In today’s world, hip-hop has become a worldwide mainstream commodity, a cultural phenomenon that has taken over local youth culture everywhere. More than 50 million hip-hop fans in the United States and 100 million worldwide consume some form of hip-hop, making hip-hop culture and consumers a lucrative market to explore (Kaikati & Kaikati, 2004; Motley & Henderson, 2008). From the US to Asia and the world over, hip-hop has established itself firmly within local regions by localizing itself to meet the demands of the regional culture. For example, in a 2003 interview with BBC, Hideaki Tamura, a local music store manager, makes a comment regarding hip-hop music’s rise in popularity in Japan: 

“I think the secret behind the popularity is that Japanese hip-hop lyrics matured. Before they used to American gangster rap singing about guns and violence, which there isn’t too much of in Japan. Now they’ve realized it strikes more of a chord with listeners singing about reality, about everyday life – poetic even.”

Though just one aspect of hip-hop culture being glocalized, we will come to see later in the exploration of this path that this comment resonates soundly with hip-hop’s global narrative. That is, as hip-hop extends itself across the world, particularly East Asia, it shies away from themes recurrent in its original, American version (such as lyrics about gun violence and racial discrimination in hip-hop music) and adopts themes prevalent in that region (such as lyrics about love and everyday life in Japanese hip-hop). As we begin to understand hip-hop’s glocalization in East Asia, we also begin to see recurring themes in the narrative that surrounds hip-hop’s rise there, in particular a shift from the traditional, Confucian ideology often found in East Asian culture to a more modern ideology influenced by values inherent in the hip-hop culture. More importantly, we find that this shift occurs primarily in East Asia’s youth, who adopt this new cultural form into the mainstream and use it to establish an identity. Because of this, we realize that explosion of hip-hop culture worldwide is not just some mainstream cultural fad, but rather the result of a deeper, complex set of socioeconomic and cultural forces.

Sources:

Kaikati, A. M., & Kaikati, J. G. (2004). Stealth marketing: how to reach customers surreptitiously. California Management Review, 46(4), 6-22.

Motley, C. M., & Henderson, G. R. (2008). The global hip-hop diaspora: understanding the culture. Journal of Business Research, 61, 243-253. 

17 December 2003, BBC Interview by By Yo Takatsuki: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3324409.stm 

1. A Brief History on Hip-Hop
2. Globalization & Neo-liberal Commodification of Youth Identity
3. Contextualizing Hip-Hop in Japan and Its Role in Youth Culture
4. The Freeter: 汚い、危険、きつい.
5. Hip-Hop's Role in Chinese Youth Culture
6. Case Study: The Use of Dialect in the Rise of the Cantonese Hip-Hop Scene
7. Korean Hip-hop