“POP YOURS” will be held at Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall 9-11 in Chiba on May 18th (Saturday) and 19th (Sunday).
The theme of this third edition of Japan’s largest hip-hop festival is “Hip-Hop as Pop Culture in the 2020s.” True to these words, this year’s event aims to showcase the current state of hip-hop through a diverse curation of artists.
Writer Tsuyachan reflects on the significance of “POP YOURS.”
INDEX
Expanding Musical Styles and Genres in the Lineup
“POP YOURS“ is just around the corner. Launched in 2022 when the Corona disaster was still a reality, this year marks the third time that one of Japan’s largest hip-hop festivals has been held, and it can be said that the festival has certainly evolved over the past three years.
The biggest draw this year will be the headliners, LEX and Tohji. It has been pointed out in the past that the headliners of hip-hop festivals are all similar to each other, as there are still a limited number of rappers who can be called big names in both name and reality. Under such circumstances, the selection of LEX and Tohji can be said to be an excellent choice, and it seems that “POP YOURS” hopes to develop both of them into big names in the industry. Looking back on the past two shows, the audience was younger than expected, and there must have been a plan to make the show viable even with these two young performers as the main performers.
Both LEX and Tohji have one thing in common in that they both became hits on SoundCloud and gained listeners. They are new generation rappers who have been expanding their communities while increasing the heat of their fans on the Internet and social networking sites. Rappers who mainly use SoundCloud have a strong impression of delivering a broken-down flow in a short song of one or two minutes, but LEX and Tohji have the ability to sing such lighthearted songs while also revealing their raw emotions and drawing out a story. However, while LEX and Tohji sing such light songs, they also have the ability to tell a story while expressing their raw emotions.
Comparing “THE HOPE” and “POP YOURS,” another large-scale hip-hop festival, the former is closer to a mixtape and the latter is closer to an album. THE HOPE” has a format in which many rappers come out and perform one after another, while “POP YOURS” is more of a presentation type that emphasizes concepts. That is why “captivating” live performances that combine LEX and Tohji’s non-hip-hop stylistic beauty of rock and dance music and skillful stage presence is a necessary piece for “POP YOURS” today.
Looking at the rest of the lineup, many of the rappers stand out not only for the power of their songs, but also for their strengths in “how captivating they can be as a show. guca owl, who was promoted to the pre-tri slot, was probably chosen for his powerful stage presence like a rock star last year, and MFS, JP THE WAVY, and LANA, who can put on a show with dancers and a wide stage space, are performing as expected this year as well.
Rappers such as Ralph, Red Eye, and Jin Dogg, who are skilled at capturing the atmosphere of the place, have also shown up.
Other acts that made a name for themselves included the entertaining STUTS and the Createive Drug Store, which also makes clever use of visuals such as videos. In addition to Yo-Sea, SIRUP is scheduled to perform this year as an R&B-oriented act. POP YOURS” is a yearly experiment in the theme of expanding musicality and genre range.
INDEX
POP YOURS‘ Experimental Editing
This makes sense considering the festival’s theme of “hip-hop as pop culture of the 2020s. The festival is about how to present a diverse range of musical styles while keeping hip-hop at the core. How can they present a spectacular stage show not only with good songs, but also with dance and visuals as a show? This is completely different from the legendary event “Sanpin Camp” (1996), where the gathering of hip-hop culture in one place was significant in itself.
What “POP YOURS” does is more editorial and curatorial. We are experimenting with hip-hop culture as the center of our work, but also experimenting with how it can be edited to become pop culture. The important point is that it is based on hip-hop culture, and just because we advocate pop culture does not mean that we suddenly bring in pop stars. The delicate balance between the two is a difficult one, and it appears that they are proceeding with extreme caution in this area.
A typical example is the unique “POP YOURS” project. Last year, the song “Makuhari” by Bonbero, LANA, MFS, and Watson was a smash hit. This year, songs like “Bright Room” by LEX and LANA, “Champions” by Kaneee, Kohjiya, and Yvng Patra, and “YW” by JJJ, BLASÉ, and Bonbero, “YW” by JJJ, BLASÉ, and Bonbero and “YW” by JJJ, BLASÉ and Bonbero were produced as original songs for “POP YOURS”.
