What is the message contained in the products created by these two men, who are deeply immersed in the culture they have discovered and continue to give shape to their ideas through fashion and art, after hitting it off with each other? This would be the most powerful collaboration that will make the scene even more fascinating in the future.

JUN INAGAWA
JUN INAGAWA was born in 1999 in Tokyo, Japan. In 2012, he moved to San Diego, U.S.A. His drawings gradually gained recognition from the players of street culture, such as skateboarding and hip-hop scenes, in LA, leading to an offer for collaboration from A$AP ROCKY. After returning to Japan in 2018, he has been active as an up-and-coming artist with his unique style that connects anime and street culture. He has collaborated with apparel brands, provided artwork to music artists, and is also active as a DJ. Currently, he hosts a monthly party called “MAD MAGIC ORCHESTRA.” On April 7, Magical Destroyers (TBS and its affiliated TV stations), the TV anime series based on INAGAWA’s original story, for which he is also in charge of illustrating, was started. He also started a 3-piece electro band, Flog3.
Instagram：@madmagicorchestra

Shinsuke Takizawa
Creative director of NEIGHBORHOOD Shinsuke Takizawa was born in 1967. After working at FILE RECORDS inc. as a record label manager for MAJOR FORCE, he started NEIGHBORHOOD, a brand inspired by motorcycle culture and military style, in 1994. It has become a globally recognized brand representing Japan from Harajuku, with stores throughout Japan and Asia and distributors in Europe, Asia, the U.S., Australia, and other countries, demonstrating its enduring popularity. In March 2023, the brand opened a new store in Taiwan.
https://www.neighborhood.jp
Instagram：@neighborhood_official
Instagram：@sin_takizawa

His story and mindset were just interesting and surprising.

–First of all, JUN, please tell us how you came to know about NEIGBORHOOD.

JUN INAGAWA (JUN): A very good friend of mine, who is like an uncle to me, has always loved NEIGBORHOOD. Although he is not related to me by blood, he has been like a mentor who taught me about the culture.

Shinsuke Takizawa (Takizawa): Wait! You are not related to him by blood！？I thought he was your real uncle (laughs).

JUN: We are so close that I keep calling him “uncle.” He’s called “NORI,” and he’s been closer to me than my parents since I was little, and he’s the one who taught me about culture other than anime. I saw him wearing NEIGHBORHOOD’s T-shirts and accessories, and I had been interested in what it was about since I was a little kid. So I bought some incense the first time I went to the Harajuku store. I loved the smell of the incense when I entered the store. I used to go to the store before it was renovated, but I didn’t even know the word “Ura-Hara (the common name given to the network of smaller Harajuku backstreets)” back then. That was when I was about 18 years old, right after returning from America.

Takizawa: You came to our collection with that “uncle” guy. We met for the first time, and that was four or five years ago, I think. That’s when I heard about you and learned you were an artist.

–I first learned about the close relationship between JUN and NEIGHBORHOOD through “HUMUNGUS,” an event held during the COVID pandemic. Takizawa-san, were you interested in the youth culture that JUN was involved in?

Takizawa: I’m not particularly fond of anime, but I found his story and mindset interesting and very surprising. If he were just one of those young artists, I would not have connected with him, but we could get together probably because he knew the culture of, say Ura-Harajuku. My daughter is 20 years old this year, so JUN is like a son to me (laughs).

JUN: He told me that his daughter likes anime. I didn’t have much of a preconceived idea about Takizawa-san. It could have been different if I had been a big fan of him for like ten years, but I was happy to have conversations with him casually even though I was supposed to treat him with greater respect because he was much older than me.

Takizawa: What is interesting about him is that he not only draws animation but also creates his own pieces of work, and he hung out with A$AP ROCKY when he was in the US. And yet, he also has a deep knowledge of Ura-Hara culture. It’s all a mystery. I’m like, “What the hell is this boy?”

JUN: I have answered this question in every interview, but people don’t seem to understand it. I don’t know how to tell them either. To put it simply, I was just one of those anime geeks, but I got hooked on skate videos that my uncle taught me. My anime-style drawings of skateboarders who belonged to the community around Supreme and Fucking Awesome went viral on Social Networking Sites, leading to getting to know A$AP Bari and then to a collaboration with VLONE. But at the time, I knew nothing about A$AP ROCKY, Bari, or hip-hop. The only music I knew was anime songs and Mr. Children. But then I started working with them.

Takizawa: So you were not particularly interested in hip-hop?

JUN: Well, I was interested in people who were doing hip-hop. I wondered why they were interested in hip-hop, drinking outside, skating, and having fun. When I talked to them, I learned that some were from disadvantaged families and had various reasons for getting together. All these things led me to meet Takizawa-san after coming back to Tokyo. That was when I was 18 years old.

Takizawa: When we were 18, we had a lot of input from the people around us. Back then, I met Hiroshi (Fujiwara) in Tokyo and learned about various club music, so I guess people reach the stage of input at the age of 18.

New cultural trends are born out of rebellious spirit.

JUN: When I returned to Tokyo and met all the people I’m working with now, I was in a state where I could accept anything. I took inspiration from various things and digested them in my mind. Until I turned 20, I took in everything, digested it all, and tried to make my works out of the chaos. So in the early stages of my career, I would paint on the walls, and it was a mess. When I was around 18 or 19, I was rebelling against something; I don’t know why though.

Takizawa: That’s one of those things you want to do when you get to that age. You want to be passionate about something and do what you want to do, even if it means making imaginary enemies.

JUN: That’s when I started making the kind of animations that are on TV now. So my way of thinking was changing quickly. I was 19 years old when I made the animation being broadcast currently, so this work is from a very long time ago. And I did my first collaboration with NEIGHBORHOOD in 2020, right?

–-Takizawa-san, was it you who asked for a collaboration?

Takizawa: I’m not sure. It was like, “Let’s do something!” but I don’t remember in detail. We just came up with the idea when having a normal conversation.

JUN: I also like the “Let’s do something” attitude as an extension of something else. What often happens to me is that even if someone says, “Let’s do something!,” nothing happens. I have decided to remove myself from such people. They are not interested in me. Conversely, those who support me and think I am an interesting person will definitely make something happen, making me believe that I’ve found a missing piece of the puzzle.

Takizawa: On top of that, he was kind enough to create a helmet with a story and gave it to me as a gift, and although he is as young as my child, we have a relatively collegial relationship.

–In terms of what can be associated with helmets, Takizawa-san’s and JUN’s ideas may have something in common.

Takizawa: As far as I’m concerned, helmets reminds me of the band The Timers.

JUN: Come to think of it, Takizawa-san mentioned The Timers. I was also very interested in what the club scene was like when he was younger. So he told me many stories about when he was my age. Then, when I was 18, I saw The Timers’ PV and thought, “This is it!”.

Takizawa: One wouldn’t usually think so even if one sees The Timers’ music video at the age of 18 (laughs).

JUN: I guess I saw a video of them singing a song that included words banned on TV. That looked absolutely cool. Punk is an attitude, not a fashion. And I thought, “They are doing punk properly.” There are a lot of people in punk fashion now. But I’m like, “That’s not punk!”. More specifically, their attitude is not punk. I didn’t expect much, but The Timers were a very proper and extreme punk band. That’s how I fell in love with Japanese punk and started digging Malcolm McLaren and other foreign bands.

Magical Girl and UZI, inspired by ATARI TEENAGE RIOT

–Please tell us about the figures you created together for this project.

Takizawa: I really wanted to make an incense burner, but this time I decided to make a figure. At first, I was going to make one with a UZI (Israeli machine pistol) attached to its head, from which incense smoke would come out, but this was impossible due to structural problems. However, the finished product was very satisfactory, more delicate, and heavier than the one made of ceramics. This is the second time I have collaborated with Jun, but the first time we have made a three-dimensional piece from a two-dimensional work. So it was a big step forward. We also made T-shirts and incense. I like the fact that UZI is on the figure’s head.

JUN: I have never drawn a magical girl with UZI on her head before. I put it on her head because I found an Atari Teenage Riot T-shirt with a UZI printed on the back, and I drew it as it was. Then I watched ATARI’s videos and learned that they had previously worked with NEIGHBORHOOD.

–I remember that when NEIGHBORHOOD held a show as part of Fashion Week in the past, the show was a live performance of Atari Teenage Riot instead of a runway show. That way of launching the collection was just so surprising.

Takizawa: That was not a fashion show! (Laughs.) Instead of having a runway, the members of the band were wearing our clothes during the show. The people who came to see the show must have expected a runway, so when it started, they were like, “What the hell is this?” 

JUN: That’s sick! But I kind of understand why Takizawa-san wanted to have a live show instead of a runway when doing a fashion show. When I do a project, I also feel like I want to destroy it. Of course, I still stick to my common sense, though.

Takizawa: I tried to destroy the idea of a runway show by showing “DESTROY FASHION” on the LCD monitor. So it’s also lovely to hear that JUN sampled this UZI from ATARI.

JUN: It would also be nice if the flags bounced out of the UZIs! (laughs).

Takizawa: (laughs).

JUN: Aside from inspirations from Atari, this twin-tail hair was derived initially from an anime I created. I drew this girl when I collaborated with NEIGHBORHOOD for the first time. She had purple hair and UZI. This time, the brand made this girl into a three-dimensional figure.

As for making a piece of art, I am not familiar with contemporary art, and I have lived my life without being exposed to the world of art. Visual art requires experience, money, and space. And I have a problem with capitalism. In other words, I’m not too fond of the idea that art is only about what can make money. That’s why I like communicating with people through my feelings and emotion, like when I made the helmet and gave it to Takizawa-san. I like to draw pictures, so when I meet people, I always draw their portraits, but I sometimes get told that this lowers the value of my work of art. But I like how it can get through speedily to people, just like when one draws graffiti vigorously on a wall.

Takizawa: That is very artistic in a true sense.

JUN: (Looking at the works displayed in the press room) Whose work is this?

Takizawa: Kostas (Seremetis).

JUN: I have always thought this piece was cool and wondered who it was by. We are going to do a pop-up to mark the launch of the collaboration, and I’m thinking of painting my first Kostas-inspired canvas work at that time. I have never painted on canvas, but I decided to try painting something of this size. Takizawa-san was also the one who allowed me to do that.

Takizawa: Yeah, you should try painting that.

JUN: I thought drawing something just by following my impulse would be okay. I would like to rent an ample space in the NEIGHBORHOOD and try it out. I am still exploring and challenging various things, so I don’t have anything that can introduce myself, like, “This is JUN INAGAWA!”

Takizawa: But, as can be seen from your music and DJing, you have been absorbing plenty of things and changing drastically over the past few years.

Passing on culture through crossovers transcending generations and genres

—In terms of JUN’s DJ, I saw your DJ set the other day, and that was insanely cool. It was like an improvisational live show, using all the equipment available.

JUN: If I had four CDJs in front of me, I would use them all. And if a mixer has this many functions, let’s use them all. Then, instead of using them randomly, I would think about how I could make the best use of them. I learned this from watching the Chemical Brothers live. What is interesting about our generation is that the Chemical Brothers’ songs are anthems for Takizawa-san’s generation. Older DJs are too embarrassed to play their songs, but we found them through digging in our case so we can play them without hesitation. We play them because we think they are really cool. This kind of music needs to be passed on more and more to us, the younger generation.

Takizawa: I think this is one of the charms of JUN; he can be a good hub between the older and younger generations. His communication skills are very high, and it is necessary for him to play such a role.

JUN: Perhaps, my initially vague ideas have gradually crystallized. As I continue to create, I slowly understand what I like. That goes for the same with DJ; if you are an artist who paints while DJing or a model who also DJs, you are often looked down upon. Often, they can only DJ in front of their own people, but they are not allowed to DJ with what we call “real” DJs.

But I wanted to perform with people like Shinichi Osawa and Takkyu Ishino. I don’t want to call myself a DJ until I reach that level. Now, I devote much time to practicing DJ instead of drawing pictures, and I will work on it more seriously. I’m sure that DJing and making art will finally be interconnected. For example, in anime, you create a story comprising an introduction, development, turn, and conclusion. You also create this kind of structure and development when you perform in front of an audience.

Takizawa: As for DJs, do you carefully prepare your set before playing? 

JUN: I create a story in advance; I think of the one-night event as one story, I make a story, and then I book DJs accordingly. For example, the protagonist wakes up in the woods, and the story begins there. In that case, we book a DJ who can produce a forest-like sound. The story then goes as follows: the protagonist finds a UFO placed outside the forest, the UFO abducts and takes him to another planet, where he dances in a club, and so on. After creating such a story, I come up with and book another DJ. It’s a lot of fun to do that all night long.

Takizawa: Oh, so you create a concrete story for each event. It would be great if you could connect your generation with the older generation in that way. The younger generations have their own great things, and it is interesting to cross them together.

–Takizawa-san, in another interview published the other day, you talked about passing the culture onto the next generation. Is collaboration with the new generation of artists one of them?

Takizawa: Yeah. Each generation and genre has its own culture already established there, and it is acceptable to develop it in a completely different context. However, I think going back and forth between eras and cross them is even more important. It shouldn’t be that difficult if we have a collegial relationship where we can respect each other at the root.

JUN: My interactions with Takizawa-san were simple, which was great. I just enjoyed it. He gladly accepted my request when I asked him to make costumes for the band (Flog3).

Takizawa: It was just a spontaneous decision to say, “Let’s make costumes” (laughs). It would be great if I made the costumes and they wore them and performed on stage.

–Takizawa-san, how about starting a music label with NEIGHBORHOOD?

Takizawa: Yeah, that sounds nice. I want to do something related to music since the name of the incense (“Pacific”) that JUN has been buying for himself for a long time is also named after the British band 808 State.

JUN: Oh I didn’t know that! That’s what I like about NEIGHBORHOOD. That’s what makes me fall in love with it so much.

Takizawa: Nowadays, the younger generation is digging the Harajuku fashion of the 1990s, right? We were also digging up what the older generation had done, which is very interesting.

JUN: It must be a loop. I always talk about this in my interviews, but when we talk about anime, motorcycles, fashion, music, or anything else, everyone’s eyes sparkle when they talk about what they like. It’s just that the genres are different, but everyone has a passion, and everyone is a serious otaku. We all share the same energy for the things we love. That is why I always use the word “otaku.

Photography Takaki Iwata
Edit Shuichi Aizawa
Translation Shinichiro Sato

The post A Brand New World of Otaku Created by “NEIGHBORHOOD” and JUN INAGAWA appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Recently, he has expanded his drawing motifs to include cassette decks from the 1980s and 1990s, iBOOKs, computers such as the iMac, and music gear like the Roland 808. 

His works have an underlying message that inspires a positive mood in those of us who live toward the future and embody $HOW5’s life to date. In this article, we explore $HOW5’s roots and his life today.

$HOW5 / TEGAKI
An illustrator and DJ. $HOW5 grew up in a family where both parents were teachers: his mother was an art teacher and his father was a math teacher who loved soul music. Since 1998, he has continued to produce more than 1,000 cassette tapes and CDR works, drawing record covers on them by hand. His recent works include hand-drawn Polo Bears and postcard designs for Ralph Lauren’s holiday shopping bag event, illustration spreads for a special movie issue of POPEYE Magazine, and illustrations for Mitsutaka Mizutani’s book, Wassup! NYC. As a DJ, he has appeared on DOMMUNE’s bootleg specials. As a solo exhibition, car$$ette by $HOW5 was held at Fire King Cafe in Yoyogi Uehara in September 2022.
Instagram：＠show5_original

In my childhood, I was banned from listening to Japanese music and started searching for “what kind of groove is funky?” 

——Let’s start by talking about your artist roots. What was your childhood like?

