I spent my last Saturday in a small town about an hour outside Tokyo named Tsukuba with the goal of doing filming and interviews for my final project. I arrived there Saturday afternoon with the hopes of getting some good material I could use. I left on the first train Sunday morning with a feeling that my life would never be the same again. I met up with a guy named Kimi who I had been emailing back and forth for a couple weeks, figuring out a time to come up and do some interviews. We spent the day kicking it in his apartment as he did a recording session with a rapper from Cameron who grew up in Tokyo. This guy (his name escapes me as I write this) was very opinionated and knowledgeable about the hip-hop seen here in Japan. He provided me with alot of good material I could use. After that, Kimi took me and Li to a very small gallery opening his friend was having. Although the room was small, it was lined with great photography, graffiti, and random pieces of art in general. Although only a few people spoke English, everyone was really nice and seemed to be excited about why I was there and what I was doing. They made sure I was constantly be given more food and beer, two things I cannot say no to. The interview I conducted with one of the graffiti artists was very interesting and provided me allot of insight into what it is like to be a graffiti writer here. He talked about fighting with his mom who wanted him to do something else with his life but his only real interest was graffiti. After hanging around the gallery and (attempting) to talk to people for about an hour and a half, we moved on to a restaurant on another side of town that a friend of Kimi's owned. It was very small and run by Kimi's friend and his wife (both about 30 years old). Both were very nice and gave Li and me a sampling of different kinds of Japanese food and drinks I have never even heard of before. At one point, another man in the restaurant treated us to a huge plate of sushi and began to talk to us about how his son was in America. Eventually, a group of about 10 of Kimi's friends showed up for me to interview. Here were some of the highlights and things that touched me of these interviews: 1. Everyone was really 100% all about the music. They had a genuine love for not only hip-hop and music in general. They talked about how their lives were inseparable from the music because it had been a large part of their lives for so long. They not only group up with it but it also helped them grow up. One of the guys talked about why he produces and makes beats. He talked about how his friends come to him and his music helps provide an emotional outlet, a kind of therapy. He feels like he is helping people by making music. Kimi spoke about how the driving force for him learning to speak English was his dream of coming to America and being part of hip-hop culture in L.A. He talked about how this drive had a profound impact on his life. Something he kept stressing also was that we are all people first and the music is just a vehicle to bring people together. He also spoke about a friend of his who died shortly after completing his album and how he really put his heart and soul into before passing away and the affect this had on his drive and passion to make music. After all the recording was done, we spent the rest of the night just hanging out, playing cards, talking about everything from music to just life in general. It really made me see that even on the complete other side of the world where everything is so seemingly different, everything is really the same. Our similarities as people and as music lovers transcends all the cultural differences we may face. This was possibly my best night in the short time I have been in Japan and I stumbled back onto the first train back to Tokyo at 5 am with new perspective on life.
