This past semester, I chose to investigate a story specific to Tokyo that interested me personally and I could lend perspective to. In my first few weeks in the city, I spent time attending different events in search of a story; anything interesting I could come across. As a hip-hop fan and musician, I thought it would be nice to find something on Tokyo’s hip-hop subculture. There have been many academic texts written on this subculture, as it is one that is so uniquely ironic within the normative realms of Japanese culture. With my perspective as a Western hip-hop fan, I wanted to explore the unique qualities of this subculture- but where was I to begin?
I came across a flyer from an independent label I was familiar with called Jazzy Sport. The flyer promoted a show with a group called Nubian Lady. The name itself struck me as rather odd and I began to wonder how much African-American culture was appropriated into Japanese urban music. From there, I researched the group and discovered that they were a production and DJ team comprised of three women. That fact struck me as even more intriguing and I set out to discover more about them at the show promoted on the flyer.
At the event, I was greeted by a young woman who liked the sweat shirt I was wearing. She told me her name was Coma-Chi and she was a rapper. A rapper? Without making a huge generalization, she appeared as unsuspecting as a other young Japanese woman at the party. Yet, I’m sure she shared that same sentiment when I relayed to her that I produced and wrote music as well.
That night I saw Coma-Chi perform and was impressed by her stage presence and command of the crowd. We talked more after the party and she became interested in my project. While I never set out to document just her, it soon became important to me to investigate her, who she was, and how she became a part of a subculture that seemed to welcome her warmly, while my impression of female rappers from the States was not so positive. From that point, I let her know up front that I was working on a documentary and wanted to know more about her. I asked Coma-Chi to let me know when she would be working on projects or attending events.
I was not sure if she would take me seriously. Here I am- out of nowhere asking to tag along with her on her routine. But, she was nice about everything and made accomodations for me.
In retrospect, I think she wanted to learn about me as much as I wanted to learn about her. Over time we have shared many stories, favorite songs, and situations that brought us to a the deeper reality that we have much in common in regards to lifestyle choices. We are both young women that enjoy a similar set of musicians, were brought up (hip-hop-wise) on many of the same albums, are affiliated with record labels who have ironically done business with one another, are most importantly, are working to become sucessful from our talents.
Though there are major dissimilarities in culture and language barriers, Coma-Chi’s knowledge of legendary hip-hop gave her a vantage point to understand the oral history of African-American struggle in the United States. Her appreciaton worked so much so that we could converse about Black leaders and historic events in African-American culture with her having very valuable input.
This special relationship we cultivated helped the documentary to exist. While I was learning more about Tokyo culture through her, I in turn was learning more about my own culture through Coma-Chi’s synthesis of African-Americans. As I further investigated hip-hop in Tokyo, I had a complete retrospective of hip-hop as it once was in the United States, namely on the east coast.
This is why I feel that my project is part of a Topical history, for I am documenting a specific part of Tokyo hip-hop. Coma-Chi is one of the single-most well-respected female emcees in Tokyo, and in is important that people note how this could impact the future of Japanese hip-hop. Whether in the future, more women are included, or taken out of Japanese hip-hop all-together would have significant sociological impact on the subculture.
My technique to producing 33 Queen was to present factual information to help the audience make their own infrences on the state of what hip-hop as I presented it. I attempted to keep the knowledge straight-forward so as not exclude non-Hip-Hop fans. Rather, through use of archival video and images, create a fluid piece that offered up questions that would interest any one into any music subculture.
In the end, I believe that one of my toughest challenges was having too much first-hand footage to choose from to fit all into my short editing time. I tried to story board as much as I could with this limited time. This lead to me adding much archivial footage to more clearly explain the story that I wanted to touch on.
Yet in the end, I am happy with what I have produced. I feel that when I, I say when because I plan to, expand on the project I will re-vamp it a bit as far as video quality and sound EQ. I also plan to expand the topic range to bring more insight into Coma-Chi as an artist, getting into details of her day to day and a more personal portrait of her as a person.
I realize with a piece like this, I am in many ways beginning to cover uncharted territory. I would like to do more research, first-hand and second-hand to make sure all my bases are covered in that respect. Lastly, I just hope to bring attention to a culturally significant situation that deserves to be explored more.

