We’ve created a playlist filled with Japanese rap and hiphop music in our Spotify playlist. You can follow it just by clicking this link and press the follow button or use the embed player below. It stays updated as we observe the Japanese rap and hiphop music market.

We’ve made a selection of cool Japanese rap and hip-hop songs 2017 we’ve stumbled upon so far. Not too long ago we listed some hot Japanese hip-hop and rap 2017 summer songs, but this time we go harder with the coolest songs only. Tracks that stand out because of its underground sound or hard beat. kZm, Junkman, YDIZZY and DOGMA to name a few are those who released great tracks within this category. The purpose is to find the best and coolest Japanese rap and hip-hop songs of 2017 so if you have any tracks you would like to share please do so in the comments.

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Junkman – Keiji no syo feat. DOGMA

We know that when Junkman and DOGMA collaborate, great sound comes out of it. This song is no exception. The song name is 啓示の書, Keiji no syo, and the producer is WATAPACHI which is the same producer that produced the popular song Daijoubu together with Chaki Zulu.

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Jin Dogg – アホばっか ft. Young Yujiro & WillyWonka (Producer Warkar)

We actually thought this was one of the more lit ones so don’t miss this one out! Really cool song by the Japanese rapper Jin Dogg from Osaka, Japan. アホばっか, aho bakka, means “everyone are idiots”.

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YDIZZY – DAMARE

The Japanese rapper YDIZZY becoming more popular every minute, specially after his new album release. DIZZiNESS is the name of the album and it contains 13 different songs. What we’ve selected here is maybe the most psychotic-like, so if you want less craziness there are definitely other tracks that will satisfy you. This one though has a great flow throughout and sure has an underground feeling to it. DIZZiNESS was released 2017.6.7. Check out his other music videos from the new album too if you want. The meaning of the Japanese song title DAMARE is “shut up”.

• OMW music video
• YES music video

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MONYPETZJNKMN – SIVA feat. kZm

If you are familiar with the names, you might have noticed that MONYPETZJNKMN stands for MoneyHorse, PETZ and Junkman. They released their first full album 磊 (Reads as “RAI”). What does this mean you might wonder? Well according to a (Japanese) yahoo answers (Yahoo知恵袋) answer,  its meaning refers to the sound of when stones are moving during thunder. This album was released 2017.5.17, which is a good quality album featuring female rapper Awhich, kZm which as you can see on the music video title below, DOGMA and Loota. Having various different of styles and not the same thing over and over again. They have calmer tracks too like SPACY and Uh…Down…, and songs with more hard beats like “Keiji no syo”. We’ve picked SIVA from the same album which is fitting for what we’re looking for at this moment. SIVA has a great deep underground beat, and kZm is featured.

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LEON a.k.a.獅子 – GUN SHOT

LEON a.k.a. 獅子 is an artist that continuously keeps showing that he has some great skill and great taste in music style. His latest single GUN SHOT takes us by storm and is certanly worth a listen. 獅子 reads as shishi meaning lion.

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kZm – Deadman Walking On The Moon

kZm’s single “Deadman Walking On The Moon” produced by ANJULIECAT has spooky sound and music video. Not every day you see people holding snakes, having their face completely filled with drawn kanji and creepy contact lenses in the same video.

The summer is in its full glory in the Japanese rap scene. We’ve gathered songs of hip-hop and rap songs summer 2017 that we think are worth checking out. Music producer Chaki Zulu is a name that keeps popping up because of his great beats which many of the Japanese rappers use. See his soundcloud here. YDIZZY‘s latest album DIZZiNESS featuring many great tracks where Chaki as producer. We also have the highly anticipated new album from Awich where many various rappers like YOUNG JUJU is featured. We also got some other artists that aren’t expected that we hope you can have the pleasure of discovering for the first time.

YDIZZY – OMW (on my way)

Scha Dara Parr and EGO-WRAPPIN colloborated song “Microboy and microgirl”.

Awhich – Remember featuring YOUNG JUJU

KOWICHI / Shōnan bitter sweet

MONYPETZJNKMN – SIVA feat. kZm

DOTAMA – Press conference apology

Junkman – 啓示の書 feat. DOGMA (Producer WATAPACHI)

AKKO GORILLA (あっこゴリラ) and the hip-hop beatmaker & MPC player has collaborated and the results is amazing.

