of Japanese people walking around in huge baggy American import hiphop-style clothing, five times bigger than would fit them properly, whilst the girls wore crazy clothes, brash colours, extreme hair-styles, sometimes in a kind of crazy Japanese/American fusion. (Not always tastefully done!)

Also, Japanese hip-hop is a little wierd. Again, because of the influence from America, it has become quite popular, but the lyrics seem a little wierd - you might think its just because I won't understand them - but its actually because there seems to be too much I understand. They constantly interject the Japanese with English passages - anybody would think they were bi-lingual!

I present to you a sample of the Teriyaki boyz lyrics (in the roman alphabet so you can all understand it more) - why not play a game and see how many English words you can spot in this passage!

You know what time is it!?

Mae wa kimi ni CRUSH tsuuka kataomoi tte

Oboeteru tegami kaiteta

Sono goro wa keitai mo MEERU mo nai

Neru mae ie ni CALL shitara YO MAMA kimi no MAMA

Ga denwa ni dete said donata?

Dakara yuuki wo dashite kimi to hanashi taitte

Ittara kotowarareta I asked WHY?

Shou ga nee Ano goro no ore juu en hage

Demo Times Changed Ima ja mi mo kami mo sarasara de kurabu ROCK shiteruze YEAH

Oshie youka ore no SECRET

Kono BYUUTEIFOO na boku channo hiketsu

Nara mimi wo kasu beki YES! TAKASUKURINIKKU

If this is an example of how popular English is, then why aren't all of my students compelled to learn it!

However, on the whole, the music was great, and again, the beauty of Japan is that you felt completely safe all the time - no fear of gun violence (as can so often be common at American hip-hop concerts) and no real fear of stealing. Plus I had a delicious Donner Kebab there (oh how I miss those!)

The following day the weather was great and really hot, so we walked over to the East Imperial Palace gardens and did a bit of sunbathing (well, some of us did - Siobhan accidently lost her Shinkansen ticket, which was luckily returned to the lost and found, but then I gave her some instructions in order to get to the Palace gardens and meet us....the conclusion is that I am completely useless with 'left' and 'right' and should not be trusted at all to give instructions, as has been observed more than once whilst in Japan, and probably in England too!).

My camera broke half-way through the concert, so I didn't really get that many photos, and this photo isn't one by me - but it capture the concert pretty well!