$HOW5: I was born in Rokko, Hyogo Prefecture, then immediately went to Amagasaki and Itami from elementary school. I was born in 1979, and at that time, Amagasaki and Itami were quite rowdy. There were punch permed men (short and tight perm hairstyle for men) and bikers and people like that in the neighborhood for real. My father was an incredibly weird guy. He was a math teacher, but he was also a record collector and made a zine called Soul Fanzine From Osaka: Soul To Soul. The zine featured records that my father liked, like soul music and do-wop, but he never showed them to me as a child. But when I read it as an adult, I found that it contained a few of sexual undertones (laughs). As he was a school teacher, it had a “Check Your Soul Level” quiz page, which was fun. 

——(Laughs). So, you have been familiar with soul music since you were a child because of your father’s influence?

$HOW5: Yes. But when I was a child, I was forbidden from Japanese music at home. My father was originally in a band, and he said that Japanese music doesn’t fit well on the 8-beat because of the characteristics of the Japanese language, so listening to it would make me lose my sense of rhythm. Because of this, I couldn’t understand the hit songs my friends were talking about in school…. At home, it was JB (James Brown), and at school it was B’z (B’z). I thought B’z was cool, too, but since my parents wouldn’t buy me their records, the only source I had was the TV show “Music Station.”

It was hard for me because I didn’t have a common topic to talk with my friends in school. My father was very much into rhythms invented by African Americans when it came to music. I could clearly recognize black and white just by sound, or ……. That black and white was the color of the skin. I was going the opposite way from what the general public was into; I didn’t know the hit songs and lived based on a record store standard, which was all about finding a rare disc early that was later appreciated. I grew up strongly told and convinced, “Not the ones with a bad groove!”

——That means that African American culture has been a part of your life ever since you can remember. How did you get into music?

$HOW5: Teddy Riley, Bobby Brown, or the first Babyface. They were all urban sound. It had the synth sound of a Roland D-50. They’ve sampled James Brown and others, but they were completely different. There were cars like Fairlady Z or Mazda RX-7 FD with a Bobby guy (a guy dressed like Bobby Brown in the early 1990s) or a guy dressed in black with a lady in a bodycon-like dress, playing Teddy (Riley) type music out loud, and I was like “that’s so cool!” I was around 12, and it made me realize, “Well, apparently, this is my thing!”

But when I saw Zoo on Music Station, it made me a bit confused. From my father’s point of view, Zoo didn’t make sense. My father was trying to get a funky groove going in a band with English vocals. So he told me, “Please don’t listen to this (Zoo).” So I was like, “Ok, this isn’t the right music either.”

——That’s a big conundrum. I guess it varies depending on what you are trying to pin down.

$HOW5: That’s right. From there, I began contemplating things like, “What is funky or groove?” and “What do people mean when they say groove?” Then I noticed that it’s not only 8 beats, but 16 beats. In other words, I realized that there are almost no Japanese people who can dance with a sense of doubled rhythmic space.

——I had always thought there was something about your work, but I didn’t know they had such deep roots.

$HOW5: I was a child between an arts and crafts teacher (mother) and a math teacher (father). Both of my parents worked, so I had to wait a long time for them in the arts and crafts room after school. I had a lot of free time, so I was looking at Van Gogh books and stuff and counting fern leaves (laughs). Maybe that’s how I went a little crazy. …… 

Also, people tell me that I have a good memory and remember many things from the past. For example, a scene from the Seibu Keisatsu (Western Police) I saw when I was a child. I was 4 or 5 years old at the time, but I remember clearly.

——Do those memories ever lead to anything?

$HOW5: Recently, I saw a Mazda RX-7 FD in a music video of a song by the Jackboys with Travis Scott, and I thought, “This is the one I really wanted to ride when I was in middle school!” How can a rapper who drives a 50 million yen Lamborghini use a few
million yen Japanese car in his video！

I wanted my own record and started illustrating on cassette tapes

——Now, tell us about your artwork. Did you self-teach how to draw? 

$HOW5: I learned sketching and drawing techniques from my mother and ideas from my father. Then I went to art and design universities, but I had a lot of questions and felt a gap between me and the school.

At that time, Muro and Dev Large were often sharing stories and soul music in their magazines, and I happen to own all those records at home. From this, I realized that we could see things from different angles.

——How long have you been producing cassette artworks?

$HOW5: Since 1998. About the time MD came out in Japan? I guess. The records in the house belonged to my father, so while he was gone, I burned those records on cassette and built a sort of cassette record cabinet in my room. It was like, “I want to build my own record store!” I think that was the vibe. I also liked the faded colors of record covers, and the way the fonts differed depending on the age of the record. I learned art through these art covers. But I knew I couldn’t make a living just with this vibe…. So I was DJing and rapping while I was figuring things out and eventually started thinking that making sneakers was so b-boy.

——You were interested in making sneakers, too.

$HOW5: When I was in college, I had an afro haircut inspired by Soul Train (*a TV show that aired in the U.S. from 1971 to 2006), and I went to school with it, and my professor liked me because of my hairstyle. As I listened to the professor’s story, I realized that he was a man who had lived in the postwar period when people had a hungry spirit, and I thought to myself, “These people must be the ones who changed the world in the postwar period.” I thought that was really dope or cool, and it inspired me to think that making money was actually a very cool thing to do. 

It was around this time that I began to think that while it was good to hone in on the niche field, there was something different about doing just that. It was also at the time when Japan was maturing after the Sanpin Camp (hip-hop music festival) was held. It was a time of great dreams, and I wanted to be involved in hip-hop in a new way that no one else was doing yet, and that was to make money by making sneakers. Yes, I wanted to get a proper job and make sneakers. So, after working at a small shoe factory in Kobe for several years, I got a job at my current company (New Balance).

The underlying passion is “I want to make Japan a better place”

——What prompted you to hold your first solo exhibition?

$HOW5: After I moved from Hyogo to Tokyo, I used to go to KZA’s and Shinco‘s (Schadaraparr) parties, and when I started to get to know them a little, they asked me, “What do you do?” So, I showed them the cassettes and CDRs I had made, and Shinco and Dev Large said, “You should do something with these!” Since they were the people I admired, I thought, “I have to do something with this,” so I did an exhibition showcasing cassette tapes and CDRs of my works, first in 2014.

My solo exhibition at that time was mostly hip-hop works from the 1990s and 2000s. However, cassette tapes and CDRs are small, so it was difficult to fill the space in the venue. So I drew pictures on a boom box I had always loved and owned, stretched out small pictures, and exhibited them, which turned into my current form and style.

——Looking at your work, I see that you like soul music and hip-hop as well as city pop and punk.

$HOW5: One day I was asked to exhibit at a punk store, A Store Robot. That’s when I became interested in punk and Malcolm McLaren’s clothing. Then, I found that Seditionaries was also worn by trap rappers, and Arto Lindsay of the post-punk new wave and no wave had some links with Ryuichi Sakamoto. And yes, I ended up looking into Nakanishi‘s Plastics feel, Blade Runner’s sci-fi feel, and eventually including 1980’s Tokyo, YMO, Happy End, Niagara, and more. I also portrayed city pop as Japanese soul music, and it was a major event for me when Minako Yoshida contacted me after seeing my work.

I then began to enjoy digging into Tokyo in the 1980s even more, and started to seek ways to present and convey Tokyo entirely from the 1980s to the eve of the genesis of Uraharajuku in a modern interpretation. The origin of hip-hop after cyberpunk with a sense of science fiction. I became interested in expressing “NEO TOKYO” in the sense of Afrika Bambaataa and Rammellzee.

——So it all comes back to hip-hop in the end. In your current work, you use a Roland 808, and when we think of hip-hop and trap, we think 808. 

$HOW5: To use a Japanese car as an analogy, the Lexus is highly regarded overseas and was a swag car in the hip-hop world, and I think the 808 is no different. But 808 is not as commonly known as the car brand in Japan. It’s sort of like “bring back the Japanese hungry spirit!”—the mood I felt from my professor back in college. I wanted to put out a Japanese expression that no one has done yet, and I conveyed it by integrating the car with the musical gear. There was a recent NHK special on 808s, and I think the fact that the sound produced from the Japanese gear that YMO and Plastics started using in the 1980s is still the mainstream sound of the global charts in the 2020s is very interesting and important.

——There are cases where things that originated in Japan have gone overseas and given birth to their own unique culture.

$HOW5: That’s right. It may not feel right for Japanese people to have the anime AKIRA and city pop in the same space, but there are popular artists outside of Japan who do things like sampling Tatsuro Yamashita and Taeko Onuki, making 808 beats, and sampling AKIRA in their videos. I think the reason why people here don’t see this is that Japanese people have lost interest in overseas countries. It’s a shame because they’re missing out on these very interesting phenomena, and it’s become a one-way culture.

——I think you just spoke for the Japanese creators out there with antennas. But there may also be many people who are not yet aware of it.

$HOW5: The footage I use in my work was edited by an overseas vaporwave guy, and even if it’s done with the same cut, it’s hard to make it look this stylish or cool. Masako Natsume also looks fresh, and my international friends say, “Japanese things are so popular over here, but how come Japanese people aren’t interested?” In other countries, people are taking what’s already been existing and evolving them with the contemporary rhythms, but they’re like, “Aren’t you interested in what’s new?” As I was ruminating for ways to convey this feeling in my own way, including my own conflicts, a theme emerged that went something like “Let’s make modern Japan progress in a jubilant manner (laugh)!” I have recently come to hope that more people with keen senses will see and notice my work and that more people will be interested in new perspectives.

——Do you want to continue creating such works freely in the future?

$HOW5: I’m not a culture volunteer, but I’m happy to see the spread of something I really care about. I want to invest time and money in these things, and by doing so, I attract people I like and enjoy living each day of my life. Over the past few years, people who resonate with me have gathered around me, and my life has finally become interesting. So I would like to continue to create freely. I don’t want to force people to understand my work, but I want to be more mindful of how I should approach my work in the future, since it’s difficult for people to understand new expressions at first.

Photography Kazuo Yoshida
Translation Ai Kaneda

The post Neo-Future at the Intersection of Past and Future by $HOW5 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

From left: en one tokyo Masayuki Nishimoto, artist Eric Haze, and sacai creative director, Daisuke Genma

Eric Haze, an artist and designer based in the U.S. since the 1970s, held his first solo exhibition in Japan, Inside Out, at gallery SAI in Shibuya, Tokyo. Eric Haze has been active as a graffiti and graphic designer and has had many links to street culture and ran an apparel brand in the past. However, with his new works, which reach the next stage while retaining his original powerful strokes, he establishes a new start in the contemporary art realm.

In his latest collaboration with the fashion brand sacai, Eric Haze has come up with a phrase embracing a message generated from his unique aesthetic, and during his visit to Japan, he performed live painting at the opening of Hello sacai at the sacai store in Aoyama, demonstrating a highly compatible relationship between fashion and art.

We sat down with Eric Haze, who is in Japan for the first time in several years, Daisuke Genma, creative director of sacai, and Masayuki Nishimoto, producer of en one tokyo and runs the gallery SAI, to talk over various topics stemming from the solo exhibition.

Eric Haze
Eric Haze is a New York-based artist and designer. In the 1970s, he started his career as a graffiti artist under the name SE3. As a founding member of the graffiti collective The Soul Artist, he spent time with Futura 2000, Lee Quiñones, Dondi, and others, establishing a career as a graffiti pioneer. He later shifted his focus to graphic art, creating the logo for the Tommy Boys Records and numerous album covers for Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and otherwise. In 1991, he launched his own apparel brand, Haze, and has collaborated with various companies and brands. Later, he began dedicating his time more in creating artworks, and showcased his paintings and installations at street art-based art festivals including Art in The Streets in 2011 and Beyond The Streets in 2018. Currently, he has a studio in Brooklyn; active as an artist covering both fine art and street art, and in a wide range of fields.
https://erichazenyc.com
Instagaram：@erichazenyc

Daisuke Genma
Daisuke Genma was born in 1975. He moved to England in 1996 and joinedBrowns in London in 1997, where he worked as a buyer. After returning to Japan in 2002, he established the select shop Family in Nakameguro, and in 2007, he became independent and founded the Daisuke Genma Office. Currently, he is a creative director of sacai and active in various fashion-related fields.
Instagram：@daisukegema

Masayuki Nishimoto
en one tokyo.

Art pieces drawn in New York during the pandemic

Inside Out exhibition

——Can you tell us about the concept of your solo exhibition Inside Out?

Eric Haze (Eric): The title “Inside Out” represents two different sides of the work. The abstract work you see in this room is from my inside—created from my spirit, head, and hand. And the portraits in the other room represent the outside world; it’s what I see around me and the people who are familiar to me. It’s exciting to combine reality and abstraction.

——What kind of people did you choose to draw for the reality pieces?

Eric: I drew from my own personal history. The people I’ve met are part of my life, part of my journey. In a way these pieces are a love letter to history. Numbers of my Japanese friends are in the paintings, but I didn’t paint them for this show. I chose to draw them when I was considering my history and the journey. Japan has been a big part of my history and journey. I painted the pieces during the pandemic in New York.

Inside Out exhibition

——Can you tell us about the people in the paintings?

Eric: I asked HAROSHI, Taku (Takaoka Obata), and Poggy (Motofumi “Poggy” Ogi) if they could send me a photo of themselves that best represent themselves, and I drew a picture based on the photos they sent me. Hiroshi’s (Hiroshi Fujiwara), Skeshin’s (SK8thing), and Murajun’s (Jun Murakami) are probably the first in the series, and I drew them based on magazine ads from the early 1990s. The ads were from before I had met them. Next year will be 30 years since I first came to Japan, and in the early 1990s there was only one select store on Cat Street.

——What was your impression of Tokyo street culture at that time? 

Eric: I don’t think there was anything that could be called a street scene yet. But, one thing that strongly impressed me was that 30 years ago in the U.S., design and art were two different worlds, but I felt that Japan understood design as an art form and in a special way. And that was very attractive to me.

Keeping 1% to 100% grayscale

A collaborative work with artist HAROSHI
Inside Out exhibition

——You also have a collaborative work with HAROSHI. What was the process like for this one?

Eric: I only did the easy part, and HAROSHI and his wife did the hard work (laughs). Japanese skateboarders used the HUF skateboards that I had designed, and HAROSHI made a piece of work from the decks that they had used up.

HAROSHI and I have a strong spiritual connection. We are one of the few artists who have worked with Huff when Keith Hufnagel was still alive. So after Keith passed away, I felt the need to produce a memorial piece. This is a work of tremendous love, created to show all the connections in the community and to Keith.

Daisuke Genma (Genma): For this one, HAROSHI and I sat down together and Eric told us his idea, and we were like, “Okay! Let’s do it!” HAROSHI seemed very happy to be working with Eric when we decided to do it. I think it was a dream come true for him.

Inside Out exhibition

——Throughout your work, why did you use gray on black and white?

Eric: I don’t really see this world in color. Maybe because I was born in New York and grew up in a gray, dirty environment (laughs). Also, when I started my career as a designer and art director, everything was low-budget, no computers, no jpg, no digital world. When I designed an album cover, everything was prepared in black and white and I would send it to the printer specifying the colors, and waited for them to come back with colors. So I had to learn and think in layers of back, white and gray. My mind goes from 1% to 100% black, which is the grayscale.

I’ve had a lot of people say to me, “Why don’t you use more colors?” So, I’ve tried using more colors, but then I was like, “Wait a minute?” And stopped listening to them, because if I feel like I should go with gray and black, that’s what I should do. My philosophy in design and logo is that if you build in color, you depend on color. Color is a personal choice and you can always add color if you can do well with black and white.

——I believe that your work was created in your studio in Brooklyn. How is it working in New York?

Eric: I now live in Williamsburg, Clinton Hill near Navy Yard. It’s the waterfront. I’ve been using the same studio for about 15 years, but we bought the building of the studio two years ago. It changed how I feel and it’s where I’ve made these pieces.  

Inside Out exhibition

——How do you feel the gallery scene has changed in New York?

Eric: In the past, the only galleries in New York were Jeffrey Deitch and Jonathan Grant Gallery, but when I returned to New York in 2010 from Los Angeles, where I lived for 12 years, there were more good galleries. Coney Island is also like an art mecca, with many art walls created by Jeffrey Deitch.

