The Transnational Distribution of East-Asian Popular Culture to Western Audiences by Internet Platforms

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The transnational distribution of East-Asian popular culture to Western audiences by internet platforms

Master thesis in Musicology

Joram Bauwens

Supervisor: Dr. O. Seibt

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – August 15, 2017 3

Table of contents

INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………….. 4

PLATFORM ANALYSES ……………………………………………………………… 10

88Rising ………………………………………………………………………………….. 10 Overview of 88Rising …………………………………………………………….. 13 Intention and target audience ……………………………………………………... 14 Categorical content ……………………………………………………………….. 17 Analysis …………………………………………………………………………... 19 Synthesis ………………………………………………………………………….. 26

JaME / KoME ……………………………………………………………...... 29 Overview of JaME / KoME ………………………………………………...…….. 29 Target audience and intention …………………………………………………….. 32 Categorical content ………………………………………………………………... 35 Analysis …………………………………………………………………………… 36 Synthesis …………………………………………………………………………... 43

HiphopKR ………………………………………………………………...... 46 Overview of HiphopKR …………………………………………………………… 47 Target audience and intention……………………………………………………… 48 Categorical content ……………………………………………………………….... 49 Analysis ……………………………………………………………………………. 51 Synthesis ………………………………………………………………………….... 56

OVERALL SYNTHESIS AND DISCUSSION………………………………...……...... 58

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………….… 62

WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………... 65

Introduction Back in early 2015, a song called ‘It G Ma’ by South-Korean rapper Keith Ape appeared; a hard-hitting hip-hop song featuring five rappers (two Koreans, two Japanese and a Korean-American) who rapped exclusively in Japanese and Korean, with the exception of a few loose English words added for occasional emphasis. The track quickly went viral and amassed tens of thousands of views on YouTube; within a few months, this number had already increased to a few million.1 To me, the initial most interesting point was how a hip- hop song of Asian origin managed to generate such popularity amongst Western audiences. However, at this point I still wondered who Keith Ape was, who had produced the track, and where it had been made. A quick search revealed that it had been produced by Keith Ape himself (real name: Dongheon Lee), who was born in Bundang, South Korea, and co- produced by JuniorChef, another South-Korean hip-hop producer. The song was released through Hi-Lite Records, a South-Korean music label based in Seoul. Finally, the video was directed and produced by a friend of Lee, South-Korean video artist Jan’Qui with simple resources (only a basic camera and simple editing tools) and shot in a room of the IP Boutique Hotel in Seoul’s Itaewon neighbourhood.2 To me, the confirmation that Keith Ape and ‘It G Ma’ were indeed East-Asian was interesting, because it made me wonder through which channels such a song could reach a Western audience on the other side of the world and subsequently become so popular. Although YouTube as distributive internet platform seemed like the obvious answer to this question, I still wondered what the driving forces were behind the popularity of the song; was it because it clearly followed the American trend of ‘trap’ (a specific subgenre marked by deep bass, a sparse beat and idiosyncratic rapping rhythms3) in hip-hop? Or was it because the five rappers in the video took recognisable symbols from contemporary American hip- hop, such as red Styrofoam cups, the do-rag (a piece of headwear occasionally worn by American rappers), and replaced these with makgeolli (a Korean rice wine) and surgical masks, enunciating an image of localised authenticity?4 Regardless of the answer, it seemed

1 Hi-Lite Records (2015): video statistics. 2 Kenfe (2015): 14. 3 In general, modern trap (a subgenre of hip-hop) is characterised by a sparse beat that is often most recognisable by double- or triple-time subdivided hi-hats and extremely low bass that often sits in the >100 Hz range. Trap has been of the more popular forms of contemporary hip-hop over the past few years and has spawned numerous hits; ‘Harlem Shake’ by Baauer (2013), ‘Hot N*igga’ by Bobby Schmurda (2014), ‘Trap Queen’ by Fetty Wap (2015), ‘Fuck Up Some Commas’, by Future (2015), ‘Often’ by The Weeknd (2015), ‘Panda’ by Desiigner (2016), ‘Bad and Boujee’ by Migos (2017), ‘Mask Off’ by Future (2017), etc. 4 Ishizumi (2015).

