time wandering from record store to record store in Shibuya looking for an angle on my piece. I came across a lot of interesting stores full of old and new vinyl, clothing, and a good amount of used DJ equipment. Also, the majority of stores I visited were covered with dope graffiti on the outside. This gave me the idea to do my first project (the UPI one) on graffiti in Tokyo. I feel like it could be quite interesting and without a doubt ties into my final project. Manhattan Records was probably the best store I went to, as it had a good selection of clothes and vinyl all in one place, complete with a live DJ spinning records. One thing I have noticed about all the Dj's and stores I have heard playing hip-hop around Tokyo is that they play real shit. What I mean is, right now a lot (the majority) of hip-hop coming out of the U.S. is watered down dance music, not the real soul music on which hip-hop has been built around. It's almost like going back into a time machine 10 to 15 years to when the music was good. For example, walking around in Harijuku I heard one of the hip-hop clothing stores playing a song from the producer Marco Polo's album. I was shocked because while he is one of my favorite producers and artist, he is considered underground in the U.S. So it was kinda of a nice shock to hear this random store in Harijuku playing his music. What has happened back in the U.S. is that major labels have taken control of the music, so they make the songs, they decide whats hot, then they push it down your throat via the radio, mtv, bet, etc. They have almost taken the music aspect out of the term music industry. Here in Japan this is not the case. It is still up to the people and DJ's to decide what they like and what they want to hear. Maybe I will attempt to focus on this in my documentary. Enough ranting. On top of all this, I have been in contact with a producer/Dj living and working here in Tokyo and he has agreed to met and let me interview him and has told me he will bring along some of his friends who are also in the industry. Hopefully talking to these people will shed some light on where I want to go with this. I would say it has been a pretty good start though.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
So it begins
I spent yesterday beginning research for my final project, which will focus around some aspect of hip-hop culture here in Tokyo. I spent my
time wandering from record store to record store in Shibuya looking for an angle on my piece. I came across a lot of interesting stores full of old and new vinyl, clothing, and a good amount of used DJ equipment. Also, the majority of stores I visited were covered with dope graffiti on the outside. This gave me the idea to do my first project (the UPI one) on graffiti in Tokyo. I feel like it could be quite interesting and without a doubt ties into my final project. Manhattan Records was probably the best store I went to, as it had a good selection of clothes and vinyl all in one place, complete with a live DJ spinning records. One thing I have noticed about all the Dj's and stores I have heard playing hip-hop around Tokyo is that they play real shit. What I mean is, right now a lot (the majority) of hip-hop coming out of the U.S. is watered down dance music, not the real soul music on which hip-hop has been built around. It's almost like going back into a time machine 10 to 15 years to when the music was good. For example, walking around in Harijuku I heard one of the hip-hop clothing stores playing a song from the producer Marco Polo's album. I was shocked because while he is one of my favorite producers and artist, he is considered underground in the U.S. So it was kinda of a nice shock to hear this random store in Harijuku playing his music. What has happened back in the U.S. is that major labels have taken control of the music, so they make the songs, they decide whats hot, then they push it down your throat via the radio, mtv, bet, etc. They have almost taken the music aspect out of the term music industry. Here in Japan this is not the case. It is still up to the people and DJ's to decide what they like and what they want to hear. Maybe I will attempt to focus on this in my documentary. Enough ranting. On top of all this, I have been in contact with a producer/Dj living and working here in Tokyo and he has agreed to met and let me interview him and has told me he will bring along some of his friends who are also in the industry. Hopefully talking to these people will shed some light on where I want to go with this. I would say it has been a pretty good start though.
time wandering from record store to record store in Shibuya looking for an angle on my piece. I came across a lot of interesting stores full of old and new vinyl, clothing, and a good amount of used DJ equipment. Also, the majority of stores I visited were covered with dope graffiti on the outside. This gave me the idea to do my first project (the UPI one) on graffiti in Tokyo. I feel like it could be quite interesting and without a doubt ties into my final project. Manhattan Records was probably the best store I went to, as it had a good selection of clothes and vinyl all in one place, complete with a live DJ spinning records. One thing I have noticed about all the Dj's and stores I have heard playing hip-hop around Tokyo is that they play real shit. What I mean is, right now a lot (the majority) of hip-hop coming out of the U.S. is watered down dance music, not the real soul music on which hip-hop has been built around. It's almost like going back into a time machine 10 to 15 years to when the music was good. For example, walking around in Harijuku I heard one of the hip-hop clothing stores playing a song from the producer Marco Polo's album. I was shocked because while he is one of my favorite producers and artist, he is considered underground in the U.S. So it was kinda of a nice shock to hear this random store in Harijuku playing his music. What has happened back in the U.S. is that major labels have taken control of the music, so they make the songs, they decide whats hot, then they push it down your throat via the radio, mtv, bet, etc. They have almost taken the music aspect out of the term music industry. Here in Japan this is not the case. It is still up to the people and DJ's to decide what they like and what they want to hear. Maybe I will attempt to focus on this in my documentary. Enough ranting. On top of all this, I have been in contact with a producer/Dj living and working here in Tokyo and he has agreed to met and let me interview him and has told me he will bring along some of his friends who are also in the industry. Hopefully talking to these people will shed some light on where I want to go with this. I would say it has been a pretty good start though.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment