Migrant Music Production in Osaka, Japan

From traditional enka and minyo songs to modern J-pop and electronic dance music, Japan’s second largest city is home to a wide range of musical genres. The city’s unique blend of traditions and modern sounds reflects its rich cultural history and diverse entertainment culture.

Throughout the city’s history, various groups of ethnic minority communities contributed to Osaka’s vibrant music-making in a variety of ways. Among the most significant were the Korean and Okinawan residents, who contributed to the region’s burgeoning musical culture as performers, producers, and consumers of recordings. However, their contributions have been overlooked in the literature on Japanese music. This article investigates three contexts of music-making by migrants in Osaka: immigrant bands, migrant record shops, and local community radio. It demonstrates that migrants made important contributions to the regional music-culture, even as they faced discrimination and prejudice in their daily lives.

In the late '70s, as punk rock was shakening up the world, an obscure group from Osaka set up one of the country’s first independent record labels. Vanity Records, short-lived but influential, explored the limits of emerging electronic equipment in pursuit of dark dystopian sounds. Their grainy, monochromatic fuzz grated against the glossy sheen of mainstream pop culture and pushed 大阪　音楽制作 back against the rigid boundaries of the national recording industry.

The label’s ethos of ‘do-it-yourself’ music-making was embraced by a generation of young Tokyo producers and beatmakers in the mid-2000s. One of the most prominent was Taro Kesen, founder of Jazzy Sport and LOSER records. Kesen is a key figure in the development of Japanese beats, connecting the boom-bap influences of Los Angeles to Japan’s domestic scene. His work – including atmospheric flips of jazz and soul samples and the soundtrack to Samurai Champloo – remains unsurpassed.

Kesen’s work is part of a wider tradition of Japanese avant-garde experimentation, with pioneering composers such as Toru Takemitsu exploring new forms of free music performance. Takemitsu’s experimental works were often performed in the Osaka Symphony Hall’s purpose-built space, the 1,000 seat 'Space Theatre'. The venue’s large open spaces lent themselves to an immersive audio experience, where acoustic instruments were combined with modern electronics to create a soundscape that was at once orchestral and experimental.

Today, the legacy of this unique cultural tradition continues to live on in Osaka. Local musicians are embracing new technologies and melding them with their traditional heritage to produce innovative music that speaks to the city’s dynamic entertainment culture. From the infectious, catchy pop tunes of idol sensation Hikaru Utada to the hardcore punk of NMB48 and Shonen Knife, Osaka’s musical legacy is thriving in an ever-expanding spectrum of genres. In doing so, the city’s unique blend of traditions and modernity reaches out to an audience that is both international and deeply local.