The black ships

[imomus]

[Edit the next day: the Timothy-Ayumi part of this story turns out to be of debateable veracity on several counts. The general points made later still stand, though.]

Marxy reports that J-pop superstar Ayumi Hamasaki has got engaged to her boyfriend Timothy, a Tokyo-based gaijin designer who's the son of graffiti artist Futura 2000. She's 25 and he's 20. She's Japanese and he's African-American. Marxy, who's always going on about Japanese racism, finds this news "fantastical" and stranger than fiction, but I don't think it's strange at all. The fact is, insofar as Japan is still a nation under American influence these days, it's black American influence.

The evidence that black cultural memes in Japan are stronger than white ones is everywhere. You just have to visit fashion districts like Harajuku (Takeshita Street throngs with black merchants) or Aoyama (where the youths sport rasta style), or take a trip to Osaka's Amerika-Mura (clue: this "American Village" contains America, but it's not white America). You just have to look at style leaders like Nigo and Hiroshi Fujiwara (both proclaimed by Timothy "totally next level" in his interview), or Japan's coolest and most attractive man, Eye Yamataka of Voordoms. Look at their style, and ask where their cultural capital is coming from. It's coming from black American glitz-and-ghetto culture, or Jamaica.

During my Hokkaido residency earlier this year I was staying in a house belonging to some "Japafarians". The place was stuffed with music and videos, all by black artists. Most of it was reggae, but there was some Sly Stone too. I never met my hosts (it was a sublet, they were wintering in Okinawa — co-incidentally the Japanese island with the most black people living on it, thanks to the military base), but I imagine them slyly stoned on ganja, watching for the umpteenth time the brilliant Jamaican reggae movie "Rockers" (I watched it several times myself).

When Zest Records in Shibuya closed down, Marxy commented that the death of this white indie outlet (a great place for finding music by Swedish indie bands) indicated that Japan was closing down its interest in eclecticism, in other cultures. "As Japan veers further towards neo-Nationalistic navel-gazing," he wrote, "that collective impulse to explore diverse historical sounds from abroad has faded." Yet he also mentioned (in passing) how well DMR, the hip hop record store just across the road from Zest, was doing. The only difference is that the "sounds from abroad" on offer at DMR are black ones. For those interested in cultural capital, the ambassadors for Western culture in Japan are now, increasingly, black. (We could argue that this is becoming the case for the bling-bling West too, but that's for another day.)

When I blogged about J-porn the other day, and someone joked that I should appear in one, I replied that the only foreigners I've seen in Japanese porn are blacks, and it's true. There are no flinty, blond John Leslie types to be seen anywhere. Of course, putting black men in your porn doesn't mean you're not racist. We're all racist, and will be as long as race continues to be a "difference that makes a difference". But this is a racism of admiration and emulation. To put it quite simply, there's something about black culture that many Japanese people want to buy into. If you ask me to hazard a guess as to why this is, I'd quote the black man who's just walked off with Japan's most eligible female: "If I had one complaint it would be that [Japanese] people are afraid, afraid to express their true feelings and thoughts. They hold back too much, You live once...make the best of it."

I also blogged this week about John Lennon. In his interview with Jann Wenner, Lennon reveals a perspective on America that's surprisingly similar, I think, to Japan's. Describing the first Beatles tour of the US, Lennon says: "When we got here you were all walking round in bermuda shorts with Boston crew-cuts and stuff on your teeth. And the chicks looked like 1940s horses, you know. There was no conception of dress, or any of that jazz, you know. We just thought "What an olde race! What an olde race!" It looked just disgusting! And we thought how hip we were, you know. You tend to get really nationalistic, but we used to really laugh at America. Except for its music. And it's the black music we dug. You know, we thought we'd come to the land of its origin."

Japan was famously opened to international trade in 1853 by a fleet of American warships under the command of Commodore Perry. They were known as "the black ships". Because they had guns, the Japanese had no choice but to accept their advances. But now they have more choice, the ships they're choosing to admit into their ports are black ships in quite another sense.

Comments

Again with the Marxy straw men army...

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I'm glad I provoked you into an interesting essay, but I had no idea that Timothy is "African-American," nor do I know if that's actually the case just because you've said it. That wasn't the reason I was surprised in the first place. I was more shocked over the Queen of mainstream Avex corp J-pop matched up with the Crown Prince of International Street Culture.

Marxy

[dzima.livejournal.com]

Has Marxy IP blocked you yet?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"We will show the world that friends can disagree, move beyond disagreement and work in a very constructive and important way to maintain the peace," Mr. Bush said.

[lecabinet.livejournal.com]

John Leslie? That would be interesting porn.

[baobabs.livejournal.com]

hi nic,

sorry to interrupt the thread, not sure if you got my email, but it'd be lovely to send you a copy of FAB covering details of the 'teach me festival'.

let me know.

thanks

juliana x

[dmlaenker.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think this is nothing more than the same sort of patronizing awe that Orientalist otaku bestow on the Japanese from the West.

I do, however, think it's interesting and rather telling that the token American character in a Japanese series is almost always black these days.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ooh, he's changed his image since he made "Best Little Whorehouse in Hong Kong" (http://www.iafd.com/person.rme/perfid=JLeslie/gender=m/John_Leslie.htm), I see!

what a facinating crock!

[adfny.livejournal.com]

skimming along the surface, like the strainer on a week old bath, momus once again comes up with a serving of filth.