interesting how a single song could raise all these questions, and I felt that its widespread reach was a topic worth exploring. Furthermore, the dissemination of East-Asian cultural products and practices to U.S. and European markets is a phenomenon that was already observable over the past few decades. During this time, Western markets and consumers developed increasingly more interest in varying forms of East-Asian culture. Japan has been an important international exporter of technology since the 1980’s; Sony’s global distribution of the Walkman was one of the most worldwide influential technological commodities of the period,5 and the brand is still key in the modern field of technology. The rise of Nintendo and the incredible popularity of its most recognisable icons, Mario and Pokémon, or the remarkable success abroad of anime films such as Akira or Ghost in the shell all mark Japan’s significant and influential spread of popular culture through technology and media.6 These cultural outings saw a significant increase in popularity amongst overseas markets during the 1990’s, which was simultaneously a period of economic recession for Japan.7 In 2002, the Japanese government established these particular forms of intangible intellectual as national policy, intended to function as a form of national branding that would lead Japan out of the economic depression.8 The more traditional emphasis on capital manufacturing was replaced by the promotion of intellectual property and ‘the creation of information of value’, 9 meant to increase Japan’s ‘soft power’, or the ability to ‘indirectly influence behaviour or interests through cultural or ideological means’ and focusing on desirability rather than subjugation or coercion.10 Thus, the policy intended to affirm and enhance Japan’s image of ‘cool’ by using elements and imagery from its popular culture, such as anime and manga, which eventually led to the term ‘Cool Japan’ and the establishment of Japan as influential transnational distributor of popular culture. Since the 1990’s, Hallyu (or also popularly known as the Korean Wave) describes the growing global popularity of Korean popular culture, with K-pop as one of its most well- known spearheads amongst Western audiences. The Korean Wave initially began as a mostly inter-Asian phenomenon, where Korean television dramas saw a significant increase in popularity in China and Southeast Asian nations.11 The term was introduced by the Chinese

5 Iwabuchi (2002): 25-26. 6 Iwabuchi (2002): 30. 7 Valaskivi (2013): 8 Daliot-Bul (2009): 248. 9 Daliot-Bul (2009): 251. 10 Yano (2009): 683. 11 Kim et al. (2007): 117-118.

press in the 1990s to describe the popularity of Korean popular culture in China.12 In the late 1990s, a regional music television channel called Channel V broadcasted music videos of Korean popular music, which led to a large K-pop fanbase around Asia.13 Similarly to the ‘Cool Japan’ policy, the South-Korean government initiated a national branding policy that focused on such intellectual property, after a report from Presidential Advisory Board on Science and Technology proposed that Korean economy could strongly benefit from an increased focus on cultural industry. Prior to this report, South-Korea allowed Hollywood films into the nation, and the following influx of American product greatly suppressed Korean culture and industry. The report noted that the revenue generated by a Hollywood movie such as Jurassic Park was equivalent to the sales of 1.5 million Hyundai cars, which demonstrated the potential of cultural industry.14 From the new millennium and onwards, Korean popular culture extended its scope to Western markets through the internet and social media.15 This new Korean Wave was typified by the usage of internet platforms such as YouTube to promote K-pop, a genre characterised by ‘the industrialisation of the star-making process’,16 which saw the international rise of several popular Korean artists, such as boy band H.O.T. and singers Rain or BoA in the early 2000’s, and more contemporary acts like Epik High, PSY, Big Bang and CL. The spread of East-Asian popular culture has also been an influential phenomenon in inter-Asian cultural studies. However, this movement is only a recent development, as transnational interaction between Asian scholars has mostly begun since the last two decades. During the 1990s, the theoretical point of reference for most Asian scholars originated from Western-based works that defined international popular music studies, such as Simon Frith, Philip Tagg, Will Straw and Keith Negus.17 However, under the influence of the earlier mentioned transnational phenomena of pop culture, a need of a more contextualised and localised theoretical framework arose; one that could adequately explore the growing inter- Asian popular culture while steering away from Western hegemonic intellectualism.18 This movement also flowed from a growing discourse of inter-Asian cultural studies, fronted by notable authors such as Kuan-Hsing Chen, who has extensively explored topics such as inter-

12 Jang, Won (2012): 196. 13 Shim (2006): 28. 14 Shim (2006): 32. 15 Jang, Won (2012): 198. 16 Shim (2006): 38. 17 Shin (2009): 471. 18 Shin et al. (2013): 2-4.

