The meeting between young Japanese people, participants from the film “Wild Style”, DJs, and dancers from the Bronx in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park was the first significant encounter for some young Japanese people with hip-hop culture. These artists performed on several stages in Tokyo, on Japanese television, and Yoyogi Park. The same year, Charlie Ahearn brought the Wild Style Tour to Japan (Tokyo), with around thirty cast members and the film crew, including Rock Steady Crew, Cold Crush Brothers, Grandmaster Flash, and Fantastic Freaks. The film “ Wild Style“, an American fiction about the hip-hop culture born in the United States, was first screened in Shinjuku in an almost empty theater, where 21-year-old Hideaki Ishi, aka DJ Krush, discovered it. He supported many emerging artists and helped popularize hip-hop in the country by organizing events and shows. Beyond his achievements as a DJ, he has also been a pioneer of the Japanese hip-hop scene as a producer and promoter. Thanks to his hard work and dedication to hip-hop culture, he became one of the main catalysts for importing the movement to Japan. UNITED NATIONS is also the Japanese branch of the ZULU NATION. In 2000, he released the UNITED NATIONS project, which left a lasting impression and strengthened the ties between Japanese and American hip-hop. DJ Yutaka made numerous trips between Japan and the United States throughout his career while producing solo works. Furthermore, together with his long-time friend, Crazy-A, he created the annual B-BOY PARK festival in 1997, a major event in the Japanese hip-hop agenda. In 1983, DJ Yutaka hosted the entire WILD STYLE film crew during their tour in Japan, solidifying his status as an essential actor in the hip-hop scene. This affiliation strengthened his legitimacy and influence in the Japanese hip-hop community. He became the only Japanese person to join the ZULU NATION, an international organization for hip-hop founded in 1973 in New York. During this stay, he met Afrika Bambaataa, one of the iconic figures of the hip-hop movement. In 1982, DJ Yutaka had the opportunity to attend Sound Systems events in New York, which was a defining experience for his career. He began his DJ activities with the disco music scene in 1978 and quickly gained fame in Shinjuku, where he performed his first sets. Hiroshi Fujiwara played a significant role in Japanese hip-hop culture through his involvement in other groundbreaking creations.ĭJ Yutaka is considered today a living legend of the rise of hip-hop culture in Japan. At the same time, the young artist began thinking about his future fashion creations, seeking a way to combine his hip-hop music tastes with a youth-oriented lifestyle. He was one of the first DJs to introduce hip-hop to several Japanese clubs and familiarize the Japanese music scene with scratching and mixing. Hiroshi Fujiwara thus became a vital link between American hip-hop and the emerging Tokyo scene. During these travels, he brought back several American hip-hop vinyl records ( Run-D.M.C, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash…) and started performing as a DJ in several nightclubs in Tokyo. Captivated by this new musical discovery, Hiroshi Fujiwara made several trips between Tokyo and New York that would change his life. A local friend took him to the Roxy Theatre in New York, where he found the genre’s pioneers. It was during this trip that young Fujiwara discovered hip-hop. In the same year, Hiroshi Fujiwara was also in New York with his friend Malcolm McLaren, an English businessman, music producer, and artist agent he had met in London a few months earlier. Shortly after, he featured the Rock Steady Crew in a video shot in the Bronx for his group called Melon. Toshio Nakanishi was the first to experience hip-hop when he attended an Afrika Bambaataa concert in May 1982 to record an album with producer Moichi Kuwahara. A few years later, they would become significant players in introducing hip-hop to Japan. Before the developing hip-hop culture in the United States reached Japan, Hiroshi Fujiwara ( 藤原浩) and Toshio Nakanishi ( 中西俊夫) were in New York in 1982 for different reasons.

Zulu nation hip hop history