Daichi Yamamoto believes Japanese rap has been enjoying a particularly good half-decade.
“I just think the music itself has gotten better, to be honest,” the 28-year-old rapper says. “I feel like Japanese rappers have become more comfortable rapping about their own experiences.”
He’s coincidentally describing the very attributes that have made him one of the most exciting new voices to emerge in the genre. The Kyoto native has become a fixture in the domestic hip-hop scene by turning stories from his own life — the usual stuff like breakups to more specific experiences stemming from his life as a biracial kid — into songs that are backed by catchy beats that reference everything from golden-age U.S. hip-hop to modern electronic sounds.
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