Asian (de)imperialisation,19 and the construction of an effective inter-Asian academic network to displace intellectual Western hegemony;20 Koichi Iwabuchi, who has produced extensive research on the globalisation of Asian popular culture,21 and Japanese transnationalism and the complexities surrounding its inter-Asian influence22; or Chua Beng- Huat, who has written on the rapidly expanding Asian economies since the 1970s and popular Asian consumer culture23; they are key examples within a wide academic field of inter-Asian cultural studies that have expanded significantly since the 1990s. Against this historical and theoretical backdrop, I began to wonder how I could contribute a Western-based perspective on the contemporary East-Asian popular culture that I was familiar with myself, such as It G Ma and its current exposure to Western audiences. By looking further into this question, I quickly came across 88Rising: a YouTube channel apparently dedicated to the distribution of Asian popular music. What fascinated me most was that, although the bulk of its videos entails music or interviews with artists, this is accompanied by a significant amount of videos with seemingly unrelated subjects such as how to prepare kimchi (a popular Korean dish), the red light district in Thailand, the Japanese animated film Akira from 1988, etc. Due to these videos, I arrived at the question: what is the function of these videos in relation to the music they also distribute, and put into larger context, in what way does 88Rising distribute East-Asian popular culture? What particular image of East-Asian popular culture do they intend to construct, and to whom specifically do they seek to distribute it? However, I quickly realised that 88Rising alone would not provide an adequate reflection of the variety in platforms that are available to Western audiences. Research regarding this topic would greatly benefit from a wider perspective which would explore more than one platform; for this reason, I began to search for other platforms to include in the analysis. The first one was JaME, a website dedicated to spreading news on Japanese popular music across the world. They feature exclusively written material, as opposed to 88Rising’s focus on video material. Furthermore, a short search on 88Rising reveals they mostly seem to focus on East-Asian contemporary hip-hop and rnb, whereas JaME seems to concentrate on visual kei, a popular rock genre from Japan characterised not so much by its musical properties, but rather its emphasis on a visual style that draws inspiration from gothic, punk

19 Chen (2010). 20 Chen, Chua (2015): 1-8. 21 Iwabuchi (2010). 22 Iwabuchi (2002). 23 Chua (2002): 1-29.

and glam rock visuals.24 The last platform I added was HiphopKR, a website dedicated to the translation of lyrics by Korean rappers and news on contemporary Korean hip-hop. Since this platform focuses on East-Asian hip-hop (like 88Rising), but mostly seems to distribute written material on the matter (like JaME), the combination of these three platforms would provide the research with a broader perspective on the variety of East-Asian distribution to Western audiences. Although the topic of distribution of East-Asian popular culture seemed viable enough to form a thesis research question around, it still needed further context to help specify what exactly the research would be focusing on; the scale of distribution would have to be established. Although the terms ‘global’ and ‘international’ would quickly come to mind to describe this scale, the term ‘transnational’ would be a more accurate description for several reasons. ‘Global’ is too all-inclusive, and no adequate reflection of the asymmetrical distribution of a phenomenon like East-Asian popular culture, which varies all the way from intra-cultural, to inter-Asian, to international distribution. Furthermore, the complex flows of East-Asian popular culture under the influence of globalisation are better represented by the term transnationalism, because this allows for the inclusion of institutions or agents that are not necessarily limited ‘to the nation-state or to nationally institutionalized organizations’, as stated by Iwabuchi.25 To clarify, this implies that transnational actors can range from individuals to large organisations, but most importantly, their frame of reference is not their nation of origin, but rather the overlap and dynamic between different nations. In contrast, the term international suggests an outward-looking perspective that originates from its own place or location, and lacks the element of movement that is connected to transnationalism. Therefore, the term ‘transnationalism’ should be added to the research question to specify the level of distribution each platform utilises, and to denote the transnational cultural flow from East-Asia to Western audiences that would be inspected in this thesis. Another remark is that the term ‘Western audiences’ will often be used throughout this thesis. The word Western seems unspecified, but is closely connected to the seemingly limitless circulation of media items via the internet. As this thesis will focus on the distribution of East-Asian popular culture specifically to audiences outside of Asia, it is crucial to emphasise that I do not intend to pose a conservative binary opposition between East-Asia and the West by using the term Western, but rather seek to highlight how the

