English 4:38
Hip-Hop, Indie
from Aint No Mystery (1999, 2000)Hip-Hop, Indie
Nujabes, the backwards spelling of his real name "Seba, Jun", was a Japanese producer and DJ. He was a prolific songwriter in Japan's hip-hop community, and is recognized overseas for composing the soundtrack to the anime Samurai Champloo. Unfortunately, he died at age thirty-six due to a car accident last year. I wish I had gotten a chance to explore his work even more before his death. A notable quirk to Nujabes' work was the addition of jazz to his tracks. There was always an elegance, or better yet, class, to everything he wrote. Most people seem to write hip-hop off as trash. Which I can agree with if we were just referring to the majority of topical radio rap. If they listened to Nujabes' compositions, they could see another side to the movement. Even a beautiful one at that. In one of his earliest appearances, Nujabes joined up with future m-flo rapper VERBAL (under his other stage name, "L Universe"). m-flo has been reduced to a sugary backdrop for J-pop singers with VERBAL's standard raps as a bland topping. Here, he flows with an energy I haven't heard in almost a decade. "Ain't No Mystery" is not another entry in the this-coast-or-that-coast rap book, but it's also not the most coherent either. Definitely not Nujabes' strongest piece, but it was the promising beginning of a career cut too short. Rest in peace.
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