Kohei Japan is a

Japanese hip hop Japanese hip hop is hip hop music from Japan. It is said to have begun when Hiroshi Fujiwara returned to Japan and started playing hip hop records in the early 1980s. Japanese hip hop tends to be most directly influenced by old school hip hop, ...

emcee and a member of the Japanese rap group, Mellow Yellow. Born in Yokohama, Japan, he discovered rap and hip hop while working as a chef. Many of his songs illustrate the contrasts between his Japanese culture and Western hip hop influences. Indeed, in his song "Hungry Strut", he proclaims that he eats "rice, not bread, and fish, not meat", thereby asserting that while he is a member of the hip hop culture, he remains Japanese. He shows his attachment to Japanese culture by wearing a traditional kimono in many of his appearances. In fact, on his album "The adventures of Kohei Japan", he appears on the cover as a

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

character in a woodblock print.Ian Condry, "Hip-hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization" , 2006 On the album cover, his hands make the universal "

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

" sign, showing the contrast between a traditional Japan and a hip hop culture.

Discography

Albums

*The Adventures of Kohei Japan (File Records, 2000) *Funky 4 U (Sony Music Japan, 2003) *Family (Pony Canyon, 2008)

Singles

*Together Forever (Sony Music Japan, 2003)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kohei Japan Japanese hip hop musicians People from Yokohama Living people Year of birth missing (living people)