24 Hashimoto (2007): 87. 25 Iwabuchi (2002): 16.

transnational spread of cultural material via the internet is hard to demarcate in terms of nationalities. By incorporating all the aforementioned elements, the research question thus became: How do transnational internet platforms distribute East-Asian popular culture to Western audiences? In order to effectively answer the main question, each of the three platforms would have to be regarded with several crucial questions in mind: (1) First of all, is the popular culture distributed by this platform East-Asian? Although this question seems like it should have an obvious confirming answer, it is essential to demonstrate that the material presented by the platforms is indeed East-Asian. This will be done by determining their most visibly or noticeably (re)presented artists and establishing where they are from, where they operate from, where their label is located, what their local and inter-Asian relevance is, etc. (2) Who owns and operates the platform? Where are they from? What is their intention and target audience as stated by themselves? (3) How is the platform’s material presented? (4) Finally, a synthesis of the foregoing points will explain what image of East-Asian popular culture each platform provokes by highlighting specific artists and their material. Which artists does it seem to prioritise, and what is the possible motivation behind such prioritisation? What seem to be the criteria for selecting specific artists? This image can then be compared to their stated intention and target audience to help us understand how each platform distributes East-Asian popular culture to Western audiences. After each platform has been analysed separately, an overall synthesis will shortly provide further comparisons between the platforms themselves to construct a wider view of their distribution.

Platform I: 88Rising The first question that needs to be demonstrated is why the material distributed by 88Rising should be considered as East-Asian. In order to show this, its most prolific artists should be established first. As of May 24th, the fifteen most-watched videos on 88Rising show a clear trend towards three artists: Rich Chigga, Keith Ape, and finally Higher Brothers. First and foremost, it should be mentioned that all three artists are signed to CXSHXNLY, 88Rising’s music label based in Los Angeles. However, all three artists started off independently in their own respective regions before being recruited to 88Rising; it is this period that will be inspected first to demonstrate where they are from and how they established their music careers. To begin with, Rich Chigga (stage name for Brian Imanuel) is a rapper who is 88Rising’s most prominent artist. Multiple sources demonstrate that Imanuel (born 1999) was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, and is of Chinese/Indonesian descent, although there is no mention of the reason behind his American-sounding name to be found.26 He garnered attention on the internet through short satirical clips on the popular medium Vine, but rose to sudden fame after he posted a video for his song ‘Dat $tick’ on YouTube in 2015. This particular song was produced by a producer named Ananta Giovanni Pranaya (also known by his stage name Ananta Vinnie), an Indonesian producer; together they independently released the song on the iTunes Store, Apple Music, Spotify and Soundcloud. Although his fluency in English might imply he went to an international school, he was actually home-schooled and mostly taught himself English through videos on the internet.27 However, due to the song being in English and the channels of distribution very much aimed at Western markets, Rich Chigga quickly became an internet phenomenon who was mostly relevant among Western audiences; in one interview, Imanuel recalls how his Indonesian fans often remarked ‘Why is he speaking English?’ beneath the video of ‘Dat $tick’.28 Thanks to his significant popularity overseas, Imanuel also became a local figure of interest who was frequently approached for autographs and photographs.29 The song also drew the attention of 88Rising, who subsequently signed him to their label CXSHXNLY in 2016. Although Imanuel is of Chinese/Indonesian descent and initially operated from Jakarta, the use of English in his songs and his prominent affiliation with an American label

26 Herd (2016). 27 Herd (2016). 28 Jenkins (2016). 29 Jenkins (2016).

make it difficult to determine at first glance to which extent his music can be called East- Asian. However, since he is a native Indonesian, his first independent material was produced in Jakarta, and 88Rising remains very explicit in mentioning his nativity, further analysis of his music on 88Rising should be used to establish how Imanuel is presented on the channel and whether this could be considered a spread of East-Asian popular culture, or rather simply has become an outing of American popular culture that is cleverly branded as ‘Asian culture’ by employing a native Indonesian rapper.