Last month we didn’t report about this because the reality was that we didn’t find it until recently. The song in our opinion deserves much more listening. The song we are talking about is her most recent single “YELLOW FEVER” (黄熱病 in Japanese). You can see that the music video has only about 13.000 views, released in February 28 2017 on YouTube. For that reason we wanted to give the song more attention and perhaps introduce the artist herself AKKO GORILLA to you.

She has first released the album ‘Tokyo Banana’ January 2016, then later she released Back to the Jungle’ EP last November. They all were well received and she seems to grow more and more.

New music video from CHANMINA has just been released on YouTube from her just-released new album “未成年”. You can listen on it below. Image from chanmina.com.

DISCUSSION ABOUT HER CHANGED STYLE

There have been a lot of discussion in the comments about her changed style. She has definitely moved from hip-hop to j-pop music. She also commentated about this and said that’s more of what she wants to do, rather than just hip-hop. We’ve covered this in our last article.  It is also said that she has lost 10 kg according to YouTube user HONOKA, and therefore become much skinnier than before.

みんな、沢山みてくれて
嬉しい言葉も悲しい言葉も本当にいつも勉強になるし力になるよありがとう

アルバムもリリースされたし
10時過ぎあたりから
あんまり喋るのうまくないかもだけどアルバムの事とか伝えたいことが沢山あるから
インスタライブやるね！！

— ちゃんみな (@chanmina1014) March 8, 2017

Translated Tweet below.

The most recent song from SHO is all about shaved head and beard. Yes that’s right, he is literally saying “shaved head” and “beard” repeatedly through the song.

• Bouzu means shaved head
• Hige means beard

The lyrics kind of goes like this so you can sing along..

1982 bouzu ni hige bouzu ni hige, bouzu ni hige! bbobobobo bouzu, hige! HIGE! bouzuni hige! hige! bobobo-bouzu bouz bouzu hige hihihihihi ge (and so forth).

BOUZU!

BOBOBOBOUZU! 

HI GE GE GE GE GE BOUZU!

I think you get the jest of it. Now does this mean anything? We don’t know and people are speculating and giving their opinion in the YouTube comment field. We’ve decided to translate some YouTube comments for you. From the top comments.

Last month, February, there was a few good Japanese rap and hip-hop music videos that were released. Quite a month for Japanese rap and hip-hop music! They are all down below that you can check out and listen to.

KOWICHI – 1人でしない

From the newly released (2017-02-24) REP IN MY CITY PT. 2 album there is this song that just got released called  1人でしない, meaning, “not alone”. More than Kowichi himself DJ TY-KOH and Young Hastle featured in the song.

RYUZO – Melody Lane

Maybe one of the YouTube comments describes this song the best, “新曲なのに懐かしく感じる……” by Fashion kiLLar, saying “Even if it’s a new song it feels nostalgic”.

Y’S –  Lazy

Just like Kowichi, Y’S have just released a new album, the SMALL ASIAN THE MIXTAPE 2 featuring as many as 21 different tracks.

MARIA from SIMI LAB – SPASA

Quite surprisingly graphic music video released from Japanese rapper MARIA. She sings about drinking an (non caffeine) energy alcohol drink called “SPASA“. Their slogan, “Awaken the Samurai within”.

SHIKI RECORDS might be a record label you want to check out. They might not be the biggest in the Japanese hip-hop scene but they have great hip-hop rappers who released new music as of recently and are growing in popularity. They have some artists that definitely are worth checking out. We’ve found these groups through the official SHIKI RECORDS website. Some of the rappers you’ll see are YOUNGI who released his single ILLMENTION featuring YAS and MAR (the C.E.O of the label). Other rappers included in this record label are SNIPE, SIN, GAK and DORA along with DJ TAKANORI. We’ve made a Spotify list of some music from the label record.

Mr. Musician

The record also have a music hip-hop unit called Mr. Musician were these said rappers are featured. Just a week ago they released a mini album “Bring back the Bacon”. It is them who are on the picture above.

Spotify Playlist

Here we’ve gathered the whole Bring back the Bacon mini album together with some of the rappers.

DORA

GAKU

YOUNGI

YOUNGI has a music video featuring YAS and MAR.

SNIPE