Hip-Hop Club Time!

So, I went to another hip hop club this past Saturday. It’s actually a very good experience and you can see that hip-hop is a legitimate subculture in Japan. Keith and I once again received invitations to the club from our DJ friend (who is going to be performing), and we went with one of our Japanese friends who work at a hip hop store. It’s quite exclusive; no more than like 60 people were there, even at the height of the evening. You have to be with Japanese people to feel like you fit in. Not only so it’s not awkward when it’s just your foreign ass walking into an all-Japanese party; also because you’re going to want someone to talk to and to introduce you to other Japanese people and buy you drinks!

The club scene is quite interesting. It's not similar to the states at all; it's more like a concert for DJs to show their skills and for people to dance individually while listening closely to the DJ. The party itself starts at like 10pm, but it’s not really jumping until around midnight. So we learned our lesson from the last one, and meet up with our friend in the city near McDonalds at around midnight, then we head towards the club. It was at a different place from the last one, it’s closer to the main part of the city. So we walk in, and it’s already packed. To the left is the bar and stools and to the right, it splits. To the right is a comfortable looking, decently sized lounge area where you can sit and drink before you dance. The other side is the actual dance floor. So we get some drinks and go to the lounge area. My friend Rie (pink earrings) brought one of her friends, Shouko and I wanted to get to know her better so we chat for a bit. She met Rie because they lived in the same area.


I knew there was going to be trouble when Rie told us that she thought the guy sitting next to her was hot. All of a sudden, me and Shouko share an evil look and at the moment, Japan and New York didn’t even matter; it became two girls that only wanted to see their friend get a boyfriend! So we start talking about different ways to get him to look over here, or even to get him to talk to us. So our idea was for me to ask the guy if he can take a picture of all four of us and chat him up afterwards lol. Keith was like “Haha…no. That doesn’t work with guys,” but what does he know? -.- It was all just harmless fun even though Rie’s friend REALLY did get up and was about to talk to him lol, I was like “naaahh...let’s give Rie a break lol….for now!”

After a couple more minutes of chatting, we decide to go dance. So I have to tell you; dancing hip-hop in Japan is not hip-hop dancing in the states…they all tend to line up at certain spots in the little dance room and sway to the beat. We’ve done this before so it wasn’t that ridiculous looking lol. So Keith and I get dragged to the front of the line-dance thing, and that wouldn’t be a big deal if Keith wasn’t half a foot taller than almost everyone else in there -.-…so clearly we’re sticking out more than we usually do. But even that wore off and once the party really got underway, it didn’t matter where anyone was. Our friend did his DJ thing, he's always quite good! He tends to do old school, early 90s hip-hop and rap. We figure that the music he DJs is the music that made him first get into hip-hop. After him, the guest DJ, DJ Soulja (lol), took it away at like 1am. I was pleasantly surprised! Most of his DJ-ing was old school reggae! It was nice to have my culture represented well, and not just for some fashion crap. It was great!

Unfortunately, the room was getting quite hot because it was a lot smaller than the other one. Also, after repeatedly getting surprised at how much good music our DJ friend knows, then getting even more surprised from the guest DJ’s music selection, some of the dancing from the guys ended up dying down because after a while he only played “girl music,” according to Keith. Then, we got quite tired. Not to mention after about like 2am, it wasn’t really music as much as it was just a lot of bass because we were so close to the speakers lol. So we left like 3 hours later, exhausted, thirsty, slightly deaf but happy. We had to walk home from the club since we don’t want to waste 20 bucks on a cab that we know can take a fast, cheaper way but WILL take the longest way, while pretending to not know where the teacher’s housing is. Whatever. It was about a 45 minute walk back, but it was alright since we had each other to talk to and we’ve done it plenty of times before. I was more concerned with the next one... :)