In an age when the global flows of media and commodities, particularly from the U.S., are clearly influencing people around the world, an important question concerns what kinds of effects these flows have. For some, the presence of hip-hop implies a “loss of Japanese culture.” But what if hip-hop is used to express one’s Japaneseness? In this song clip, Kohei Japan plays on the idea of what it means to be Japanese by setting up contrasts with “Western” foods. He proclaims that he eats “rice, not bread, and fish, not meat” and so on, riffing on the notion that being hip-hop and being Japanese are mutually exclusive […]