Food sales at the venue will include a stall from “Han Kitchen,” a YouTube program organized by Han a.k.a. GAMI, which takes a bird’s eye view of the current scene, connecting everyone and what could be interesting to polish.
As mentioned above, because these are experiments, there may be times when the actual experimentation did not produce the interest that one would expect. However, it is only through trial and error that we will find the answer to the question of whether hip-hop can become pop culture, and that is why we should be excited and enjoy the experimental edits of “POP YOURS” as they are released one after another.
INDEX
Can Hip-Hop Transform into Pop Culture?
There was an interesting article the other day about hip-hop in Japan. It was an interview with Romain Vivien, Global Music Head and President Europe of Believe, the parent company of TuneCore, which is accelerating its expansion in Japan. He states there that “Hip-hop is growing in Japan. Let me quote from the article as follows
In my opinion, all music has a second phase, a moment when the size of the audience reaches the level of pop music. It is not a question of genre, but of scale.
Punk and soul in the 70s followed that path, and now they are shrinking. The alternative came in the form of hip-hop. Indeed, in various countries, hip-hop stars have gained billion-dollar listenerships and tens of billions of plays: Drake in the US, RAF Camora in Germany, Jul in France, and so on.
Hip-hop has come to reach the same demographic that used to listen to pop music as jazz and rock. We bet on Japanese hip-hop because we knew the same thing would happen.
If we were to apply the so-called “innovator theory” to hip-hop, we would say that the hip-hop listener base is at a stage where it is moving toward the early majority. However, this seems to be a somewhat optimistic statement in light of the mainstream listening environment/style in Japan, the structure of music-related business models, and musical preferences (such as a preference for rock music).
In my opinion, the number of hip-hop listeners will probably increase only among young teenagers, as more and more children learn to dance or attend dance schools from an early age, and hip-hop dancing is becoming more and more accessible at an explosive rate, partly due to the influence of social networking videos. The demographics of the next few decades suggest that the overall impact of hip-hop dance will be minimal. Of course, hip-hop is a culture/music that is closely related to the social context, and it is possible that the country’s uncertain political and economic situation will lead to a demand for hip-hop – but what do you think?
It is hard to say whether the number of hip-hop listeners will increase or not, since it is only the result, but perhaps it is important to be “always accessible as a culture.
Whether on the Internet or in one’s hometown, hip-hop must be grassroots in the cultural sphere or place where one lives. There are a lot of exciting things happening in hip-hop at festivals/events and in the media. And of course, there are so many great, heartbreaking songs being written every day. And, that there is an environment where people can learn about the roots of hip-hop and black culture whenever they want to.
POP YOURS” certainly plays these important roles. We are looking forward to this year’s festival, which is developing experiments from the unique perspective of “pop culture in the 2020s” toward the future of hip-hop.
POP YOURS 2024
Dates: Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19, 2024
Time: Doors open 10:00 / Concert begins 11:00
Venue: Makuhari Messe International Exhibition Hall 9-11
Performers:
DAY 1: Saturday, May 18
LEX
Bonbero
Chinza DOPENESS
JJJ
JP THE WAVY
JUMADIBA
KEIJU
Kvi Baba
LANA
Lunv Loyal
MFS
OZworld
Peanuts Kun
Red Eye
STUTS
Yvng Patra
Special Act: OZROSAURUS
NEW COMER SHOT LIVE
JAKEN
Kohjiya
L.O.S.T
(AtoZ)
DAY2: Sunday, May 19
Tohji
Campanella
CreativeDrugStore
DADA
Daichi Yamamoto
Elle Teresa
guca owl
IO
Jin Dogg
Kaneee
kZm
7
ralph
SIRUP
tofubeats
Watson
Yo-Sea
YUKI CHIBA -Team Tomodachi Shot Live- New
NEW COMER SHOT LIVE
CFN Malik
lil soft tennis
swetty
taro
(A to Z)
Official site: https://popyours.jp
