I’ve had a strange fascination with the rapper Illreme ever since I saw him back in 2005 with Bloodthirsty Butchers, Your Song Is Good, and BREAKfAST, among others at a small festival in Ebisu, Tokyo. I had no idea who this gangly, effeminate goofball sporting a microphone headset and sampler on his shoulder was, but he was cartoonishly likable enough. His set time passed by rather quickly and I would’ve probably forgotten about him otherwise, but he returned later on that day to rap over a song with Your Song Is Good as his backing band.

Soon enough, that song ended up on a 7″ split that Your Song Is Good would release with Mu-Stars (who, featuring Morimoto Zakkan from BREAKfAST, would deliver an equally wacky team up on the record’s other side). I snapped that record up, as a devoted YSIG fan, but didn’t expect to hear too much more out of our weird ol’ friend Illreme.

Then came We Love Katamari Damacy, the sequel to possibly the greatest game ever, featuring a song performed by none other than that thorn in your side with that high-pitched voice, Illreme. His contribution, “Kuru Kuru Rock,” was actually an amazingly catchy tune, with an appropriately shuffling beat with cute little falsetto voices and sound effects littered throughout. It’s truly a great compliment to a cute and silly game such as Katamari.

I’ll admit to having bought a few of Illreme’s records since, but I’ve never quite completely come around to his insane style. I think I may have latched onto him as my hope for something good to finally come out of the Japanese hip-hop scene (sorry for the blanket trashing, J-rap lovers), but I’m not sure if I’ve put my money on a good horse or not. Then again, even he’s got more class than something like this:

While digging up Illreme videos on youtube I was inspired to try to find other Japanese artists who I may have been missing out on in my hermit’s shell, but even the best I could find was still kind of disappointing, in that stilted vocal delivery sort of way:

I hate to be some sort of pro-English snob, but maybe the Japanese language doesn’t lend itself well to hip hop. Heck, even the catchy chorus of that Cypress Ueno song above uses an English phrase, “Make Money Money!!!” Furthermore, if Illreme is the most interesting thing I can find in Japanese hip-hop, what does that have to say for the whole country? Seriously, even a blind, albino rapper from Minnesota has more flavor than this stuff:

No, snazzy suits and booty shaking skanks do not equate to flavor, Rip Slyme. And, what exactly are they trying to do at the 3:15 mark? It almost looks like, well, the way a blind, whitey would dance (sorry for the blanket trashing, whiteys, but if it makes you feel better, my white half makes me a horrible dancer too).

Illreme will be touring Europe later this month as part of a group with Belgian DJ Duo Afrojaws called the Baleine 3000 Crew. He’s definitely a strange ambassador for Japanese hip-hop, but I hope the tour goes well.

23 May a-musik shop, Germany, (http://www.a-musik.com/)
24 May Koln, Germany Borderclash Radioshow
24 May Koln, Germany (http://www.tsunami-club.de/index.php?page=termine&id=263)
25 May Hamburg, Germany, Golden Pudel Club (http://www.pudel.com/)
27 May Aarhus, Denmark, TBA
29 May Copenhagen, Denmark, TBA
31 May Cherbourg, France, La Terra Trema Festival (http://laterratrema.com/)
01 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
02 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
03 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
04 June Cherbourg, France, (http://chaudelande.free.fr/) Residence
06 June, Lille, France, TBA
07 June, Brussels, Bozar (http://www.bozar.be/home.php?lng=fr)

I’m pretty sure that Rip Slyme video is tongue in cheek! I think they used real AV stars, too.

Hmmm, haven’t heard of this guy but I’ll have to check him out. This is going to motivate me to write a rebuttal post about some of the gems of Japanese Hip Hop, there’s plenty of worthwhile acts!

And Ricky Ricardo, how would you know that about the AV girls hm? Recognize one?

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