Nakasi

''Nakasi'' () or is a traditional popular music form in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, most stereotypically associated with elements of

working-class culture Working-class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working-class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are often equated with popular culture and low culture (the counterpart of high ...

such as the old tea parlors and drinking bars. One explanation supposes that the word describes the migratory lifestyle of Nakasi musicians, who traditionally travelled from one tea parlor to another. Strolling accordionist and guitarists in the 1953 Japanese drama film Tokyo Story

Strolling accordionist and guitarists in the 1953 Japanese drama film Tokyo Story

Lin Sheng-hsiang (林生祥) of has described the style as "a very rustic and urban-rooty form of music, normally with a keyboard, which has replaced the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

, and drums accompanying the singers.

As such, the form is a favorite of pro-labor bands and musical groups. One of the most prominent groups, Blackhand Nakasi, is named after it. Taiwanese music Popular music Japanese traditional music {{Japan-music-stub