Page 94 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

78 Ethnicity

whose fi lm, 8 Mile , somewhat audaciously ups the ethnic ante by showing
him defeating African American performers of the music he borrowed
from them. Hip hop proved mobile internationally as well. In Japan,
hip hop artists imitated American blacks in vocalization, dress, and hair-
style, but they also adapted and recoded the ethnic identity of the music,
rendering “ black ” as “ yellow ” and combining hip hop rap forms with tra-
ditional Japanese instrumentation and music forms such as taiko drums
and kabuki, a Japanese musical theatrical form. But the highly physical
dancing style practiced by early male hip hop artists also helped to trans-
form traditional male attitudes in Japan regarding such things as dancing.
“ I always thought dancing is something only women do, ” Crazy - A, one of

Japan ’ s first hip hop artists, once noted after seeing the movie Flashdance
in 1983 and having tried to imitate the performance in the movie by Rock
Steady Crew.
The adoption of hip hop also has its more problematic side, however.
Japanese girls, who in recent years have taken to performing various identi-
ties such as Barbie Girls in a highly self - conscious, ironic way, took to
tanning their skin dark brown in imitation of African American skin pig-
mentation. This ganguro or face black style lasted several years and inspired
complaints about how “ blackness ” was being exploited in a way that
seemed mildly racist. Some images of ganguro girls are online at http://
2
www.japanguidebook.com/articles/weird-japanese-fashion-81.html .
Nevertheless, transnational hip hop foregrounded elements of Black
American life such as urban poverty with which some Japanese artists could
identify. Crazy - A grew up in the poor San ’ ya area of Tokyo, where people
seeking day laborer jobs are common, and when he saw the hip hop movie
Wild Side he could therefore easily relate to the bombed - out look of the
New York represented in the movie. Like many of the boys who would

become rap artists in America, he grew up fighting on the streets and being
part of gang culture. But he and other hip hop artists report being saved
from lives of crime by the discovery of the hip hop scene. It offered them
a way of making a living and supporting a family.
Ethnic signs are clearly mobile and easily transported across ethnic
cultures. Black American youth may have invented the style consisting of
hoodies and beaked baseball caps, but Whites soon adopted it. The mobil-
ity of ethnic signs can lead to cultural forms such as satire that make fun
of those very signs and of the ethnic - based attitudes that respond to such
signs usually with fear and loathing. Sacha Baron Cohen has played
his comic clown Ali G, for example, by dressing as a highly exaggerated,