Masayuki Nishimoto (Nishimoto): Talking about galleries in New York, I went to Brooklyn for the opening of Joshua Liner Gallery in 2008, and happened to be in the same elevator with Eric Haze, Futura 2000, and KAWS. I had only seen them in magazines before, but when I saw them together, I realized that they were real people. This memory is one of the formative events that formed a path for my future.

Life is all about balance

——Eric, what changes have you seen since you moved back to New York in 2010?

Eric: When I was in L.A., I attended so many clothing trade shows, but as the business got better, I got stressed out and wasn’t happy. So I decided to go back to New York and took the risk to pull back and let go of everything, including the stores, business and responsibility. It felt risky to make changes at that time, but if I didn’t take the risk I wouldn’t be doing all this and have room in my life to do the things that make me happy. The interesting part is that after I backed off, fashion became interesting to me again, and I started to feel like I wanted to do something with it.

I think life is all about balance. To be happy, you have to achieve balance between your work and your relationships with other people. I got married 10 years ago and that also gave me a new balance. To me, this exhibition is well-balanced because the product and the work with sacai have the right relationship with art. I don’t think I could’ve established this kind of good balance 10 or 20 years ago. It took understanding myself and finding the passion again to move on.

Genma: When I was in London, I saw the Mo’ Wax products, and among them, the poster design was really amazing that it left a strong imprint on my mind. In the fashion world, we sometimes need outside help to put out a robust message of a collection, but since Eric has established history by linking it to music and culture, his message is always right on point. I really wanted to do something together with him.

Eric: And it’s so special to me. In the last 5 years or so, a new generation of fashion has emerged, and it’s very interesting. When I came back older with fresh eyes and looked around, I noticed that sacai, Virgil [Abloh] and others were doing something amazing and way beyond our generation. And that inspired me.

I told Daisuke [Genma] that I didn’t want to go back to the past and that we have a really nice opportunity to re-enter the culture and the market from a different place, from an art place, from an organic place—not from graffiti, not from hip-hop, which everyone knows that’s part of the history. I wanted to come back in an elevated way. So the opportunity to work with Daisuke and Chitose [Abe] (Designer of sacai) was exactly what I had imagined to do it. So it’s really special to me to be able to participate and put my fingerprints on this.

Inside Out exhibition

Genma: I wanted Eric to be recognized as an artist. He’s always got brilliant concepts. There is a phrase that Eric drew for the 2021 collection, “One Kind One,” which comes from a punk band. Abe and I were always discussing “love,” and when we were looking for the right word for it, I asked Eric if he had any good words, and he came up with this one, and we were like, “This is it!”.

Eric: My relationship with sacaiis built on trust. It’s been a beautiful surprise to know that you reached out to me with trust.

Gemma: Truly a beautiful surprise. Nothing else but that.

Having originality and perceiving with new eyes

——What kind of artist is Eric from your point of view as a gallery manager and art exhibition curator?

Nishimoto: I think being present in the art scene for a long time is one of the greatest things about him. People who know Eric’s works from before can tell that it’s his when they see his current work. This is not just about his character but also because his works have originality. Nowadays, when someone shows me an artwork, they all look similar that I end up asking, “Whose work is this?” But with Eric’s work, you can instantly tell that it’s his. I think that’s his strength, his strong point.

Gemma: That’s important. Nowadays, people often emulate others, but Eric has his own style.

Eric: When I started painting in the early 1980s, I wanted to do abstract paintings, but they were closer to the history, the generation before me. We had to beat that generation in order to find our own style. When it comes to art, I don’t care about what’s trendy or what everyone else is doing. I think that’s why I never moved from my own booth when I was exhibiting at trade shows (laughs).

Inside Out exhibition

——How did you two feel about this exhibition?

Genma: As you can see, the energy of the real works is insanely greater than seeing them in pictures. So I would like people to see Eric’s works for real and feel the energy.

Nishimoto: As Genma said, I would love for people to see Eric’s works in real life. Everyone perceives things differently, but I think it’s fun to see something we’ve never seen before. So, not only those who’ve been following Eric’s works, but I also want people who are new to him to come and see his works.

Eric: I 100% agree. It’s great that we have an audience that is built-in and we can trust, but it’s very much about new eyes and new audiences and expanding from there, too.

Genma: New eyes, that’s important.

Inside Out exhibition

Eric: With the sacai collaboration, we bring the fashion audience into art and art audience into fashion. And they attract each other.

Nishimoto: And they influence each other.

——To wrap up, please give a message to the fans.

Eric: We are all unique people. To become a successful artist, whether in music, business, fashion, or painting, you have to learn to understand yourself, and find a way to express what is unique to you. I believe that is the only way to bring something special and unique to the world.

Inside Out exhibition

■INSIDE OUT
Dates: until December 25
Venue: SAI
Address: 6-20-10 RAYARD MIYASHITA PARK South 3F Jingumae Shibuya, Tokyo
Open hours: 11:00AM – 8:00PM
Entrance fee: Free
Website: https://www.saiart.jp

Photography Teppei Hoshida

The post What Is Within and What Surrounds Us. Eric Haze Solo Exhibition Inside Out Embodies Two Worlds — Tripartite Interview: Eric Haze x Daisuke Genma x Masayuki Nishimoto appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

 “RAPATTACK” by TWIGY. Produced by dj honda

Rapper TWIGY and DJ/producer dj honda have unmistakably led the Japanese hip-hop scene and marked their names in its history. Their collaborative album, RAPATTACK, was released this year.

It’s been about a year since TWIGY, who had been slowing the pace of his career since 2011, put out WAKING LIFE, his first album in a decade. What the rapper, who has been at the forefront of the Japanese rap scene, wanted to show with his lyrics was the beats made by dj honda, who has been taking on the world for years. This album stimulates the mind the more you listen to it; feel the heat rise in your body. 

Today, in 2022, hip-hop culture is showing no signs of stopping, and this album is worth a listen amid that. We spoke to the pair about how this album was made. 

Left→Right
TWIGY
TWIGY was born in Aichi in 1971. He started rapping in the late 80s, founded BEATKICKS with HAZU in 1987, and launched his career in Nagoya. After moving to Tokyo in 1992, TWIGY founded MICROPHONE PAGER alongside MURO, P.H. FRON, and more. In 1994, he formed Kaminari with YOU THE ROCK☆, RINO LATINA II, and so forth. TWIGY was featured in “Shogen” by LAMP EYE the following year. He converted to Islam in 1997. After releasing his first solo album, AL-KHADIR, in 1998, he made many albums. In 2016, TWIGY published his autobiography titled Juroku Shosetsu. In 2021, he released WAKING LIFE, his first album in around a decade. Further, in November 2022, he held his first solo exhibition, THINGS THAT PASS, where he mainly exhibited his paintings in Harajuku, Tokyo. He is one of the best rappers in Japanese hip-hop.
Instagram @twigy71

dj honda
dj honda was born in 1961 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. He is a hip-hop DJ and producer. He formed The JG’s, a group that made remixes, with DJ KOO and others in the mid-80s. After building his career as a DJ in Japan, he went to the US in 1992 and was a runner-up in a DJ competition in New York called DJ Battle for World Supremacy. After his eponymous first album in 1995, he released albums such as h II and dj honda IV. He has featured mostly east coast rappers and DJs such as Common, Fat Joe, DJ Premier, Mos Def, De La Soul, ESMD, and Redman. In 1999, dj honda founded dj honda RECORDINGS US and dj honda RECORDINGS JAPAN. He launched his fashion brand, h, which became a big global hit in the 90s. dj honda made KINGS CROSS with ill-bosstino from THA BLUE HERB in 2021. He is currently based in Sapporo. 
https://www.djhonda.co.jp
Instagram：@djhonda_official

What the two, who lead a real hip-hop lifestyle, can do right now 

TWIGY – RAPATTACK. All tracks produced by dj honda
(GOD INK ENTERTAINMENT®)

——What was the catalyst for you to make RAPATTACK?

TWIGY: I had stored lyrics in my mental “drum,” and I wanted them to have a street hip-hop sound. But it would’ve been hard for me to do it, and just when I was thinking about how it’d take a long time to approach different people, I started talking about making music with (dj) honda-san. Everyone had been making songs and albums with honda-san recently, so I went to his studio in Sapporo for about two weeks to make the album. 

——How long have you two known each other?

TWIGY: Oof. A long time. 

dj honda: Since TWIGY was small (laughs). He was still in Nagoya. 

TWIGY: I was still small (laughs). I was around 17 or 18.

dj honda: I met him when I used to host this event in Tokyo. He came to my events around twice. 

TWIGY: He used to run an event called PEACE BALL.

——What was your impression of it?

dj honda: Not a lot of people back then were rapping. Even if they weren’t my friends, I knew everyone that rapped.         

TWIGY: Everyone was my senior, so I would watch them perform. HAZU and I were the youngest, and everyone else was older, so I was one of the people who would get so much inspiration from watching how it was done. Many acts like EAST END would perform at PEACE BALL, and we performed as BEATKICKS. We would go back into the audience once we were done, and one time, honda-san brought a guitar out to close his DJ set, and I thought he was amazing. He had a rock hairstyle too. But I couldn’t talk to him because he was much older. 

dj honda: True. You and me, there was an generation gap. Now at our ages, it’s like we’re the same. 

TIGHT -24th Anniversary, Since 1998- at Club Asia on December 3rd, 2022

——Did you, TWIGY-san, approach honda-san for the album?

TWIGY: Yes. I couldn’t go wrong with someone who makes real music. I knew my lyrics would match his sound, so I really wanted to do it.

——What was it like recording with TWIGY-san, honda-san?

dj honda: There’s not much to say, but I told him, “We’re going to make more!” (laughs). 

TWIGY: But I would stop (laughs).

——How long did you stay in Sapporo? Did you work on the lyrics there?

dj honda: You were in Sapporo for a week to ten days. You came two separate times. 

TWIGY: I had written down some of the lyrics, but I came up with them using my mental “drum,” so some parts and bars didn’t match. Like the word endings. I hadn’t recorded the lyrics using my voice, so I had to adjust them. I’d end up needing another verse, for instance. We also had to decide which of honda-san’s beats matched which lyrics. He produces music every day. We listened to his new beats and old ones from decades ago. The oldest one we listened to was from when? 

dj honda: Around 20 years ago? I made it around the 90s. 

TWIGY: I listened to that beat first and was like, “This is what I’m talking about. Let’s go with this one.”

TIGHT -24th Anniversary, Since 1998- at Club Asia on December 3rd, 2022

——When I listened to your album, I felt like it had a “What’s hip-hop? Let’s go back to hip-hop” vibe. Did you discuss the album concept? 

dj honda: Nah. We did what we could each day. I was like, “What can you do right now, TWIGY?” and he’d be like, “I can do this right now.” All that happened was [that back and forth] worked out. I didn’t think of making something old-fashioned or anything. I wasn’t like, “Let’s make this kind of song.” We considered whatever we could finish a song. That was what it was like every day.

TWIGY: We shared that sensibility and completed the album. 

dj honda: I didn’t ponder on anything. I’m sure you did for your lyrics, though. 

TWIGY: I’ve always existed within hip-hop; it makes me happy to hear that you felt like it had a “back to hip-hop” vibe. But the thing is, I’ve been doing this forever. 

——Do you feel like this album is a manifestation of what you continued doing in your real life?

dj honda: Yeah. It’s like my real life happened to be reflected [in the album]. This is all I’ve been doing.

TWIGY: Same with me—I’ve been doing real hip-hop. It doesn’t have to be [called real hip-hop], but that’s how I would describe it. 

TIGHT -24th Anniversary, Since 1998- at Club Asia on December 3rd, 2022

dj honda’s request to TWIGY: “Make it simple”

——What do you think is TWIGY-san’s appeal? 

dj honda: Rappers need to have individuality, you know? TWIGY has that. I discarded some of my many beats because I felt like I couldn’t use them for other people. I’m sure lyrics are important, but I listen to them as part of the music. I don’t have any criteria [for lyrics] because I’ve always been a DJ. I know what does and doesn’t feel right as I work freely. I make music based on whether or not I would play it when I DJ. When I feel like it sounds a bit off, it’s off—that’s how I judge the music. That way, I’d be able to be like, “This song is bad,” and “That song is bad.” I’d then edit the songs quickly. 

TWIGY: Which songs were bad (laughs)?

dj honda: Didn’t I ask, “Is this fine?” If a song sounded good to you, the rest was my responsibility, so I’d change and fix that a lot. 

TWIGY: He changed each song a lot. The songs improved so much, so it was a good thing. But he’d ask me, “Is this okay?” regarding so many songs, so it was a bit hard choosing which song to go with (laughs).

——honda-san, you’ve recorded with many rappers from abroad, but did you have any realizations after recording with TWIGY-san?

dj honda: Rappers from other countries and Japan are the same. They’re based in different places, but they do the same thing for the most part. TWIGY is a rapper through and through.

TIGHT -24th Anniversary, Since 1998- at Club Asia on December 3rd, 2022

——Do you have any flows you like?

dj honda: I told TWIGY to keep it simple. I say that to everyone I work with: “make it simple.” 

TWIGY: No one writes simple flows (laughs).

dj honda: I feel like if I can’t keep up, then the listener wouldn’t be able to either. Simple is better and harder. Same with instrumentals and scratching. That’s why everyone encourages each other. You might make some magic; all you have to do is try your best. I wish it were possible to make a good song every time. But it’s okay to only occasionally record a song and put that out. Of course, there are times when I can make something effortlessly. But it usually doesn’t end up being that way. That’s why it’s better to just do it; it’s all about who does it (laughs).

TWIGY: (Laughs). Let’s move on to the next question. 

dj honda: TWIGY has his reasons for being unable to keep things simple. Why not try something new? It’s an experiment. You don’t need a budget of hundreds of thousands of yen to go into a studio now. You can make music if you have a computer and mic. I mean, we experimented a lot. 

TWIGY: Quite a lot (laughs).

dj honda: We did, we did. I didn’t say, “Change this particular part!” to TWIGY or anything. 

TWIGY: I thought I kept it simple, but that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t [simple enough] (laughs).

dj honda: He was like, “You’re being hard on me!” But I was like, “Am I?”

TWIGY: He said, “You’re not there yet!” 

dj honda: I was like, “Give me more!” (laughs). 

TWIGY: I’d be like, “I might only have two lines of me shouting, and that’s it.” 

dj honda: But I’d be like, “It’d be so cool if that could work.” 

TWIGY: I’d be like, “Come on, I’ve never heard anyone rap like that!” 

dj honda: That’s why it made me excited. A song with only the chorus, for example (laughs). 

——(Laughs). It sounds like you had fun recording the album. Did getting away from Tokyo to record in Sapporo make a difference, TWIGY-san?

TWIGY: I was able to focus. Every day, it was like, “We’re going into the studio tomorrow!” I went into the studio at the beginning of April. The snow had frozen over. I thought I had to wear boots, but I slipped so much when I did. I was like, “Oh, damn it!” But the wind felt chilly and nice. 

TIGHT -24th Anniversary, Since 1998- at Club Asia on December 3rd, 2022

The merging of pure souls: the birth of a chemical reaction

——When I listened to your album, I felt like you were rapping about the present. You shouted the things you felt from living in the world today. 

TWIGY: I wanted to create a borderline between dreams and reality in my previous album, WAKING LIFE, which explains its form. honda-san says the content of RAPATTACK is complex, but I wrote it in an easy-to-understand way. There are a lot of human emotions, like fun and sadness, and I wanted the content to be closer to a real one. I wanted the lyrics to be about things you ponder on—deep things. honda-san’s clear bass tones and my earnestness; it was like our souls became one, and they matched. I wrote additional lyrics to fit the sound, which goes to show how everything worked out. It was amazing. It was as though a chemical reaction was born. 

——There definitely is a chemical reaction in the album. It made me think.