The second artist to be examined is Keith Ape (stage name for Dongheon Lee) who was born in 1993 in Bundang, a large suburban area of Seongnam, South-Korea.30 Lee initially started rapping under the moniker Kid Ash, creating music with local friends and uploading it to Soundcloud, until his output was noted by Cohort crew member Okasian in 2014. The Cohort is a South-Korean hip-hop crew that had already been attracting attention in the Korean underground hip-hop scenes for a few years.31 The group consisted of Korean rappers O$CAR, Reddy (who departed the group in 2016), Okasian, Kangkook, Jay Allday, Coke Jazz, and Bryan Cha$e, and is signed to Hi-Lite Records, a music label based in Seoul and regarded as an influential name in the underground hip-hop scene.32 Their music is nearly exclusively rapped in Korean, as the mastery of English is quite varyied amongst members, with a few (including Lee) knowing little to no English at all.33 They released several songs that were met with significant attention on YouTube and Soundcloud, such as ‘Helium’ (2013), ‘Space Ninja’ (2014), ‘Time’ (2014) and the mixtape Orca-Tape (2013). Lee initially collaborated with them on occasional basis. After he was featured on Okasian’s first solo album Boarding Procedures (2012), an album marked by a combination of English and Korean raps, he became a member of The Cohort and regular contributor to their mixtapes. During this time he also changed his stage name to Keith Ape. Early 2015, Keith Ape, Jay Allday and Okasian collaborated with Japanese rappers Kohh and Loota on the previously mentioned hit song ‘It G Ma’. The song was mostly a success in the U.S., where 60% of the total views on YouTube originated.34 The sudden increase in exposure led to Keith Ape’s

30 Kwak (2015). 31 Kwak (2015), ROK HIPHOP (2013). 32 Glasby (2016). 33 Noisey (2015). 34 Kwak (2015).

signing to 88Rising’s CXSHXNLY in 2015, but since Hi-Lite Records are not connected to his overseas activities, Lee is also still affiliated to them.35 In contrast to Imanuel, Lee raps almost exclusively in Korean, and has only started to incorporate more English into his lyrics since he signed with 88Rising. However, Lee did relocate to the U.S. after his signing and is now aiming to conquer the American hip-hop market,36 which he interestingly enough seemingly plans to do by continuing to include Korean rapping in his songs. Further analysis of Lee’s material on 88Rising has to point out how the company now presents Keith Ape, and how his presence on the platform contributes to the spread of East-Asian culture.

The final artist that will be focused on here are Higher Brothers, a group of four Chinese rappers (MaSiWei, DZ, Psy.P and Melo) who originate from Chengdu, the capital city of the southwestern province Sichuan.37 Their group name is a reference to the international Chinese air conditioner brand Haier, which they claim symbolised their goal of becoming recognised around the world.38 Prior to Higher Brothers, all four rappers were well-respected members of the Chengdu Rap House, or CDC.39 Additionally, Psy.P and Melo had formed a group of their own called Tiandi Ui; they met MaSiWei and DZ through their affiliation to CDC and decided to pair up. One of their first notable songs was a remix of the prolific hit song ‘Panda’ (2016) by American rapper Desiigner. This remix was characterised by an almost complete absence of English; moreover, Higher Brothers maintained their Chengdu dialect instead of switching to the more standard Mandarin.40 At this point, they were completely independent and not connected to any label, but nevertheless amassed a strong local underground following, typified by the sold-out shows where fans lined up as early as three hours before the doors opened; they also went on a tour that visited most major cities in China.41 On Youku and Tencent Videos, internet platforms that are commonly used in China as alternatives to the now-blocked YouTube, they accumulated in the tens of thousands of views.42 After signing to CXSHXNLY, Higher Brothers expanded their fanbase to include Western audiences, but also increased their Chinese fanbase, with over 42.000 listed fans on

35 Dari (2015). 36 Noisey (2015). 37 JamRed10 (2016). 38 Hypebeast (2017). 39 Yen (2017). 40 Agrawai (2017). 41 Toy (2017). 42 Yen (2017).

the popular Chinese social media website Weibo. They are currently touring across China and also have a concert planned in Hong-Kong that has already sold-out. Higher Brothers clearly started off independently within a growing hip-hop community in Sichuan, and also established a considerable local fanbase before joining 88Rising. A further analysis of their material on the platform will therefore be used to determine how 88Rising decided to present that connection to the local Chinese hip-hop scene, and how this influences the way they distribute East-Asian culture. All in all, it is clear that each of these artists’ roots are in East-Asia – respectively Indonesia, South-Korea and China. It is also clear that they all established local careers before coming into contact with 88Rising, and with the exception of Imanuel, they also all rap in their native tongue. At this point, we can assume that the music by Keith Ape and Higher Brothers can be identified as East-Asian popular culture, because of local relevance, established music careers and contributions to their local hip-hop scenes. This observation is more difficult to make for Rich Chigga, mostly because he raps in English and had a less established career before connecting with 88Rising; nonetheless, because of the way 88Rising strongly presents him as ‘Asian culture’ by including him in the larger context of artists such as Keith Ape and Higher Brothers, it is still important to take a closer look at his videos and fully determine whether Imanuel propagates elements of East-Asian culture. However, before we can further explore the videos by these artists, we must first learn more about 88Rising itself.

