Globalizing Asian Cultures series:"Japanese Hip-Hop and the Power of Global Popular Culture"

Ian Condry, Assistant Professor, Foreign Languages and Literatures Department, MIT, will speak on "Japanese Hip-Hop and the Power of Global Popular Culture" as part of the ongoing colloquium series, "Globalizing Asian Cultures."

Hip-hop, which includes rap music, is one of the fastest growing styles in Japan, steadily changing the ways youth approach music, fashion, art and politics. How can we understand such cultural transformations?

Prof. Condry will discuss the ways neither "global homogenization" nor "localization" can adequately capture the dynamics of hip-hop in Japan.

Instead, an ethnographic look at hip-hop shows how fieldwork and a focus on performance can give us insight into the power of media in a rapidly changing music world.

Ian Condry is assistant professor of Japanese cultural studies at MIT in the Foreign Languages and Literatures department. He received his Ph.D. from Yale in Cultural Anthropology in 1999. He is currently writing a book about Japanese hip-hop, based on fieldwork in Tokyo nightclubs and recording studios. His website -- http://iancondry.com -- features a short introduction to hip-hop in Japan.

Co-sponsored by Center for East Asian Studies, Asia-Pacific Research Center, and Asian Languages