TWIGY: We don’t have music like that anymore. There are only songs about fun or love. I believe hip-hop is about defining problems, but I felt it was lacking, so I wanted to write about that. Someone who listened to my album told me they got all fired up and couldn’t sleep. 

“LUCY” by TWIGY. Produced by dj honda.

——I felt the same way listening to the latter half of the album (laughs). 

TWIGY: I wanted people to feel that way with this album. Everyone’s desensitized now. That’s why people who used to listen to my music back in the day are like, “Yeah, this is what I’m talking about.” I mean, it’s honda-san [who produced the music]! That was partially intentional because this crude sort of rap could sound interesting to young people. Today, recording technology is too advanced, so music sounds too clean. Many people change their voices or edit their breaths out. 

I wanted to do the opposite of that for a long time. For “CIRCUS,” the first song we recorded, I went into honda-san’s studio and held a mic with him watching over me for the first time in years. I say “I’m back” at the beginning to give the listener the initial impact. I rap in different tones during the latter half, which sounds interesting. honda-san did that. 

——Who came up with the title? What’s behind it?

dj honda: TWIGY did. 

TWIGY: I’ve wanted to name the next album after WAKING LIFE, RAPATTACK, for around two years. The content of the album came afterward. I wanted to name the album first and then go further from there. 

——What kind of chemical reaction did you create? 

dj honda: Well, isn’t that something the listener decides? 

TWIGY: I want to know. 

dj honda: The listener should decide. We did our part. I mean, we can always do more (laughs). But that way, there will be no end to this. It can go on forever. 

TIGHT -24th Anniversary, Since 1998- at Club Asia on December 3rd, 2022

——What are your thoughts on recent hip-hop? Both domestic and otherwise?

TWIGY: Hip-hop, as in the music?

——Music and culture. 

dj honda: What do you think? Hmmm… I wonder. 

TWIGY: (Laughs). 

dj honda: I don’t know. Isn’t that alright? I really don’t. I don’t listen to other people’s music too much, so I don’t pay much mind to it. 

TWIGY: Ditto. And (laughs)?

dj honda: I only do what I want to do! I’ve just kept that going.

TWIGY: I happen to do things in my style. It’s okay to have many types of styles, though. I don’t have the time of the day to deny that. 

dj honda: There’s no point in denying that. We’re all crap at the end of the day. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but that’s what we all are. 

TWIGY: Real shitty????. 

dj honda: I’m not sure about that (laughs). If this is specifically about music, my answer might be different, but people should be able to do what they want. Things are the way they are now because there was an increase in people like that. Back then, people performing on stage a minute ago would go back into the audience and watch the other acts. TWIGY was the same. 

TWIGY: We all had a dream and got together. 

dj honda: We’d be like, “Is this okay?” Even we didn’t know what we were doing. 

——Do you know what you’re doing now?

dj honda: I do! But I didn’t at the time. That was part of the fun. 

——You still have fun, though, right?

dj honda: Yeah, I do.

——Lastly, can you give us a message regarding the release of RAPATTACK? 

TWIGY: It’s a super real album, so please give it a listen. It’s a classic. 

dj honda: That’s cool. Let’s go with that—”It’s a classic” (laughs). 

Photography Atsuko Tanaka
Special Thanks：CLUB asia、DJ YAS、TIGHT

The post TWIGY and dj honda: the Potent Chemical Reaction of RAPATTACK appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Film trailer for All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

In the 1990s, New York street culture, in which music and skateboarding had been slowly gaining momentum locally since the late 1980s, began to attract worldwide attention. In downtown New York, a skateboarding company called Zoo York was started. Eli Morgan Gesner, who was a central figure in the company, narrates All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997), a documentary film that focuses on New York City street culture from 1987-1997.

Directed by Jeremy Elkin, a lover of skateboarding culture and music, the film is built around a collection of rare archival footage from that era and interviews with key figures active in the New York street scene. This valuable documentary provides a rare glimpse into the roots of current street culture that includes music, skateboarding, fashion, and art.

Yes, the connection between the New York local street scene is incredibly cool, and the culture that emerged from it has definitely influenced the world, as you will learn from this film. We’d like to share an interview with director Jeremy Elkin, who visited Japan for the film’s theatrical release here.

Jeremy Elkin
Born in 1987. From Montreal, Canada. Influenced by his family, Elkin got into skateboarding and music during his teenage years and started shooting skate videos i n Montreal in the 2000s. He then moved to New York City, where he worked as a video producer for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE. In 2018, he shot and directed a short film for the Brooklyn Museum, The Chronicles of New York City, by French artist JR. In 2017, Elkin started his own video production company, and in 2021, he launched his own video production company with his first feature-length documentary film, All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997).
https://www.elkineditions.com
Instagram：@jeremyelkin

Filming the Montreal skate scene since the age of twelve

――Let’s talk about your life before you started filming videos. What was your childhood like?

Jeremy Elkin (Elkin): I was born in 1987. I grew up downtown in Montreal, on the west side. Montreal is close to New York. I have three older siblings, my brother Josh, who is fifty now, grew up skating and spinning hip-hop records. When I was born, I didn’t really have a choice, as soon as I could walk, he was teaching me how to stand on a skateboard with all of his friends who skated. Him and my sister Rosetta were friends with Willo Perron, who’s had enormous success in the music industry. They would all go to clubs, DJ at bars, and of course go to New York all the time, so I was inspired by those cultures at very early age. My brother played basketball with the Beastie Boys, etc. Willo and my sister took me to the Rawkus Records office and Supreme in the late 90s for the first time, which were eye opening.

――When did you start taking videos?

Elkin: I started making skate videos when I was around twelve years old. A lot of the skaters were really good but there were no cameras at that time, which would’ve been 1998 or 1999. I thought it would be good to save up and get a camera to start filming them. We would get VHS tapes and watch them, but the skaters we were skating with were better than the tapes from California or wherever, so we had to film them. I then started making skate videos at an early age and it just sort of progressed from there.

――Were you self-taught in your filming?

Elkin: It was all self-taught. With skateboarding, I’m sure it’s the same with hip-hop, when you’re young, you’re around people of all different kinds of backgrounds and age groups. So you start to learn things really quickly, because of the way the scene is.

The only guy in Montreal who filmed skate videos was Eric Lebeau. His videos were unbelievable. I learned a lot from watching him film. Then there’s Barry Walsh and Marc Tison. They’re really heavy into vinyl, skating, boomboxes, dancehall, dub, etc. Everything they ever do has great style, and clarity. They’ve been huge inspirations for me.

――And you moved to New York shortly after?

Elkin: I did. I worked a lot of jobs, anything to make money. I was still making independent skate videos, not sponsored. Then I worked at Vanity Fair magazine for three years. I started a film department there that did videos about the covers, and documentaries and features. After that, I started my business, my own production company. And that’s when I started making All the Streets Are Silent.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

Being organic is the key to capturing local culture

――What prompted you to start making All the Streets Are Silent?

Elkin: I think any good documentary starts with a big archival collection. All the best documentaries pull from a large database of unseen footage and tapes. I knew that Eli Morgan Gesner had a crazy collection. We made an agreement that if I digitized all of the tapes, I could maybe do something with them.

――Does that mean you personally proposed the idea for the film to him? 

Elkin: Pretty much. Eli wasn’t involved in the story, but he recorded the narration, which was eight hours or something. Another trait of a strong documentary is to let the footage tell itself, and let the people tell the story. I tried to let it just be organic. The story’s a little bit harder to follow, because it’s so organic. It’s not forced.

――That organic nature is true to skate culture, specifically the east coast culture.

Elkin: (laughs) It’s true.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

――Why did you focus on the decade of 1987-1997?

Elkin: Eli was in school in 1987, and he started at Club Murs and met Yuki in 1988. So the beginning of that footage is that first year. And thenEli’s video, Zoo York’s Mix Tape, was released in ‘97. It felt like a good bookend. That decade is more interesting to me because there’s no digital.

――You interviewed many DJs and skaters for this film, but is there one person in particular that left an impression on you? 

Elkin: Kid Capri was the best, and is one of my favorites. The most interesting ones were the ones where I didn’t know the person. That was the first time I met him and I was in his house in New Jersey, in his basement, so it felt extra special. KRS-One had just left his place. We missed him by an hour. Everyone was super cool, so I don’t think there was a bad moment. We did a lot of interviews, like 55.

――Any funny anecdotes from the interviews?

Elkin: I have a lot of good ones that maybe I shouldn’t say on the record (laughs). If I were to choose… I have a good one of Lil Dap from Group Home.

He was wearing a gray Fila tracksuit and put on brand new black leather Fila as he was getting out of the car. So he’s wearing head-to-toe Fila. And he asks, “where do you want me to sit or stand?” and I was like, “right here”, by this metal standpipe. So he goes to sit down and it’s really low, and he’s calling over his cousin. I say, “Dap, are you ready for the interview?” and he goes, “yeah”, calls over his cousin, and takes off his brand new black Filas, and his cousin brings a brand new pair, opens it up. He just switches shoes and goes, “now I’m ready”. That was crazy.

――Even though you were starting to film (laughs)? I wonder why he changed his shoes.

Elkin: Because they were like a block old. He already crossed the street in them. He wanted the freshest sneakers. Even when we were rolling on Kid Capri, he was like, “just a second”, and goes on top of his piano and brings out a long towel with  all different types of watches.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

――I’d like to talk about Yuki of Club Mars. He’s a Japanese person who’s been active in the New York scene for a long time, and is considered a real legend. This film was the first time I’ve seen footage of him.

Elkin: He discovered Madonna. He’s the best. The Standard Hotel on the High Line on the west side is where the club was. I want everyone to learn about Yuki.

――Large Professor is the music supervisor for the film, too. That’s amazing.

Elkin: We didn’t have a budget to make the film, so we raised a little bit of money at the end to be able to work with him. We showed him the film with really expensive music that we couldn’t pay for. So that’s how the conversation started. We asked him if he could make beats that sounded like these songs. We were going through all his material trying to find what would fit in the right spot and make it sound like a ten-year period. With Large Pro, it was an organic process.

――I’m sure Zoo York is a skateboard company that you love. What is the appeal of it?

Elkin: Zoo York was super important. I think it represented the east coast in a way that others didn’t. And Eli’s design, art direction, and photography was so good. He was also really good at skating, he could do everything, even was a club promoter at Mars. He was a huge legend growing up.

I didn’t even know it was one person, because his graffiti tag was OcuLarge, and his name was Eli Gesner, but then in the Zoo York ad and Supreme ads, it would say “courtesy of EMG”. I didn’t realize that EMG and OcuLarge and Eli Gesner were the same person. I would see EMG or OcuLarge in skateboard magazines or hip-hop magazines. His hand styles are really famous. The Zoo York logo is just his writing. He has an incredible hand style. And he was really close with Bobbito growing up. We talked a bit about it in the movie, but that’s how he got into and filmed all that amazing footage.

A message for the once desolate New York street scene

――Why did you choose the title, All the Streets Are Silent?

Elkin: There were three main reasons why we chose the title. One is the cost. The title I initially wanted was 212. I thought it was the sickest name, so simple and easy to remember. But the AT & T network owns 212. You can’t use it in a commercial sense, and they wanted a lot of money. Eli wanted me to call it Watch Your Step, which was kind of sick. Some of the Supreme guys had names. Everyone was trying to come up with a name at some point. But All the Streets Are Silent was the only name out of ones on my list that didn’t cost money. So I was like, “perfect”.

We registered the name before Covid and the reason why it was on my list of potential names for the film was because New York was kind of dead. The scene was going through a phase where it was a low point, and I felt like skate culture had become too commercialized and mainstream. I was walking down the street and a mannequin had a skateboard and a boombox. It was too much. The industry felt super wack. The title was kind of a metaphor for that. The culture is kind of dead right now, so all the streets are silent. But then Covid happened, and all of the sudden, there was this whole new generation of kids. I show this in the movie a little bit, but there were all of these Supreme kids who were just getting to the right age and getting better at skating, and just cooler.

―― Skating and hip-hop has become trendy and mainstream. Did you have that in mind when making the film?

Elkin: I don’t really care about that. Scale and money has never been the goal. I don’t make things with the idea of profiting. It’s probably bad, I should have more of a business sense. If I want to make something, I try to make it. That’s what this film is, really.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

――I liked seeing a new culture being born out of skateboard and hip-hop culture organically intertwining on local New York streets.

Elkin: The thing that skate and hip-hop culture have in common is that you can’t really be in either world and be fake. It’s very hard to have friends who skate or dig for records or spin and go to listening rooms, or who sit on a curb and skate and also be half in. It doesn’t really work. It’s all or nothing.
What I’ve seen from growing up in Montreal and skating in New York is, that person who’s kind of faking it, either the group moves away from them or they just straight up tell them “you can still hang with us, but don’t skate anymore”.

Now, in skateboarding, everyone is hugging. It’s so different, there’s so much embrace. It’s like, “you just skated for the first time, high five!” It’s kind of weird. There’s so much forced positivity that was never a part of skate culture before.

――It’s so big now that it’s become an Olympic sport.

Elkin: I think it was always like that in LA, but now it’s like that everywhere, it seems. A dude who looks like a businessman can skate on a longboard, it’s weird. As my friend says in New York, we’re in the “everyone skates” era right now. And then in five years, it’ll be the “no one skates” era.

――To end the interview, what is a message you have for those going to see the film?

Elkin: Whatever you’re into, get into it hard. Go down a rabbithole and learn as much as you can. It’s not for me, but someone could do a film about 1997-2007. Do it with the same intensity. Right now, the decade we’re in, 2017-2027, there could be another. History repeats itself. Every five or ten years, there’s a new scene and energy. It’d be cool to keep seeing these moments happen. We’re probably in the middle of one right now.

I would say whatever you do, do it 100%. Get super into your craft. Don’t just have a skateboard as an object. Destroy it, use it. Same thing with these kids who wait in line to buy shoes… Wear the shoes. I hope that that comes back. I think it’s so insane what they do now. They’re so precious with their objects, that their home is like a museum. To me, it’s a little ridiculous. It’s the same thing when people buy records and keep them sealed. What are you doing? (laughs).

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

■All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
Directed: Jeremy Elkin
Narration: Eli Morgan Gesner
Music: Large Professor
Executive Producer: David Koh
Producer: Dana Brown, Jeremy Ellkin
https://atsas.jp
Twitter：@RegentsMovie
Instagram：@regentsmovie

Photography Atsuko Tanaka

The post The trajectory and miracle of how Jeremy Elkin captured the New York street scene’s golden age: production secrets of the film, All the Streets Are Silent appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Steven Julien made his first visit to Japan in about four years for the “Steven Julien Japan Tour 2022,” holding parties in Tokyo, Osaka, and Okinawa. He also held a pop-up event at Shibuya Parco for his record label, Apron Records, and sold items from the Patta Soundsystem x Apron Records collaboration, which was released in Europe in April.

In this article, we would like to introduce Steven Julien, who is involved in a variety of fields centered on music such as sound production, DJing, label management, video production, and fashion.

Steven Julien
Steven Julien is a London-based music producer, DJ and owner of Apron Records. He began his musical career in his early teens after becoming familiar with hip-hop culture. Created with “Roland” 808 and “AKAI” MPC2000, his original sound merges house, electro, deep house, Detroit & acid house, and his distinct drum patterns and beats are reminiscent of his Caribbean heritage. In 2009, he made his debut on Floating Points’ Eglo Records under the name FunkinEven, and his releases on his own label, including Fallen (2016), Bloodline (2018), and 8 Ball (2018), have enhanced his reputation. He is also popular as a DJ, playing in many countries in Europe, Asia and North America, South America, Australia, as well as releasing numerous DJ mixes online. In terms of fashion, he has developed a deep relationship with the Amsterdam-based boutique Patta and released collaborative items with them.
https://apronrecords.com
Instagram：@stevenjulien
Twitter：@funkineven

I was rubbish at rapping, so I put the mic down and started making music

――How was your summer in London this year?