The youth you cite are far too few to mean much. Ask em about what burakon means to em, (you dont speak Japanese tho), or ask those guys on Takeshita (I doubt you speak Akan either). I'm gonna go with commerce over culture here.

BTW, read up on Perry and his minstril band.

[(Anonymous)]

...the only foreigners I've seen in Japanese porn are blacks, and it's true. [...] Of course, putting black men in your porn doesn't mean you're not racist. We're all racist, and will be as long as race continues to be a "difference that makes a difference". But this is a racism of admiration and emulation. To put it quite simply, there's something about black culture that many Japanese people want to buy into.

In this case, could that something be their gigantic penises?

[(Anonymous)]

Who says I block IPs? (Try again, I've unblocked you now.)

Marxy

[dreadberry.livejournal.com]

your post reminds me of years ago when my x was in tokyo with on-u sound and phoned back to the hotel to tell the boys he'd found an ital cafe and no one would believe him!

[dzima.livejournal.com]

In an effort to curb malicious comment posting by abusive users, I've enabled a feature that requires a weblog commenter to wait a short amount of time before being able to post again. Please try to post your comment again in a short while. Thanks for your patience.

?

[sarmoung.livejournal.com]

"Japan was famously opened to international trade in 1853 by a fleet of American warships under the command of Commodore Perry. They were known as "the black ships". Because they had guns, the Japanese had no choice but to accept their advances."

This does read rather like the translated captions in the Yasukuni museum! Do you really believe that the presence of a mere four warships (nine on his return in 1854) was sufficient for the Japanese authorities to capitulate? A sufficient excuse, for sure, but hardly a credible threat against the nation. Mind you, if they actually had looked like this:



(from a recent MIT exhibition Black Ships & Samurai (http://www.blackshipsandsamurai.com/))

[17x17.livejournal.com]

i hear japanese man have a smaller ones ;)
maybe thats why there is so many blacks in j-porn 8)

[scola.livejournal.com]

Though I think this Timothy fella is certainly not a caucasian, I'm not sure just how african american the guy is either. From the photos I've seen, Futura 2000 is a pretty light skinned guy if he is african american... and from looking at him, I wouldn't be surprised if he were of mixed race. And having seen a photo of his son on this page...

http://www.thebrilliance.com/thebrilliance/interviews/13th/interview.asp

...I would say that his son likely has a Caucasian mother. Not that this totally undermines your argument, but it is worth noting.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think you're right that he's of mixed race. It's hard to find pictures of him, because even on his website none of the snaps are captioned. But I'm pretty sure this (http://www.imomus.com/timothylo.jpg) is him.

Even given the ambiguity, I think it's interesting and telling that he's chosen to play up rather than down his blackness in Japan... and that identification (and the cultural capital it bestows) has now taken him to a powerful (and pleasant!) place in Japanese society.

[joopy.livejournal.com]

If I’m not mistaken, that message just says that you can’t post multiple comments in a row (so as to prevent five billion spam comments being posted all at once), and not that your IP has been blocked.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Here's (http://www.b-boys.com/images/promo/futura_theory.jpg) his dad, Futura 2000. A mulatto Puerto Rican Brooklynite, I'd guess.

[adfny.livejournal.com]

that would have been around 91 right? Damn I wish I coulda seen those shows. Saw Adrian Sherwood DJ at Yellow Room this year but it was nothing special. African Head Charge's two shows here this year were very good. If you like AHC seek out the new live CD from the summer show.

[joopy.livejournal.com]

But I'm pretty sure this is him.

How sure is “pretty sure”?  The pictures at the bottom of the page to which scola linked suggest otherwise (see third picture from the left on the top row, and the picture on the right end of the bottom row for reference).

Not that I’m 100% sure, either.

[adfny.livejournal.com]

Bingo! Momus werent there but he likes to talk like he knows.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, adfny, if the alternative is having a blog as empty as yours, I'm quite happy to do my speculation in public. And accept factual corrections gratefully. I don't, however, think you can dismiss today's main thesis so easily.

[adfny.livejournal.com]

Oh but Momus, I dont maintain a "blog" at all. I dismiss today's "thesis" as easily as I do most of your observations on Japanese culture as relatively shallow and ill concieved. The influence is little more than skin deep at best in almost every case.

I've said it to you a hundred times, if you took the time to learn the lanugage you might be able to get a better understanding. If you could speak to these kids and understand their responses, you might be able to offer valid commentary on something above a consumer level.

To use the example of Ghanians employed to pose as Black Americans to shill knockoff bling bling goods to the inakamon kids or the salon dreads of Aoyama as examples of the influence of Black American culture doesnt stand up. If anything these examples and the Lennon quotes show more about foreign misunderstandings of Black America than anything else. The whole thing really is on the same level as Perry's Minstrel band.

BTW I wouldnt deny that there are exceptions, but they aint to be found on the streets of Shibuya-ku. I certainly cant say I've ever met a kid here who understood "ghetto reality" but I do know Dreads here who have embraced HIM Sellasi I with all their hearts. Japan has yet to produce a hiphop record worth buying off these shores but Japanese reggae found following in the US & Europe (Mute Beat, Pecker come to mind). If you liked the roots sounds in Rockers, try and check Dubsensemania or Kodama & Dubstation next time you are here. You can find info about their shows Mixi.

[(Anonymous)]

might have been a little later but i'm really bad about keepin' track of my own life story, much less my x's...lol!

and i've not seen adrian or anyone in ages - new bf/new scene.

[dreadberry.livejournal.com]

o sorry shoulda logged in for that reply!