Overview of 88Rising 88Rising is a media company founded by Sean Miyashiro and presently based in Brooklyn, New York. The company establishes itself mostly through its YouTube channel, simply called ‘88rising’, which is currently its spearhead and most visible media outlet, but the company also operates an Instagram account and owns its own dedicated website, although the latter in its current form is barely anything but a digital portal to the YouTube channel. Its name is a reference to the shape of the Chinese characters 囍, which also translates to ‘double happiness’, a phrase that is used by the company as a sort of subtitle or catchphrase (‘88 is double happiness’). In Miyashiro’s own words, 88Rising is an effort to become a ‘definitive media brand that represents and celebrates Asian culture, especially for millennials and young people.’43 Its intention as stated by Miyashiro is not only to represent

43 Setaro (2016).

Asian culture on a large, globalized scale, but also to actively accommodate the communication of Asian culture to audiences outside of Asia. Miyashiro is of Japanese/Korean descent, but grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S.44 He travelled to Austin in Texas to start a company called Recreation, which managed electronic music artists; Austin is the host for the SXSW Festival and Conferences that is held every year and therefore attracts many music artists. Through this, he launched a platform for electronic music in collaboration with Vice called ‘Thump’: a website dedicated to reporting news on electronic music. Vice itself was originally founded in 1994 as a print magazine that covered various culture and news topics. Since then, the magazine has expanded and is now Vice Media, encompassing a magazine, website, film production company and a record label. The website and magazine cover a wide selection of topics such as politics, news, cinema, art, music, photography, fashion, sports, and more. The website is divided into a main page with channels that cover all these respective topics, and Thump became one of those channels, focusing on electronic music and clubbing culture. Although Miyashiro enjoyed working for the coverage on electronic music, he stated that his real passion would be to create a similar channel for Asian culture, which is why he created 88Rising midway 2016.

Intention and target audience An important remark should be made regarding the specific Asian countries that 88Rising intends to represent. Their own dedicated homepage, www.88rising.com (minimal as it may be in its functioning), features a row of national flags at the top; although such flags are a common sight among website interfaces, they usually link to different versions of the site that correspond with the selected nationality. The nations that are displayed are (in order of appearance) Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Laos, Burma, Singapore and Cambodia.45 These flags are not selectable and do not provide the user with a different version. Thus, we are left with the question of why they have been included and what exactly they represent. Clearly, 88Rising does not seek to represent the entirety of the Asian continent (as is shown by the large amount of Asian nations that are excluded from the list of flags), but excludes itself to East- and South-East Asia. Moreover, the first four countries are actually most relevant to

44 Chow (2017). 45 88Rising (2017).

88Rising, as the vast majority of its videos feature either Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese or Korean artists or cultural products/practices. By presenting this selection of flags on their website, 88Rising establishes their interpretation of “Asia” and what they refer to when they state their wish to represent and celebrate “Asian” culture. Therefore, the flags in itself are an explicit yet quite subtle statement (mostly because the flags are quite small, and many viewers outside of Asia will have to look up certain flags to know which nation they represent). Furthermore, 88Rising’s stated intention is ‘to become the definitive media brand’ for Asian culture aimed at millennials and young people.46 Miyashiro has claimed that 88Rising intends to represent and celebrate Asian culture. However, this is only a very general and too ambiguous description of what 88Rising seeks to achieve. By going through numerous interviews with Miyashiro, two specific points can by synthesised that better describe their aim. First, 88Rising mostly seeks to represent a specific selection of East-Asian hip-hop and rnb artists. This is clearly demonstrated by the interviews with CNN,47 Pitchfork,48 The Hundreds49, and Forbes,50 wherein a specific set of East-Asian artists continuously reappears: Rich Chigga, Keith Ape and Higher Brothers. At this moment in time, these artists are clearly the focal point of 88Rising’s media output. Although the platform offers a large variety of videos on their channel (as will be demonstrated in greater detail later on), they are clearly a commercial company that first and foremost seeks to represent and promote its artists and to establish its brand identity as well as possible. Second, it is not only their aim to simply represent these artists and their work, but also to facilitate interactions with American artists to create syntheses between East-Asian and American popular culture, as evidenced for example by the remix of ‘It G Ma’ with A$AP Ferg, Father, Waka Flocka Flame, and Asian-American rapper Dumbfoundead. By doing so, 88Rising intends for ‘Western artists to collaborate or experience Asian things, and vice versa.’51 Again, by facilitating collaborations between the East-Asian artists they represent and American artists that already have a more established reputation amongst Western audiences, they clearly intend to maximise the exposure of their own signed artists.