Steven Julien (Steven): This summer was very, very busy. There were parties after parties. The festivals and carnivals were back on because it was the first summer since Lockdown. It was a hot, crazy, amazing summer.

――Sounds great. It’s still going to take a little more time for people in Japan to have a life without any restriction against COVID-19. Recently, two big nightclubs in Tokyo have closed down, and I wonder if this is just a sign of the changing times.

Steven: I know. My friend Jay Daniel DJ’d on the closing day (of “Contact”).

――Steven, you are good friends with Jay Daniel and Kyle Hall, right?

Steven: That’s right. I’m the oldest one.

――How old are you?

Steven: Ha-ha-ha. That’s a mystery (laughs) ……. I’m the oldest and Jay is older than Kyle.

――Is this your first interview in Japan?

Steven: The last interview I did was in Seoul, so that probably means this is the first official interview in Japan.

――So, first of all, can you tell us a bit about your life history? How did you get started in music?

Steven: As a kid, probably from about 11 to 16 years old, I was doing hip-hop dance, a kind of dancing after break dance in late 1990s, at school in London with my friends as a crew. From there I started rapping with a hip-hop crew, and I started making music for that rap group. But I was a wack (=rubbish at) rapper, so I put the mic down and started doing music production. I started making beats, recording them on cassette tapes, experimenting with drum machines, and I fell in love with making music.

――So you started producing music earlier than DJing.

Steven: Yes, music production first. But I was buying records, so I would play and mix them in my friends’ bedrooms. At the time, I was listening to many different kinds of music with different vibes from house to drum & bass.

Creating sounds with a Roland 808, a Yamaha Synths, and an MPC and pushing forward the heritage

――What equipment do you use?

Steven: The first piece of equipment I used was a “Korg” minilogue xd, I always use Japanese equipment, such as Korg’s drum machine and YAMAHA’s Synths. I started using an MPC when I was older.

――Is there any favorite producer?

Steven: I have always been fascinated with Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. But I didn’t know at the time that J Dilla was making half of their music. Anyway, I was really into and that kind of music with hard drums and sweet cords. And on the electronic side, when I heard Warren Harris’ first album Severance, released under the name of Hanna on Theo Parrish‘s label Sound Signature, I was extremely shocked and I thought, “I want to make music like him.”

――Then, you started releasing your own music after that, right?

Steven: My first EP was released in 2009. It was released on Elgo Records, which is run by Alex Nut and Floating Points.

――When I first heard the beat of your music, I was shocked.

Steven: That’s great! Was it like nothing else you had heard?

――Yeah. Drum patterns used in your music are very unique.

Steven: (laughs). I think it’s because I’m Caribbean and also because I listen to a lot of different types of music. Mine is a new sound, which is a mix of a lot of elements from electro to hip-hop, but it’s also a heritage sound. In my case, heritage refers to sources or roots of where I stand.

Specifically, it is the black music of Detroit, Chicago, New York, and the UK in the 1960s, 1970s, early 1980s, and 1990s. As for the rhythm of the beat, I am of Caribbean descent, so there’s a lot of influence from the music of Grenada, Jamaica, and Trinidad. Caribbean rhythms are slightly different from African rhythms. Just like messages in language, the rhythms and the drums really say so much.

――So your beats are based on your own Caribbean heritage. That explains my mystery!

Steven: Yeah, that’s right. And I was also greatly influenced by music such as jazz, fusion, electro, hip-hop and drum’n’base from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Steven Julien “Bloodline”

Steven Julien’s Sound Cloud

――Do you like Japanese music?

Steven: I love it so much. I’m a massive fan of Ryuichi Sakamoto in particular. I love his work, every single era, every single thing he’s done. If I did work with him, it would be a dream. That’s how much I love Ryuichi Sakamoto’s work.

――How did you get to know Ryuichi Sakamoto?

Steven: YMO’s “Fire Cracker”. Well, I didn’t know this song when it came out, but I knew it from an old rap video or breakdance video or something that my uncle probably watched when I was a kid, and the melody of it really stuck in my ears. Then I started buying records and learning about YMO and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

――Do you have any favorite Japanese equipment?

Steven: Japanese equipment made electronic music. Korg, Roland and Yamaha are the big three makers. The Roland 808 has been creating trap music like crazy. It’s been ruling the world since it came out!

――Which instrument do you personally like the most?

Steven: I guess the 808! And I also love the MPC2000XL. Right now I have a Roland, MPC, and a computer with DAW Logic that I use for arranging.

Apron Records, a label made up of homies

――Next, can tell us how you started “Apron Records”?

Steven: I asked this guy called Alex Nut, who runs “Eglo Records,” if he would be interested in releasing some of my disco edits. But Alex said no, because releasing music made up of samples is a risky thing to do. Then he said, “Why don’t you do it yourself?” I mean, he didn’t want to get sued, and suggested me do it myself. (Laughs.) That’s what woke me up. I was like, “Oh, I can do this myself!”.

So I talked to Kyle Hall, who already had the label called Wild Oats. He is a producer who knows how to press and distribute records. He gave me a few contacts. Then I approached the brokers and said, “I want to press 300 records,” and the people in the office were like, “Who is this guy?” And I gave them the cash and they said, “Okay, cool!” And by the third record, it started building a name and we finally had a rapport with them.

――How do you find and select artists for your label?

Steven: They are all my homies. Oh, but there is one person I found who was not my homies. He’s a Miami-based artist named Greg Beato, and I found him on SoundCloud. His profile picture was Ninja Turtles, and I thought, “I love his profile picture!” I checked out his sound and I loved it, so I decided to contact him right away.

Works released on Apron Records

Relationship between Patta Soundsystem and Apron Records

――At the “Apron Records” pop-up at Tokyo Shibuya Parco, you introduced collaborative items with “Patta”, how did you come to collaborate with them?

Steven: A few years ago, “Patta” approached me because they wanted to book me as a DJ for a party. At that time I became friends with one of the guys from “Patta Soundsystem” and we just became a family. That’s how I prefer to work. I prefer bouncing ideas off each other rather than having formal relationships. Anyway, they asked me to do a collaboration. So we decided to make a record, a t-shirt, and a hat all together in one package. We started talking about this project in 2019, but then the pandemic slowed things down and it all came out in April this year. Under the slogan “Better Together,” we released a capsule collection with racing car feeling, made up of 12″ record, track hat (cap), and t-shirt. Since I’m a car guy, we used racing flags and made the track hat to look like racing cap. And then they asked me to produce original tracks for the “Patta” x “NIKE” Air Max 1 campaign when it was released.

Steven Julien “Better Together”

――Do you have any favorite car?

Steven: Porsche. I love all of Porsches, literally from the old ones to the newest. I drove a Porsche 80s’ 911 in the campaign video for the collaboration of Patta Soundsystem and Apron Records. I also like BMWs. Right now, I drive 2003 model of BMW E46 convertible.

――Does fashion matter to you?

Steven: What is important for me is lifestyle, not fashion. Rather than fashion, I would love to wear culture. If you have something that you are into, something that you are influenced by, or whatever moves you, it comes out in your appearance. Of course I like clothes and understand a little bit about fashion, but I am not really a fashion guy.

――By the way, you also have good relationships with skateboarders, right?

Steven: One of my good friends is Lucien Clarke from PALACE SKATEBOARDS. He is also another homie. They like music, too. The underground culture scene in London is small, so we all know each other and are connected. We’ve known each other for about 15 years, but in the last few years we’ve become even closer.

――Do you have any plans for the future?

Steven: Yes! I can’t tell you yet, but we have a big collaboration coming up next year. It’s going to be a big, crazy, exciting collaboration anyway. As for album releases, I have a Kyle Hall record coming out soon, and then some of my own stuff.

――What do you want to do during this two week visit to Japan?

Steven: I want to visit a famous synthesizer store in Harajuku called “Five G music technology”. I’m not sure if I am going to buy any, but I hear they have a lot, so it’ll be an experience. I’m looking forward to foods, shopping, and parties. If I go to Osaka, I also want to go to Kyoto. I would like to visit temples there.

――Apart from music, is there anything else you are interested in? What do you do in your daily life to keep your mentality up?

Steven: I’m interested in every single things, but I really like nature. I’m also into  zazen, which is kind of therapeutic meditation. To take care of my physical and mental health, I go to nature, and listen to demos (music) while doing zazen, and I take deep breaths. It’s quite important for me to do those kind of things.

――It seems to be a way of balancing body and mind that is typical of a city-bred musician.

Steven: Yeah, true. I was born and raised in London, I love London, and I’m literally a Londoner (laughs).

Photography Yusuke Oishi
Translation Shinichiro Sato(TOKION)

The post Interview with Steven Julien; London Native Sound Producer Crosses a Boundary Between Fashion and Music appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Even though the outdoor rave scene in Japan has grown and become oversaturated, Kotaro Manabe has never sold his soul, and his photographs of outdoor rave parties in Japan during the 1990s and early 2000s have gained archival value over time.

In the past few years, outdoor parties have once again become all the rage throughout Japan, and his photos remind us that Japan has a great history of parties.

Kotaro Manabe
Born in Tokyo in 1969, Kotaro Manabe is a DJ, photographer, and writer. A trip to Kenya when he was in his second year of junior high school led him to get a single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, and since then he has been traveling and taking pictures with his camera. In 1990, after meeting hippie travelers, he became a backpacker and went to Goa, India. There he encountered party culture, and since then he has been active as an organizer, DJ, and photographer, mainly at outdoor parties. Manabe later became active in a wide variety of fields, including interviewing artists, writing liner notes, interpreting, and owning a label. He is also a self-confessed movie buff. 
Instagram：@kotaromanabe

Going to Goa with foreign backpackers

——Could you start by telling us how you got started in photography?

Kotaro Manabe (Kotaro): When I was in my second year of junior high school, I was invited by a friend to go to Kenya with 20 other children who had won a prize draw in a campaign by publisher Kadokawa to be part of a movie called “Boys in Kenya.” It was a time when international travel was not that common, and Kenya was a place that I might not get another chance to see in my lifetime, so my mother bought me a nice camera. That was the first time I got an SLR camera, and I think Kenya changed my perspective on life and sense of values. I spent about a week in the jungle, watched over by adults.

——That’s quite an experience. I didn’t know that was where you got a camera for the first time.

Kotaro：But then I noticed that there was a large TV crew there, filming staged scenes with which even as a boy I felt a little uncomfortable. After returning to Japan, they produced TV program “Boys in Kenya: Journey on the African Savanna” with narration by well-known actor Hiroshi Sekiguchi. In the program, they inserted footage of a lion—which we had not seen at all on location—eating its prey, and then added to it the audio of our amazement at a completely different event. Seeing that program made lose my trust in mass media, and it was probably the starting point for the sense of cynicism with which I came to view society, and which I still carry today.

The Strong Sun Moon Festival 『EQUINOX』 (1997) at Nenoue Kogen, Gifu Prefecture
Photography Kotaro Manabe

——So when did you start taking photos at parties?

Kotaro：I guess I started taking pictures of the party scene in 1990. I was working part-time at a bar in Shibuya, and one day on my way home, I saw a foreigner hitchhiking in Roppongi. So, out of curiosity, I gave him a ride and he said, “Take me to the Maharaja Palace!”. It turned out that at the time word of mouth had spread among travelers that the Maharaja Palace was the place to stay when they visited Japan. There was a guesthouse in a suburb of Tokyo called Ishikawadai, which was commonly known as the “Maharaja Palace.” I was shocked to see about 60 foreign backpackers living in a tenement house that looked like a postwar student dormitory. But many of the people there were visually photogenic. That’s when I started taking their pictures.

——In the 1990s, where did most of the backpackers come from?

Kotaro: They came from many different countries. From Europe to South America, there were people from all over the world. That was when I started learning to speak English, but the English they spoke was rarely that of a native speaker. They spoke English with the accent of their own country, such as English with a French or Israeli accent, and I began to think that it was okay for me to speak rough English with a Japanese accent too.

My Japanese friends around me were always talking about the current popular TV drama, so I thought it would be more stimulating to hang out with foreign travelers. Then they took me to parties and said, “Come to Goa with us!” And that’s how it happened. So within a year of getting to know them, I took the cheapest flight available at the time, Bangladesh Airlines, to Goa. That was in 1991.

A snapshot of Youth(Dragonfly Records) taken in GOA(1996)
Photography Kotaro Manabe

——What a story!

Kotaro：In those days, many of people staying in Goa were those who had turned their backs on society, so it was forbidden to take pictures at parties. If you were caught taking pictures, they would pull the film out, so I didn’t take pictures of the party itself, but I did take pictures of my friends I was spending time with in Goa.

After returning to Japan, I showed them to my friends who would later organize the “EQUINOX” event with me, and they said, “This is amazing!”. When we started the “EQUINOX” party, people were not allowed to take pictures, but we wanted to document what we were doing, so members asked me to take pictures. As I was taking pictures at parties, other organizers started asking me to take pictures of their parties. I was asked to take photos for Vision Quest, SOLSTICE MUSIC FESTIVAL, Arcadia, anoyo, and others, establishing my position as a party photographer of that era. That was around the 2000s.

——When did “EQUINOX,” which you were also involved in as an organizer and DJ, start?

Kotaro: I think it was around 1993. It is now considered to be one of the first legendary outdoor parties, but it didn’t start out that cool. At first, we had “EQUINOX” at a nightclub called “GEOID” in Nishiazabu. Jun Ito, the organizer of “EQUINOX,” once told me how this outdoor party started. One day, GEOID was forced to temporarily suspend operations. So, in desperation, they decided to have it somewhere outdoors.

At the meeting points such as the Iikura intersection and the entrance to Yoyogi Park, partygoers were given a map of the party venue, and when they finally went to the location indicated on the map, they found themselves in a park in Saitama Prefecture. In other words, the party was held in a completely guerrilla-like, unauthorized manner. Obviously, one of the residents who was strolling through the park at dawn called the police. At the time, my only involvement with EQUINOX was helping to pack my tourist friends into the back of a Toyota HIACE van and take them to the venue, and helping to print the flyer.

GEOID at the time, where the early “EQUINOX” parties were held
Photography Kotaro Manabe

——When “EQUINOX” started, was the sound played at the party Goa trance?

Kotaro：Around the beginning of 1990, I don’t think there was a definition of Goa trance as a genre yet. It was called “Goa techno” or “Goa music” because it was techno played in Goa. At that time, DJ K.U.D.O. (a.k.a. Artman) was already DJing at “Space Lab YELLOW,” but his sound was a bit more like German techno. Residents of the Maharaja Palace, with whom I went to Goa, would come to the club and DJ K.U.D.O. used to call them “Goa people”. Goa was one of the sacred places for hippies, and parties were often held on the beach or in the forest, but the sound there was more like a mixture of techno and electronic body music.

——In Goa at that time, were the DJs travelers or locals?

Kotaro：I don’t think the local Indian people were involved in any of the business content. Ray Castle, who was a little older than me, and others were using Walkman Professionals. In short, they used two cassette tapes to DJ, and they didn’t have any other equipment like mixers, so they couldn’t do mixes (laughs). Around our time, DAT (digital audio tape) finally became mainstream.

And of course there were no turntables because we were having a party in clouds of sand on the beach, and CDJs were not available at that time. In my second season in Goa, I brought my own DAT and a small DJ mixer with me, but equipment was so precious in those days that the organizer of a private party at a hotel villa where Sven Vas performed once asked me to lend him my mixer. TOBY, who was called a techno diplomat, also went to Goa. At that time, Goa was a place where various elements such as trance and techno were mixed together without being bound by genres.

The sound was subdivided more and more in 1993, as I recall. Around that time, trance labels began to emerge from Europe, the first being Dragonfly Records, started by Youth, the bassist of the band Killing Joke. I think that was the first one to be called a Goa trance label. Simon Posford, who would later work under the name Hallucinogen, also worked there as an engineer. I also think that many of the trance artists during that period were originally playing music in bands. Even today, Ben Watkins’ Juno Reactor is a good example of a band unit. Two members of Eat Static were members of Ozric Tentacles, and even two members of System 7 used to be members of Gong. Even Raja Ram is from a band called Quintessence. 

