Seikou Ito & TINNIE PUNX -- Money

 

When it comes to hip-hop and rap, although the genres may have come into form in the late 1970s or early 1980s in the United States, I'd assumed that they made their presence known in Japan from around the mid-1990s with EAST END×YURI's "DA.YO.NE" and then came into full bloom from the late 90s onward through groups such as m-flo.

Well, how wrong I was. According to J-Wiki, the dawn of Japanese hip-hop may have come as early as 1985, and it was in that year that club DJ Hiroshi Fujiwara（藤原ヒロシ）and vocalist Kan "Kang-Chang" Takagi（高木完）, who had been involved with the band Tokyo Bravo in the early 1980s, got together and formed TINNIE PUNX (or TINY PANX, which is closer to the katakana reading「タイニー・パンクス」). The name was formed from Fujiwara's nickname when he had been living in London. 

Eventually, multitalented entertainer Seikou Ito（いとうせいこう）who has been versed in rapping, writing and acting got in touch with TINNIE PUNX and they collaborated on the album "Kensetsuteki"（建設的...Constructive） which was released in September 1986. The first track, "Money", hit me as being so Beastie Boys, and coincidentally enough, TINNIE PUNX was the opening act for Beastie Boys when the group did their first concert in Japan at Korakuen Hall, Tokyo. All three men mentioned thus far came up with the shouted lyrics while Yann Tomita（ヤン富田）, who would tackle a more wistful project in the form of Doopees later on, composed the song. As for the album, "Kensetsuteki" has been seen as the pioneering release for Japanese-language hip-hop.