46 Setaro (2016). 47 Liu (2017). 48 Chow (2017). 49 Kenfe (2015). 50 Setaro (2016). 51 Chow (2017).

In order to establish 88Rising’s target audience, let us look at their preferred promotional methods in addition to what they themselves claim their audience to be. On one hand, they want to ‘speak to the taste’ of Asian millennials in- and outside of Asia as stated by Miyashiro. However, and more importantly, the artists themselves have been explicit about how their affiliation to 88Rising has brought them significantly more exposure amongst both Western audiences and artists; MaSiWei from Higher Brothers stated how ‘88Rising has been helpful in getting our music outside of Asia’, and that since joining them, their number of international fans has gone up52; Keith Ape has collaborated with American rappers Playboi Carti, Denzel Curry and producer Southside through the network of 88Rising; Rich Chigga was brought in touch with prolific American rapper Ghostface Killah from the Wu- Tang Clan, and a selection of contemporary popular American rappers were asked to react to one of his videos (a video which will be analysed more in-depth further on). Clearly, the notion of combining selected East-Asian artists with American artists whom are established and popular amongst Western audiences is a crucial promotional method to 88Rising. The fact that they choose contemporary popular American artists to achieve this also implies that they emphasise distribution to Western audiences; it implies a notion of cultural proximity that we will return to later during the overall synthesis and discussion. Additionally, it is important to acknowledge that through this promotional method, 88Rising clearly does not distribute exclusively East-Asian popular culture, but incorporates elements of American popular culture. Therefore, further analysis has to show how its most prominent artists contribute to a distribution of East-Asian popular culture, but also to what extent this is influenced by American popular culture.

Through the exploration of 88Rising’s intention and target audience, we now have two issues that need to be addressed through an analysis of a selection of their videos: (1) The ethnicity of the earlier mentioned three prominent artists on its own is not enough to subsequently claim their material on 88Rising is East-Asian culture. Further analysis of their output on the platform should be used to demonstrate how they contribute to 88Rising’s distribution of East-Asian popular culture, and to what extent this is influenced by the platform’s elements of American popular culture. (2) Furthermore, what seem to be 88Rising’s criteria for selecting specific East-Asian artists, and why have they chosen specifically these three East-Asian artists to mainly represent their platform? However, before

52 Agrawai (2017).

we dive deeper into the video material itself, let us take a step back and first establish how the content on 88Rising is organised in a categorical overview.

Categorical content As of May 24th 2017, YouTube channel 88Rising has uploaded 197 videos. Although the most high-profile artists (Rich Chigga, Higher Brothers and Keith Ape) in these videos are signees of CXSHXNLY, many of the other artists or channels that are featured, such as Jay Park, Joji, Yung Bae, Peaceful Cuisine, Yaeji, DEAN, Filthy Frank and more, are independent or signed to other labels. The collection can be split up into several categories (listing the amount of videos after the name):

original music: 60 (actual video: 46, audio only: 14) cover music: 14 music mixes: 3 live music: 31 cuisine: 27 promotional: 5 interviews: 12 choreographies: 8 artistic: 17 cultural: 20

Most of these categories are not explicitly mentioned by the channel and are only one interpretation among many possibilities, or an attempt to somewhat organise 88rising’s videos into a structure that can be analysed. Cover music, choreographies and most of the interviews are always mentioned as such in the title; cuisine videos are divided into three playlists: ‘Seoulfood’ (4 videos), ‘Eighty ATE’ (19 videos) and ‘Japan’s Greatest Bartender’ (4 videos). A few remarks should be made to clarify the other categories: (1) the live music category includes a number of videos from a series named 88 GOOD FORTUNES. Videos in this series feature a single artist who performs one or two of their tracks and/or a freestyle over another track, plus an interview on a wide range of topics. Therefore, these videos are hard to categorise as one specific category, but due to the emphasis on the ‘liveness’ in the videos, they are also categorised as such.