The Strong Sun Autumnal Equinox Festival “EQUINOX” (1999) at Goko Pasture Auto Camp, Nagano, Japan
Photography Kotaro Manabe

DJing with DAT, not records or CDs

——How did people get information about releases?

Kotaro：At that time, music that was not even on CD yet was coming from all over the world to Goa. DJs from all over the world would bring in DAT recordings of artists from their own countries, and everyone would exchange them with each other. When I was DJing in small bars, artists from other countries would come up to me and say, “Hey, you want to trade your music with mine?” The act of exchanging music was called a session. The next day I would go to the DJ’s house, or he would come to my place, and we would exchange tracks. Even though we were at a beach resort, we were just staying in our rooms and listening to music with our headphones on. (laughs).

Then, the track data exchanged with artists from different countries would then be brought back to their own countries, and these pieces of music would be played at parties in their respective countries. The radical people who gathered in Goa became the hub of world music scenes that were simultaneously growing in popularity. Looking back on those days, when there was no Internet or cell phones, and the scene spread only by word of mouth and flyers, I think the world was truly full of energy.

Photography Kotaro Manabe

——As someone who was in the audience at EQUINOX at the time, I was very impressed with that event.

Kotaro：In my mind, there was a clear distinction between entertainment (business) and partying, and we felt that we were “doing a party”. When asked “What is a party?”, an easy distinction for me to explain is whether there is hired security or not. Having staff everywhere with T-shirts that say “SECURITY” on them is not a party in my mind. If something goes wrong, it should be solved by the people there without relying on security. In the first place, people who cause trouble for others, which security has to contain, should not really be at the party.

Later, I became involved in the “Hotaka Sanroku Festival” and “WAKYO,” and in some cases, due to party regulations, we had no choice but to include security. But basically, for parties that are held outdoors, having people wearing security T-shirts standing in front of the stage with their arms folded is not the way a party should be!

——You are saying that if we are going to create our own style, we have to protect it ourselves, right?

Kotaro: So even if people were paying for the party, they were more like “fellow party-goers” than “customers”. Within a small community, word-of-mouth information about interesting parties gradually spread, and our friends invited their friends, and the number of people grew even more. If someone at the party caused a problem, it would really be the people who brought them, not the security guards that really need to deal with it.

In 1997, when EQUINOX held its first 2-night, 3-day camping festival, I was impressed by something an overseas artist said to me. He said, “You can leave your valuables all over the place and go to the dance floor and no one will steal them! Such a peaceful party is only possible in Japan!”

The Strong Sun Autumnal Equinox Festival “EQUINOX” (1997) at Nenoue Kogen, Gifu Prefecture
The Strong Sun Autumnal Equinox Festival “EQUINOX” was held at Nenoue Kogen in Gifu Prefecture in 1997, a three-day and two-night camp-in festival style, following the great success of the previous event, which attracted 1,000 people
Photography Kotaro Manabe

True liberation of the mind and body made outdoor parties possible

——You were shooting with a film camera at the time, right? There were no cell phones back then.

Kotaro：That was a time when there were no cell phones or even digital cameras. Until 2001, when the word “digital” finally came out, we had always shot parties on slide film, but we had to change the film from day to night. So, when shooting with one camera, I would start shooting at night with tungsten film and change to daylight film when the sun started to rise.

At that time, slide film with 36 frames cost around 1,000 yen per roll. Moreover, since I had to get the film developed after returning to Tokyo, I had to wait several days after the party at the earliest before I could see the results. The cost of developing the film was also high, so the cost of shooting alone must have been considerable. Considering today’s digital environment, I have the impression that the burden and weight of the shooting was much different.

——What are some of the most memorable scenes when you were shooting?

Kotaro：It is obvious that artists playing guitar at a show are photogenic, but DJs at that time had an aura of coolness just by being in the booth. But since the 2000s, I don’t take many pictures at parties anymore.

Well, I don’t find any party or DJ booth exciting for me anymore. The moments that I enjoyed taking pictures of have become less and less enjoyable for me. I think the organizers felt this change, and they started asking me to take more pictures of the audiences, and there was a gap between what I wanted to take and what they wanted me to take.

Also, at the time, there was a limit to the number of film shots I could take, so I couldn’t take a single shot without any consideration. Moreover, maybe I was in a good state of tension due to the fact that I had to wait for a great moment and to release a shutter carefully. This may be one of the factors that make the photos of today’s digital age look different from those of the past.

Artists who performed at parties in the 1990s and 2000s, such as X DREAM, Juno Reactor’s Ben Watkins, DJ TSUYOSHI, and Siva Jorg photographed by Kotaro
Photography Kotaro Manabe

——What was it that attracted you to the era you were excited about?

Kotaro：I guess it was the atmosphere. I think people were able to really let loose in those days. Nowadays, sauna is all the rage among Japanese people and they are saying that the sauna invigorates people’s mind and body. But I think people were  literally invigorated in parties back then. But even if we tried to do it again, I don’t think we would ever be able to recreate it. That wonderful space was not created only by the organizers. I think it was the atmosphere created by all the people who were there, and it was closely related to the background of the times and the global situation. We may be able to aim for a different form of great space, but I don’t think we can recreate what was there in that era.

I feel that such a scene changed around the 2000s, and it was around that time that the media started to sit up and take notice of those kinds of parties and we received significant media exposure. It was fine for the parties to get bigger and bigger under sponsorships, but I have the impression that the original atmosphere of the parties changed considerably from then on.

——From the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, the outdoor parties that had existed until then began to decline. Do you think there was any other reason?

Kotaro：One of the reasons for the decline of outdoor parties was that they were hit hard by the weather. Unexpected problems and expenses resulted in accumulated losses: at the end of EQUINOX, Goko Pasture Auto Camp in Nagano Prefecture was hit by a typhoon, resulting in a loss of several million yen, and SOLSTICE MUSIC FESTIVAL had to stop holding outdoor festivals due to frequent bad weather.

A few of examples of the most impressive parties were ones organized by “anoyo.” The party called “Rolling Thunder” was hit by a storm, just as the title implied, and the party callled “Ground Swell” held on Niijima Island was hit by an earthquake (laugh). “METAMORPHOSE” was also given the finishing blow by bad weather. When you organize a party in Japan, you are often forced to bear the financial risk of the weather. That was the fate of Japanese parties. Japan is not a very suitable climate for outdoor parties.

Another reason for the decline is that the “peaceful Japanese party scene” that had impressed the foreign DJs mentioned above began to deteriorate around the year 2000. Thieving around the tent sites and sexual assault incidents started happening. The chain-reaction of scum attracting more scum peaked in the mid-2000s. I feel like these two things were the main reasons for the decline.

VISION QUEST” (2000) at Kodama Forest, Nagano, Japan
Photography Kotaro Manabe

From the past to the present, outdoor raves never end

——In recent years, more and more parties are being held outdoors again, how do you feel about this trend?

Kotaro：I think the number of outdoor parties has increased, partly due to the pandemic. The mindset of the people who are holding these parties is also changing. For example, instead of getting sponsors on board and trying to sell 10,000 tickets, many parties are now grassroots gatherings where the people involved enjoy themselves first. This is a very good trend. The size of parties is usually around 100 to 300 people. My impression is that youngsters tend to be “well-behaves” these days, both in a good way and a bad way. They play smart and are more mature than we were. I sometimes think that since they are still young, they should be able to let themselves get carried away, but that’s okay because that’s what they are. When I think back now on what we used to do, I am aware that we were doing something reckless (laughs).

Kotaro with Juno Reactor and other live members right after their live in “EQUINOX” at Doai Campsite, Gifu, Japan (1996)

——You organized your own photos during the pandemic and uploaded them on social networking sites, but what did you think when you looked at them for the first time in a while? 

Kotaro：When I look at the quality of the photos, I find myself thinking, “I shouldn’t show them to people” (laughs). I suppose it is difficult to compare the quality of the photos to today. But if you take into account the fact that the photos were taken with the equipment of the time, a part of me think that they have a good texture.

I also wonder how these photos look to people now. Of course, people who knew the parties back then may miss them, but nowadays, people of the same generation as my own children are going to parties. For them, it might be something like us looking at a photo album of Woodstock, so I wonder if it is necessary from a historical perspective to show these photos to the young people of today. I am sure that I am the only person who has such an archive of the parties of that time.

Looking back with Kotaro Manabe on the dawn of outdoor parties in Japan

The Strong Sun Autumnal Equinox Festival “EQUINOX” (1999) at Goko Pasture Auto Camp, Nagano, Japan with AVIKAL and string decorations
“I remember Avikal, an Italian, bought some yarn from Okadaya, a handicraft store in Shinjuku, and made a fluorescent colored string. He spun that string around with a motor he bought in Akihabara. At the EQUINOX party at Goko Pasture Auto Camp, we would stay over about a month before the party to make the decorations.”(Kotaro)
Photography Kotaro Manabe

“EQUINOX”(1996) at Doai Campsite, Gifu Prefecture
The photos taken by Kotaro in “EQUINOX” at Doai Campsite were used for the first time on the cover of a publication, the free newspaper BALANCE. Published from 1999 to 2001, the magazine focused on outdoor party culture. It was edited by Takashi Kikuchi, a freelance writer who was also at the center of the scene at the time
Photography Kotaro Manabe

“SOLSTICE MUSIC FESTIVAL” (2001) at Motosu Highland, Yamanashi Prefecture
“SOLSTICE MUSIC MUSIC” was held at Motosu Highland in 2001. The person I want you to pay attention to is Masaru Morita, who led a VJ team called M.M. Delight. He passed away in 2008, but he was one of the leading figures of outdoor parties in Japan and later established the Nagisa Music Festival and other notable events. Morita-san projected the moving images on round balls floating on the lake.” (Kotaro)
Photography Kotaro Manabe

“Hokata Mountain Festival” (2001) at Hotaka Ranch Campground, Gunma Prefecture
“This is Juno Reactor’s show at the 2001 “Hokata Mountain Festival” held at the Hotaka Ranch Campground. About 5,000 people gathered at that time” (Kotaro)
Photography Kotaro Manabe

“Harukaze” (2002) at Yoyogi Park, Tokyo
“This is a photo of the party Harukaze at its peak. It was a free party held in Yoyogi Park and everyone could come and go as they pleased. We had to cancel ‘Harukaze’ for the next few years because people who were there not for the party misbehaved in the park.” (Kotaro)
Photography Kotaro Manabe

Photography Taichi Nagai
Translation Shinichiro Sato(TOKION).

The post Manabe Kotaro Captures the Dawn of Outdoor Rave Parties in Japan appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

At the artist’s first exhibition in Japan in over four years, new concepts were pushed and challenges undertaken. Huge portraits were on display at the venue, including those of artists such as the Notorious B.I.G., Lauryn Hill, Kendrick Lamar, and Madlib. Why is it that these artists taken on such dimension at the hands of B+? We asked the photographer, who had come to Japan, about his career to date and his points of connection with Japanese culture.

B+
Born Brian Cross, in Ireland, 1966. Moved to Los Angeles in 1990, where he studied photography at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Based on a project undertaken in his Graduate studies, he wrote and shot pictures for his first book It’s Not About a Salary: Rap, Race, and Resistance in Los Angeles in 1993. Since then, he has taken pictures of countless hip hop artists in America. He has also worked in film, directing several pictures for Mochilla, a production company he founded with Eric Coleman, including Keepintime: A Live Recording and Brasilintime: Batucada Com Discos, which featured turntablists, drummers, and Brazilian musicians. He also worked with Coleman on Banksy’s first film, the Oscar-nominated Exit Through the Gift Shop. He also has a deep connection with Japan, having shot music videos and cover photos for such acts as Nitro Microphone Underground and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. He has published two photography books, Ghostnotes: Music of the Unplayed (2017) and Contact High: A Visual History of Hip hop (2018).
http://www.mochilla.com/bplus
Instagram：@bpleasel

Taking inspiration from the legendary underground hip hop track “Tried by Twelve”

——Can you tell us a bit about the content of the exhibition, Tried by Twelve? What made you decide to feature just twelve photographs?

B+: Well, the space, this time, was very small. While I usually just fill the space I’m given with pictures, this time I went for something intimate, almost too much so. I did a show here four years ago, for the book “16,” and noticed that the big pictures really looked good. So I thought wow, what if we do something with the big pictures that’s like what we’d normally do with the small pictures? So it’s gonna be a lot of big pictures in a very small space. So I’m trying something new, and showing some images that have never been shown before.

——So these are all pictures that haven’t been shown in exhibition before?

B+: The Biggie [Smalls] here, it’s in the book, but we’ve never shown it in a big size.
This time, the name of the exhibition, it has a lot of meaning. Earlier this year, a very good friend of mine died— he was a radio promoter, and promoted “Tried by Twelve,” the now-famous underground hip hop song. There’s twelve pictures, and “Tried by Twelve by East Flatbush Project,” it also refers to a jury— and I feel like the past few years have been a trial. But my friend, he was the one who promoted that song. And when I think of that song, it makes me happy. Anyway, the name has a lot of ideas in it. And then by some complete crazy fluke, the guys behind the company [supporting the exhibition], they named their company “12th.”

The exhibition view of Tried by Twelve: photography by B+

——I get the feeling that all these photos have stories behind them. Do you think you could tell us a bit about the behind-the-scenes of the shoot? How about this photo of Madlib, taken in Japan?

B+: Oh, that story’s very funny. Madlib made a record for Blue Note records. And at that period I was the only photographer taking photos of Madlib. And they asked me, can you make the cover for Blue Note? For me, that was a dream, I’d been very inspired by the record covers of Blue Note. At the same time, I was getting ready to go do an exhibition of photos in Japan for the first time. And the deadline, it was getting close, but still no Madlib. And the guys from Blue Note, they’re like “Where are the photos?” And I think “Fuck.”

So I call him, and I say “Look, we’ve gotta do these photos, bro. I leave for Japan next week.” And he’s like “Woah, Japan. Crazy. They got records there?” And I was like “Yeah they have records in Japan.” And so he said “OK, I’m coming.” And so two days to go, I call Take [Shimizu], from Manhattan Records, and I say “Take, Madlib wants to come.” And he’s like “OK, don’t worry, I’ll get the plane ticket.”

Photography B+

So we get the plane ticket for Madlib, he comes, it’s his first time in Japan…he spends three or four days with me and my friend as we set up the show, just sitting there with his headphones on, listening to music. Then after we finish with the show, we took him to the onsen, the mountains, all the record stores…and then one day we took him to the temple to take the photos for Blue Note. And there were so many pigeons there…you can buy crumbs to feed them, so we bought some crumbs, he threw them around and we took the picture. But the one they actually used for the cover is of him taking the train in Tokyo.

——How about the B.I.G. here? I feel like I’ve seen this photo before.

Photography B+

B+: The Biggie’s actually a very simple story. FINE magazine, I used to work for them a lot. That was when Biggie came to L.A. for the first time, back when only his single was out, “JUICY,” I think. So we went to meet up, and he was on the roof. Very sweet guy, very soft hands. And we talked for about fifteen minutes, then took some photos. Then one year later, he’s dead.

——I’m also curious about these photos of Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill.

B+: Those photos, I took them for Lauryn Hill. I had photographed her for Rap Pages a bunch of times, and I’d heard she was pregnant. My friend was her publicist. And I called him, and I said “Lauryn’s gonna be changed forever now. As a gift, I would love to take some photos of her, pregnant.” So we flew to New Jersey, hung out, and made some photos. And the timing was crazy, because she was very pregnant, I think she had the baby like three days later. That’s when she was working on the album, The Miseducation [of Lauryn Hill].

She’s one of the people I really make an effort to see to ask permission to use the photos of. The last time was in LA, with Erykah Badu, at a tribute show to J. Dilla, hosted by The Roots. I was waiting backstage for her, really just hoping, like, wow, I hope she remembers me, man.