name
likes
dislikes
wishlist

all about you

link | link | link
link | link | link
link | link | link
link | link | link

This past semester, I chose to investigate a story specific to Tokyo that interested me personally and I could lend perspective to. In my first few weeks in the city, I spent time attending different events in search of a story; anything interesting I could come across. As a hip-hop fan and musician, I thought it would be nice to find something on Tokyo’s hip-hop subculture. There have been many academic texts written on this subculture, as it is one that is so uniquely ironic within the normative realms of Japanese culture. With my perspective as a Western hip-hop fan, I wanted to explore the unique qualities of this subculture- but where was I to begin?
I came across a flyer from an independent label I was familiar with called Jazzy Sport. The flyer promoted a show with a group called Nubian Lady. The name itself struck me as rather odd and I began to wonder how much African-American culture was appropriated into Japanese urban music. From there, I researched the group and discovered that they were a production and DJ team comprised of three women. That fact struck me as even more intriguing and I set out to discover more about them at the show promoted on the flyer.
At the event, I was greeted by a young woman who liked the sweat shirt I was wearing. She told me her name was Coma-Chi and she was a rapper. A rapper? Without making a huge generalization, she appeared as unsuspecting as a other young Japanese woman at the party. Yet, I’m sure she shared that same sentiment when I relayed to her that I produced and wrote music as well.
That night I saw Coma-Chi perform and was impressed by her stage presence and command of the crowd. We talked more after the party and she became interested in my project. While I never set out to document just her, it soon became important to me to investigate her, who she was, and how she became a part of a subculture that seemed to welcome her warmly, while my impression of female rappers from the States was not so positive. From that point, I let her know up front that I was working on a documentary and wanted to know more about her. I asked Coma-Chi to let me know when she would be working on projects or attending events.
I was not sure if she would take me seriously. Here I am- out of nowhere asking to tag along with her on her routine. But, she was nice about everything and made accomodations for me.
In retrospect, I think she wanted to learn about me as much as I wanted to learn about her. Over time we have shared many stories, favorite songs, and situations that brought us to a the deeper reality that we have much in common in regards to lifestyle choices. We are both young women that enjoy a similar set of musicians, were brought up (hip-hop-wise) on many of the same albums, are affiliated with record labels who have ironically done business with one another, are most importantly, are working to become sucessful from our talents.
Though there are major dissimilarities in culture and language barriers, Coma-Chi’s knowledge of legendary hip-hop gave her a vantage point to understand the oral history of African-American struggle in the United States. Her appreciaton worked so much so that we could converse about Black leaders and historic events in African-American culture with her having very valuable input.
This special relationship we cultivated helped the documentary to exist. While I was learning more about Tokyo culture through her, I in turn was learning more about my own culture through Coma-Chi’s synthesis of African-Americans. As I further investigated hip-hop in Tokyo, I had a complete retrospective of hip-hop as it once was in the United States, namely on the east coast.
This is why I feel that my project is part of a Topical history, for I am documenting a specific part of Tokyo hip-hop. Coma-Chi is one of the single-most well-respected female emcees in Tokyo, and in is important that people note how this could impact the future of Japanese hip-hop. Whether in the future, more women are included, or taken out of Japanese hip-hop all-together would have significant sociological impact on the subculture.
My technique to producing 33 Queen was to present factual information to help the audience make their own infrences on the state of what hip-hop as I presented it. I attempted to keep the knowledge straight-forward so as not exclude non-Hip-Hop fans. Rather, through use of archival video and images, create a fluid piece that offered up questions that would interest any one into any music subculture.
In the end, I believe that one of my toughest challenges was having too much first-hand footage to choose from to fit all into my short editing time. I tried to story board as much as I could with this limited time. This lead to me adding much archivial footage to more clearly explain the story that I wanted to touch on.
Yet in the end, I am happy with what I have produced. I feel that when I, I say when because I plan to, expand on the project I will re-vamp it a bit as far as video quality and sound EQ. I also plan to expand the topic range to bring more insight into Coma-Chi as an artist, getting into details of her day to day and a more personal portrait of her as a person.
I realize with a piece like this, I am in many ways beginning to cover uncharted territory. I would like to do more research, first-hand and second-hand to make sure all my bases are covered in that respect. Lastly, I just hope to bring attention to a culturally significant situation that deserves to be explored more.