From when I’d begun working on my book Ghostnotes, I knew I wanted to make photographs of Erykah. And Erykah had wanted to make photographs with me, but we’d never had the chance to do it. So I said look, I’ll fly to Dallas, and get a hotel, and I’ll come to your house and make photos if you let me. And she just said “Yeah! Come!”

Photography B+

——How about this one of Ol’ Dirty Bastard from 1995? Were most of the photos you took from this time in black and white?

B+: I did both at the time, but this particular idea was black and white. We were imitating the same photoshoot from the Janet Jackson cover [1993’s Janet].

——Kendrick Lamar is one of the newer artists in your pictures. He lives in L.A., so he must not be far from you, right?

B+: That was before To Pimp a Butterfly. I shot him for Complex. We spent the whole day on it…very nice guy, very quiet guy. Very sweet. I think we knew how important the album would be. For that shot, we just turned things sideways, and I thought “Oh wow, that’s cool.” A lot of shoots like this are like, “Sit here!” “Look here!” But this was more casual.

Photography B+

Learning from hip hop culture and expressing its ideas in the pictures

——In terms of your career, what made you choose hip hop? Did you listen to it back when you were in Ireland?

B+: In Ireland, I would say from 1984 to 1986, I only listened to hip hop. In the mid-80s you had Run-DMC, Mantronix, Schoolly D, the first Public Enemy record, the first B.D.P. record.

But when I finished my undergraduate degree and came to L.A., I realized that a lot of people didn’t like hip hop— it wasn’t considered music, it wasn’t considered culture. And from there I realized this was the new punk rock. I mean, maybe it’s not really punk rock, but at the time, I was responding to the fact that it was dissident, oppositional culture. So one of my professors said to me, “Why don’t you photograph it?” I didn’t think 30 years later I’d still be doing this.

——When you shoot pictures of hip hop artists, would you say you’re focusing on an idea of hip hop culture?

B+: Well yeah, I try to cultivate a photography that’s driven by hip hop ideas. I would really say my ideas are informed by an Afrocentric perspective of the world. I’m very inspired by non-European ideas about culture, photography, representation.

The first thing you have to understand is that you’re dealing with a 400-year history. And on the one side, you have slavery, and a huge genocide of Africans coming in to the Americas. And on the flip side, you have something that applies to all of us that aren’t European— Ireland, you know, wasn’t considered a part of Europe until 1973. It’s like with orientalism, that there could be an idea that there’s Europe and then there’s everyone else, that’s fucking crazy. To think that there’s only one way to understand the world, or that there’s only one centered version of the world, that’s a big, big mistake. So to break down this Eurocentric vision of the world, that’s been very important.

So then, how do you bring this into the day-to-day? You have to become as aware as you possibly can of the ways that people are represented, understood, and othered, and then you have to try to undo those things. Un-think those things. A lot of people deal with it in different ways, but some people say it’s about the “blur;” defying Western ideas of perspective, clarity, measure. Sometimes it’s about mimicry, or allegory, or satire…you know, like ODB’s satire. You have to keep in mind that it’s possible to develop an anti-racist practice. You asked a complicated question.

——In Japan, we love hip hop too. But I get the feeling that if we’re going to deal with it seriously, we ought to go deeper to learn about its culture and history.

B+: I think it’s a matter of respect. You wouldn’t expect someone to come from another place and start writing about, say, sumo, or woodblock prints, or calligraphy if they just came yesterday and don’t know shit. Cause it would feel like an insult, right? These are traditions with thousands of years. I think a lot of times, for people of the African diaspora, this is the experience. You’ll get people that say “Oh my gooood, you guys are rapping!” but it’s like, people have been rapping for a long time. It’s not that hip hop  is so big, it’s that it’s so deep. It goes way way back, before the tragedy of European enslavement, this is technology that was a part of North African, Arab cultures. Even in parts of Europe, you had certain kinds of battling with rhymes and verses.

It goes back to the 1500s, you could see it in Brazil since the 1500s. Somebody might say it all began in 1972, but no, it’s just that in 1972 they put a name on it, they put these ideas together and called it something. And I say 500 years but who knows, maybe it was even 500 years before that. Which is not to say that hip hop’s not modern, or not truly a North American art form, which in many respects it is, like jazz. But we must afford these things the same kind of respect that we afford European classical music. It would be a joke to send somebody who just found out about classical music to review Beethoven or Mozart. But when it comes to rap, somehow it’s okay for somebody like that to write a review of Kendrick Lamar. Like, shut up. Listen, try to understand. Bring some respect.

——I feel like with classical music, songs don’t usually have a beat in the way that hip hop songs do.

B+: Nah, they do, I think they do. I mean in hip hop it’s not that there are no melodies or harmonies, there are, but rhythm is prioritized. And you turn up the drums. The music reaches your body in a different way. There’s this idea that there’s “music for the body” and “music for the mind,” and that when we listen to Beethoven, it’s for the mind. But I’m like no, no, no, stop. All music is for the body and the mind. It’s about emphasis. Like, you have techno music, with its straight beat, I don’t want to hear it in my house. But there’s certain environments where that’s the only music I’d want to hear, if I’m at a festival, or a nightclub. But if it’s not something that engages both body and mind for me, I’m not gonna go looking for it.

Araki, Kazuo Hara, Nagisa Oshima: the influence of Japanese photographers and directors

——When was the first time you came to Japan?

B+: I first came to Japan to shoot for The Source magazine in 1998. The second time was to make a video and album cover for Nitro Microphone. Then I came back again to do an exhibition, and for the launch of Keepintime. I think it has to be said that Japan’s played a very important role in the dissemination of hip hop culture, maybe in a way that’s not very obvious.

——Are any there Japanese photographers that you like?

B+: In the 90s, a friend showed me the work of Araki. It’s complicated, but he has this idea of the Eye novel. which is like the 19th century novel meeting photos. And me, I saw that, and I was like “Fuck. You can do that?” I mean, I knew about sequencing, I’m very interested in sequencing. But I was very impressed, the first time I came to Japan, by the idea that you could walk to a regular bookstore and buy an Araki book for like ten bucks. I still love to go to Jimbocho to look at books. I wish I could read kanji, cause then I could understand more. And of course when we come we also look for records, cause you have all the good records here. But books have been very important to me.

——I think today people are starting to see the value of physical things like records and paper books.

B+: Now it’s kind of a hipster thing, people make 500 books that each sell for 60 bucks. It’s cool, but I like the old-school idea better. Regular bookstores, where regular people can buy regular books. Regular people should be able to discover, to have that experience.

But I’m also impressed by Japanese cinema. Do you know Kazuo Hara? His documentaries, like The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987), really impressed me. My favorite film of his is Extreme Private Eros (1974). And also Sayonara CP (1972), that one is fucking crazy. That guy is the truth. Those first three movies, they’re crazy.

Just in the last ten years I’ve spent a lot of time watching Japanese cinema. Especially from the 60s. When I was 12, my father bought a VHS player and let me pick out films to rent. I got Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses. Wild movie. But it’s not just Japan, I love films from the 60s. I’m just a baby when it comes to Japanese film.

——Lastly, I wanted to ask, have you been filming anything recently?

B+: Lately I’ve been working on this exhibition, but I’m also now working on three movies. One’s about the Supremes, the singing group from Detroit. And I finished a short film in Ireland last year about Denise Chaila, this young emcee who’s very important for our culture. And the last one’s a documentary about Jamaican music. Working on it has really helped me understand something about storytelling and music. It’s gonna be good.

Photography Atsuko Tanaka
Translation Toby Reynolds

The post Eminent American Rap Photographer B+ on his Love for Hip Hop and Japanese Culture appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

The trigger for this interview was a cassette tape made at “clubasia” in Shibuya, Tokyo. This cassette tape contained O.N.O’s an hour-long DJ performance that consisted entirely of his original tracks at last year’s “TIGHT”, a party mainly hosted by DJ QUIETSTORM and DJ YAS. It was so amazing that made me want to find out more about one of Japan’s best beatmakers, O.N.O who is committed to freely creating one and only sounds. Luckily, I was able to interview him when he visited Tokyo for the recording session.

O.N.O
O.N.O is a music producer and DJ born in Hokkaido, Japan in 1972, working as a music producer for THA BRUE HERB, a hip-hop group with a solid and passionate fan base, as well as his own solo project. As a track/beatmaker, he has always been leading the Japanese music scene with his innovative ideas and unique textured beats. He has released a total of 12 albums as a solo artist and as a member of THA BLUE HERB. As for recent works, O.N.O produced all the tracks on YOU THE ROCK☆’s album WILL NEVER DIE and also released his first solo album in 8 years, Duskrom in February 2022.
https://onomono.jp
Twitter：@onomonojp
Instagram：@onomono_tbh

Unique sound are born from finding something a little outside the norm interesting

——When did you start producing sounds as a solo artist?

O.N.O: It was around the time I performed at Fuji Rock under my solo name, so it was around 2003. When I did a THA BLUE HERB show, I saw GOTH-TRAD playing with only a sampler in a performance of REBEL FAMILIA. Then I thought, “Oh, if this is possible, I might be able to do a live show with MPC!”. That’s how I started doing solo shows. At first, I was performing mainly with AKAI’s MPC4000. At that time, there were not many artists performing at club events using such equipment.

——I heard that your DJ performance at the party “TIGHT” held at “clubasia” at the end of last year were all made up of your original tracks.

O.N.O: I played the tracks I had created during my daily routine of creating one track within an hour.

——You played wide range of sounds, but you kept the 100 BPM almost from the beginning to the end.

O.N.O.: Yes, no one mixes breakbeat-like sounds with techno elements at 100 BPM. And no one is trying to make such sounds dope, either.

——What kind of environment and experiences gave birth to O.N.O.’s original sound? By the way, where are you from?

O.N.O.: I was born in Noboribetsu City (Hokkaido). It is a small hot spring resort town with a limited number of residents. When I was in high school, there was a band boom, but I have never played in a band. I should tell you that I don’t play any instruments. I make melodies and add sounds with a keyboard, but I can’t play it. I don’t even know how to hold them(laughs).

But my friends were in a band, so I used to go to live venues for socializing, but I didn’t grow up listening to music with much enthusiasm. Basically, I only listen to music at clubs. So for a long time now, I don’t listen to music unless I’m working on it in the studio. I guess I listen to music most when I’m DJing and when I’m dancing on the floor.

——What was the first music you fell in love with?

O.N.O: The first music I got into was 1990s hip-hop. So it was the hip-hop of that era that I first started listening to and buying enthusiastically, but I didn’t like the trend at the time that because I was listening to hip-hop, I had to be familiar with sampling sources. I didn’t care about that, I just dug for music in my own way and took what I liked.

——Did you dislike listening to soul and funk music in order to dig for sampling materials?

O.N.O: I wasn’t a big fan of those genres. In music production now, I do not often rely heavily on sampling sources. But ever since that time, I have been creating music in a formative way, or more like making a collage. I make tracks the way I want them to be, so they don’t come about by accident. On the other hand, BOSS listens to a wide range of music, so I think THA BLUE HERB was born from the combination of our two different personalities.

——I see!

O.N.O: In the 2000s, I stopped going to hip-hop events and started going only to techno parties.

——Were you traveling in Asia during that period?

O.N.O: When THA BLUE HERB played Fuji Rock for the first time (2000), I had been traveling around Asia for about 8 months. My own rule for traveling was to only take local vehicles. I even travelled for about 3 hours with half of my body floating, riding the vehicles used by the locals, not the ones used by tourists (laughs). Basically, I like to wander around and observe the town. I am not the type of person going to raves or mountains. I tend to find something a little outside the norm interesting.

WILL NEVER DIE , a collaboration with YOU THE ROCK☆

——How did you come to work with YOU THE ROCK☆ on his album WILL NEVER DIE released last year?

O.N.O：BOSS went out for drinks with YOU (= YOU THE ROCK☆) and asked him if he wanted to release it through us (= THA BLUE HERB RECORDINGS), and we started working on it right away.

——Did you produce the tracks first?

O.N.O: Well, our production styles were too different. I usually produce music after getting an offer, so I don’t have any stocks. I made about 5 tracks and sent them, but I never heard back from him. Then, it turned that my production style was different from the way YOU had been making songs. So I drew a kind of maps and gave them to him, explaining the structure of the tracks. Then I asked him to tell me what kind of track he wanted. Basically, rap tracks are often composed of loops, but my tracks are completed as instrumental music. So at first, YOU seemed to be at a loss as to how to respond.

Sakamaki (“clubasia” staff): If it weren’t for O.N.O, I don’t think it would have been possible, but he unusually packed the song with lyrics. YOU said he would look forward to going out for drinks with O.N.O after every studio session.

O.N.O: (laughs). Initially, he had written about three notebooks’ worth of lyrics, but after recording about two songs, the notebooks were gone. Moreover, he was writing down the lyrics while I was explaining the structure of the tracks before recording. I thought, “Oh, seriously?” For me, improvising lyrics had always been unacceptable, but when I let YOU do it, it was quite interesting. Every day after we finished production, we would go out for a drink and talk about what kind of theme we wanted for the next recording, and the next day we would go back into the studio.

The interesting thing about YOU is that he makes phrases that heads want to sing. There are many good and passionate phrases. I still want YOU to say something like, “Let’s do it, bro!”. I made the tracks to inspire him to sing those kinds of words.

YOU THE ROCK☆ ON FIRE MORE LOUD ACTION

——What was the production process of tracks for YOU like?

O.N.O: YOU has had quite a lot of dope songs so far. So I thought it would be nice to have more than half of the tracks be dope and loop-based music, on which YOU would sing with one chord in a darker way. And yhe rest of them are extravagant tracks. Those are something THA BLUE HERB doesn’t do. I make a variety of tracks other than club sounds, so I thought it would be interesting if I could bring those out and create something for YOU. Then, all the tracks I put out worked well with him, and I thought, “He’s responding perfectly to all of them, just as I expected!”. And he ended up creating something that would impress hip-hop lovers.  　

——What do you think the album with YOU turned out like from your point of view?

O.N.O: I think it’s a very high-quality and super hip-hop album. YOU repeatedly reflects on himself in the album, but if you listen to the songs carefully, you can see that there are parts of him that doesn’t reflect on himself, which is interesting. Also, I think YOU is a very sympathetic big-brother type of man, and I am very happy that I was able to bring that part of his personality out in the album. I listen to it more than any other album I’ve made, and we listen to it over and over in the car together, doing call-and-responses. When YOU sings in the song, “The boat is leaving soon,” we say, “The boat is leaving!” in the car(laughs). It had a youthful feel to it, and I think we had a lot of fun making it.

A new attempt to incorporate the bass sound of Takeshi “Heavy” Akimoto

——In the past few years, you have been playing live with Takeshi “Heavy” Akimoto. What was it that made you to start working with him?

O.N.O：About 15 years ago, when I went to Okinawa for a solo show, KURANAKA a.k.a 1945 suggested that we have a session there. Akimoto was living in Okinawa at the time, so I said, “Since Akimoto is here, let’s do it!” That was the first session. Then I asked him to come to Sapporo once to work with me, but we couldn’t really give a concrete shape to our ideas at that time, and now we are finally able to do it. The reason we are now able to do it is because I have finally broadened my songwriting range and experience, and I am finally able to do it with other people. Akimoto is the one who has always been practicing.

——How do you like the sessions with Akimoto?

O.N.O: Basically, I’m not good at hanging with a person who is older than me, but Akimoto is the only exception. I know there are people who like bass music and dub more than I do, but that is not something I would like to reach. I’m still trying to figure out how to think and what kind of sound to make, but it’s interesting. I’ve never done anything like a band before, so this is a new kind of fresh challenge for me.

——So does it feel like you are in a band?

O.N.O: Yes, it does feel like I’m in a band. Basically, I can do everything myself, which makes it even more interesting when I think about the significance of Akimoto’s presence in the bass part. When I produce a song, I start by creating the bass line, so it feels new to skip that part of the process.

——Does Akimoto play in accordance with the bass line you have made beforehand?

O.N.O: There used to be pre-made bass line at the beginning. I used to give him a sound source with a tentative bassline, saying, “The chord development is like this, so put in this kind of bassline.” But one day, I realized that he had not listened to the tentative bass line at all (laughs). So I thought it would be more interesting to leave it to him.

——Do you have a name for your unit?

O.N.O: I have a few ideas, but have not decided on a name yet. I’m thinking about a lot of things right now. I think song titles and album titles are symbols, so I just coined them to make them easily searchable. I would also like to coin a name for the unit, but I am pretty much out of ideas (laughs).

Making one track a day

——When did you start making a track a day? I heard that you were releasing the finished songs under different names.

O.N.O: I’ve been doing this since before COVID-19 pandemic, and I was even trying making an album in a several hours if I had the time. I have a lot of simple songs though. But if I don’t think of releasing them, they just remain undelivered to anyone, so I released them under different names. I think I have made about 600 songs in the past two years. After I write songs, I master them myself, make the jacket for the album myself, and release the album myself. There are many platforms around the world where I can release my music, so I just upload them to each one and let them go.

——Are there different genres of music?

O.N.O: The genres of music I have created are diverse. Mostly club music, but also dub, house, techno, ambient, breakbeats, electronica, and everything from pop to flashy. There are so many names for my solo project that I can’t even remember them all myself.

——I listened to your mixtape consisting of what you played at “TIGHT” last year, and I was surprised to hear that all the tracks are your own. Did you choose special tracks from 600 tracks you produced?

O.N.O: The 600 tracks I made were only for DJ use, so I didn’t put much thought into them, and most of them have simple structures. But the songs I played on “TIGHT” were all made with a lot of attention to detail, even to the drum break. Additionally, since there was a YOU THE ROCK☆’s show that day, the set was definitely more breakbeat-oriented. I had been away from DJing for a while, but I started DJing again mainly with techno music. However, after DJing many times, I naturally ended up playing mainly breakbeats in my sets. I wanted to play breakbeats, but there was no one making breakbeats I want to play, so I decided to make them myself.

O.N.O’s Mixtape TRILOGY O.N.O / THA BLUE HERB : DJ MIX BY O.N.O “TIGHT” clubasia 2021.6.28 Rec.
(Not for Sale)

——I’m interested in the techno and breakbeats that you make.

O.N.O: For my second and third solo albums, I had been working on a combination of techno and breakbeats. In terms of MachineLive (O.N.O’s live set), I had always been performing in tune with 110 BPM, but when I started doing it without being bound by that, it ended up being a set consisting of breakbeats. So the album Duskrom that I made this year is similar to the first one, and recently I have been playing a set of breakbeats in my live performances.  Before, my setlist was mainly about making people dance, but now I just want to play what I like, and I don’t care if my set gets too dope. As for techno, I have released two albums under the name ONOMONO.

O.N.O’s beat making process

Living with THA BLUE HERB from the past to the future

——So, THA BLUE HERB celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, how do you think it has evolved?

O.N.O: Oh, …… it’s difficult to describe. How should I say?

——25 years is a long time, isn’t it?

O.N.O: It doesn’t feel like 25 years. Because we are still in the best period of our lives, and I think the next period will probably be even better.

——I was blown away by the THA BLUE HERB song at the end of the mixtape that includes your DJ performance at “TIGHT”.

O.N.O: That song is a remix of WE CAN… (from the 4th album TOTAL). It became more like a loud techno song in my opinion. It’s a lot of fun to play that song at the floor because audience respond it very passionately.

——hat performance, if you listen to it from the beginning, seems to be heading toward a THA BLUE HERB song.

O.N.O: Yes, it is heading toward it (laughs). Then, I said at last, “That’s all for the performance by O.N.O”.

——What does THA BLUE HERB mean for you?

O.N.O: Well, I guess you could say that my occupation is “THA BLUE HERB” (laughs). The way we write songs has not changed. We make songs by responding to each other’s requests and combining what we are making individually. Of course, our way takes a lot of time and effort.

——Do you ever make requests to BOSS regarding lyrics?

O.N.O: I don’t tell him with words but let the sound directs him. For example, if there is a long bass phrase in the chorus section, I am sure he will put his emotions here.

——Have there been any recent discoveries or realizations in the production process?

O.N.O: There is always something new to realize. Maybe the reason I am more inspired than before is because I almost died when I got sick. I literally almost died in about 5 minutes. At that time, I realized that people die so easily, and that the rest of my life is surprisingly short. So I really felt that I should not just think, “Someday I will make another work.” You have to leave something behind. So I would like to think that what I am doing now is always the best.

Photography Hajime Nohara

The post The World of O.N.O, One of Japan’s Leading Producers on His Own Unique Path appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

The B BOY poses in the center of the gallery. It is a wooden sculpture that captures the momentary stillness of a dancer in motion, and is perfectly beautiful from any 360-degree angle.

As someone who is familiar with breakdance and hip-hop dance, Taku Obata expresses his love for breakdance by interpreting the bodily movements acquired through dance from a new perspective and translating them into art forms such as sculpture, drawing, and painting. I don’t believe there is any other artist in the world who has pulled this off. What is the perspective of Taku Obata, who is a real B BOY, sculptor, and artist……? We took a closer look at his thoughts behind his pieces through his exhibition.

Taku OBATA 
B BOY sculptor and breakdancer. Born in 1980 in Saitama prefecture. Formed UNITYSELECTIONS, a hip-hop unit centered around breakdancing, in 1999. He received a B.F.A. in sculpture in 2006 and an M.F.A in sculpture in 2008 from the Tokyo University of the Arts. Although he works around the wooden B BOY sculpture as his centerpiece, Obata also works in other mediums such as drawing, painting, printing, and other two-dimensional art. Since 2009, he has held solo exhibitions and has participated in group exhibitions in Japan and abroad. His works have been exhibited in Japan, London, Paris, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea. His works that translate B BOY identity into contemporary art have received critical acclaim around the world.
Instagram：@takuobata
Twitter：@takuspefad

The wooden sculpture shaped by the golden ratio

——First, I’d like to ask you how the title “B BOY REVENGE 2022” came about.

Taku Obata(Obata): I took it from “Breaker’s Revenge” by Arthur Baker, a song in the movie Beat Street. It also signifies the work that I had exhibited previously coming back and being able to share it here one more time. This work was exhibited at the Keith Haring Museum in Yamanashi for my solo exhibit (“Taku Obata: B BOY on Sky Court”) ten years ago.

The exhibition was held at the Sky Court at the Museum, which is a very relaxing rooftop area. Because the exhibition was on for a long two-month period during the summer season, there were concerns of typhoons and intense wind and temperature shifts. To combat that, I created a sleeping sculpture instead of the standing one, which could have been hazardous. I always wanted to recreate it in this new pose and into a size that would fit the new space it would occupy. That’s how it got to be this big.

——What is this pose called in breakdancing?

Obata: A freeze. It’s a pose that breakdancers like CHINO, CRAZY LEGS and other B BOYS do often. I thought this pose was interesting from a sculptural point of view and from the point of view of the human body… that’s what led me to make this.

If you look closely, you can see that the toes of one foot are on the ground and the heel is floating, but the heel is on the ground on the other. Anatomically speaking, the arms are facing the opposite ways. I wanted them to be as physically altered as possible.

The feet are also locked in a right angle. B BOYS often lock their feet this way when they freeze, but it’s very hard to stay conscious of that. Also, if you connect the tip of the hat, the tip of the glasses, and the tip of the knees with a line, they all form a triangle. I try to make that kind of golden ratio visible.

——ou yourself are a B BOY and therefore know how to move like one. When you create your structures, are you conscious of the direction of energy you learned through dance and the relation of the body to gravity?

Obata: There are certain fanatical details that are included in this piece that could only be understood by someone who knows how to move like this. I can fine-tune sculptures, which was also something to consider. While creating the sculpture, I considered how the human body is built and if the person (the sculpture) would look like a human if it stood up. So even though the neck is straight and contorted in the sculpture, the body, structurally, is anatomically correct.

The sculpture’s clothes, like its hat and glasses, and the wrinkles on its shirt are also warped. My sculpture is made up of two parts: one part that is warped like the aforementioned elements, and the other part that is crafted so that the structure of the human body isn’t compromised. Anything would be game if I didn’t think about the actual structure of a body.

B BOYS are particular about the sneakers that they wear

——And the sneakers the sculpture is wearing are Pro-Keds.

Obata: Pro-Keds are B BOYS’ signature sneakers. I think we used to wear (Converse) Allstars back in the 1980s because they were cheap. But the signature B BOY look is the fat shoelaces. In my other works, they’re wearing Allstars, but this one is wearing Pro-Keds Uptowners, a rare model with three lines on the bottom.

When I was at the B BOY store Dancer’s Collective in Harajuku, DJ Mar told me that all of the dancers in Beat Street wear Pumas because Puma sponsored them. But in the battle scene in the train station with the boombox, they accidentally shot scenes of someone walking around wearing Pro-Keds (laughs). DJ Mar told me that those were Uptowners, and that stuck with me.

——You’re also passionate about what your sculptures wear.

Obata: Sneakers are super important to me, and I want there to be a reason why my sculptures wear what they wear. The motif of the hat is based on Kangol, worn like it used to be worn, sitting on the head, and is extended vertically upward. The glasses are based on the ones that Afrika Bambaataa wore and extended horizontally, which is very sculptural.

The lengths of the glasses, hat, and legs are horizontal or vertical to one another, which results in an original piece. It takes about six months to finish something this large. It’s a lot of work, so I try to pack in as many elements as possible.

——It’s been a while since your exhibition in Yamanashi. Has the piece changed at all since?

Obata: You can see the holes and the seams between the parts, but that’s on purpose. Usually, such parts are not shown. There are thirteen parts in total. Before, we would assemble them, temporarily fasten them with screws, fill them with putty, dry them, re-carve them, color them, and then exhibit them. I had been using this method, which conceals the seams and makes it look like one piece, and exhibited in Singapore, Yamanashi, and New York using this method. However, the wood material began to warp after ten years. I thought it wouldn’t be right to fix these changes, so I dared to show them instead.

This time around, I’ve placed the blueprints from the first time I made the sculpture along with the sculpture itself, to showcase them together. The blueprint was made in terracotta (pottery), and I decided on everything using the blueprint before making the actual sculpture. This sculpture was in a very difficult pose to make, which made it hard to understand no matter how many drawings I made. I used the terracotta as a base to make my bigger sculpture, which is why I wanted to exhibit the two together.

——You create your works while assessing the size of the exhibition space. You also consider how people will move within the space.

Obata: My previous exhibition (“LET’S MOVE IT,” in 2020) was filled with flat surfaces. I didn’t exhibit any sculptures or anything with a shape to it on purpose. My current exhibition, which is centered around one sculpture, is in contrast with my previous exhibition that was filled with flat surfaces. I wanted this contrast to accentuate the sculpture’s strength. My new work is only the one drawing done in acrylic paint, an homage to my past works. Because the canvas is transparent, if you lift it 5 cm from the wall, it creates shadows, which is only possible because of the material.

Human bodies, gravity…… ideas born from contrast

——You previously experimented with gravity. What made you consider that?

Obata: There are various contrasts, such as the contrasts of the human body and the contrasts of gravity. I call my work “B BOY sculpture,” but at the end of the day, it’s a figurative representation of the human body. I like the lines of the shoelaces in my sculptures, and wanted to extract that to place next to the sculpture as a strange object. Thus, the “object” piece was created as a contrast to the human body sculpture.

I thought it would be very interesting to have an inorganic object next to a sculpture of the human body, which is an organic object. Despite this contrast, both are placed against the ground because of gravity. As I toyed with this idea, I thought, “it’s not interesting if they have gravity in common.” Everything on this Earth exists alongside gravity, and sculptures can’t be made without thinking in terms of gravity. This sculpture is a human body controlled by gravity, so I thought the contrasting object must defy gravity.

——How do you forcefully defy gravity……?

Obata: When we think of something that is gravity-free, the first thing we have to consider is that we are now on Earth, which has a gravitational pull, which then makes it impossible to feel zero gravity. I didn’t like the idea of supporting an object with a stick to make it look like it’s floating; I wanted it to support itself. But I realized something as I was playing with some small objects that I had made. When an object is thrown upward, it goes up by human force. When the object is falling down, it does so because of the gravitational force of the Earth, meaning the force applied to each object is different. The apex of that is the moment when the gravitational pull of the Earth and human force are pushing against each other. Since that moment is only an instant, I thought I could capture the nearest thing to zero-gravity if I took a photograph. Then that photograph eventually became a drawing. The picture captures the human body that is conscious of the floor and objects that are floating. That’s what led to the drawings.

——So the theme of contrast is also connected to the dancing piece.

Obata: It is. And what’s most appealing about dance is the moment of weightlessness you feel in the presence of gravity. There’s a second where it seems gravity no longer exists, which is what’s intriguing. The windmill and moonwalk have similar qualities. Within dance, B BOY, ballet, and other styles have one thing in common: they all create one axis in the body. There is the Earth’s axis of gravity, but there’s another separate axis in dance.

For instance, for the moonwalk and the running man, your head is in a fixed position while the rest of your body moves, which is something that’s only possible if you have a stable axis. What’s fascinating is that the type of axis is different depending on the dance style, but you have to create an axis nonetheless. I don’t think I would’ve been thinking this deeply if I weren’t a dancer as well as a sculptor. I also wouldn’t have dug deeply into why breakdancers lock their feet at a right angle. It’s interesting that being a sculptor made me look at dance from different perspectives.

Taku Obata is a B BOY that likes to top rock

——What attracted you to breakdancing?

Obata: Since I was in elementary school, I watched TV shows like “Dance Koshien” and ZOO. The dance craze made me want to do it. But no one around me was dancing, so I played basketball instead. In the midst of that, my older brother suddenly took up breakdancing, which led me to start in my junior year of high school. At first, I didn’t even know the difference between top rock and breakdancing. Time went by, and I met DIGITAL JUNKEEZ’s JOMMY (now brand communicator for Diesel and a DJ) when I was 19.

I was taking a gap year at the time. JOMMY was working at the Diesel store in Tachikawa, and my B BOY senpai from the Miracles, Mr. Tsuma, introduced us. He had dreadlocks back then, and his vibe wasn’t to my liking. But when I watched a video of the DIGITAL JUNKEEZ dancing, they were so cool. I realized I liked top rock while I was watching that video (laughs).

——Your drawings do have a new jack-type of movement to them.

Obata: Exactly. A bit like the running man.

——I thought that move was uprock at first.

Obata: You’re pretty perceptive (laughs). From a top rock perspective, this looks like the running man, but looks like uprock from a B BOY’s perspective. I like both, so it is both, which is what I was aiming for. That’s why it’s wearing sarrouel pants and has a flat top hairstyle. I only capture elements that I really like.

——Breakdancing and top rock are also in contrast.

Obata: Yes. In some sculptures, the upper body is top rock, and the lower body is B BOY. But I think that’s something that only dancers would understand (laughs). I’m most influenced by CRAZY-A and CHINO, and the generation of dancers who can do top rock as well as breakdance. The difference between the two is that B BOY is battle oriented and requires a lot of practice, while top rock is party dancing, something that’s fun when danced together. Those contrasts are also amusing. The fashion between the two styles is different, too. I incorporate new jack and B BOY in my style, which perhaps is why I create B BOYs who like top rock.

■“Temporas/テンプラ”
DATES: Wednesday 21th September – Saturday 29th October 2022
LOCATION：Sokyo Lisbon Gallery
ADDRESS：Rua de São Bento, 440
1250-221 Lisbon Portugal
https://sokyolisbon.com/

Photography Yuri Hasegawa
Translation Mimiko Goldstein

The post The B Boy Returns: Thoughts Behind Taku Obata’s “B BOY REVENGE 2022” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.