(2) Videos in the artistic category prioritise a more artistic or aesthetic message over a musical or informational one. Most of these videos are created by Frank Yang, a Taiwanese American video artist who explores notions of the contemporary bodily aesthetic. The earlier mentioned emphasis on the aesthetic quality of videos by 88Rising is elevated to actual subject in Yang’s videos, wherein the aesthetic of the human body is artistically explored. Moreover, Yang’s videos not only feature the bodily aesthetic as main topic, but are also heavily edited and stylized to once again emphasise the focus on aesthetic quality that accompanies many videos on 88Rising. (3) The cultural category might seem problematic or unspecified at first glance, but videos in this category specifically aim to represent elements of culture that are otherwise not included in the list. The name “other East-Asian cultural phenomena” might therefore be more appropriate, but for the sake of convenience is now only used once for clarification. It includes videos on a broad array of subjects, such as the red light district in Thailand, an exploration of Japanese fashion brand Bape, the appalling working conditions of Korean factory workers during the 80’s and 90’s, the Japanese animated film Akira from 1988, etc. First of all, the general categorical overview confirms that 88Rising specifically aims to emphasise hip-hop and rnb: specifically, from the videos listed above, 133 out of 197 have hip-hop or rnb as subject, either directly or by reference in the form of interviews or short informational clips. However, from a categorical perspective, it is also interesting to note that there is a noticeable and significant amount of videos in ‘other’ categories – cuisine, artistic and cultural, combining for a total of 57 videos, or roughly 30% of the total amount of videos on 88Rising. The large amount of such videos implies that 88Rising does put effort in distributing other parts of East-Asian popular culture (besides the promotion of their own artists); videos in these categories entail Japanese anime and Korean cinema, social circumstances of Korean factory workers in the 80’s and 90’s, a short documentary on red light district in Thailand, demonstrations on how to prepare kimchi, sashimi, Korean seafood, etc. – all in all, a broad introduction to selected topics from East-Asian culture. Then again, the amount of views for these videos ranges from 30.000 to 300.000, which is considerably less than videos by more prolific artists, whose videos comfortably reach several million views. Since the priority lies with the videos by these artists, let us first take a closer look at their most prolific videos.

Analyses: 1. ‘Who That Be’ As of June 22nd, the most-watched video on 88rising is ‘Who That Be’ by Rich Chigga (real name Brian Imanuel), produced by 88Rising.53 It was posted on November 29, 2016, and has garnered over 13 million views over that period. The video is characterised by three distinct elements: the lack of cultural signifiers, the simplistic musical style, and a humoristic/satirical atmosphere. For a platform that in their own words represents and celebrates Asian culture, there are remarkably few cultural signifiers in its most-watched video. The video commences with shots of a suburban neighbourhood, and although there is no explicit mention of it, this neighbourhood feels exceptionally American. The particular architecture of the houses, the wide street with a stop sign at the end – all point towards an upper-class suburban neighbourhood in the USA. The other depicted sceneries are a forest with asphalt road, a vintage-looking couch with similar looking lamp, a battleship of unidentifiable nationality, and finally the skyline and city roads of an unknown city. It is only with extreme scrutiny that one can distinguish the words ‘VenusFort’ in neon letters in the backdrop of this skyline, revealing that the featured city is actually Tokyo (Odaiba VenusFort is a shopping mall situated in Tokyo). However, the name is only visible for a very short time and appears blurry in the background. All in all, there are barely any references to East-Asian culture, and from a visual standpoint, the video simply appears as an American popular music video. The simplistic musical style is another thing that stands out. The track is a hip-hop song with a very sparse beat, made up by only a low synth, a high-hat, kick drum, snare drum, a chime, and an occasional backing vocal. The synth repeats a simplistic five-note pattern spanning two bars and is extended with a sixth note every four bars. The chorus features a low rumbling bass and an extra percussive synth that resembles one of the sounds from an 808 drum machine, a sonic characteristic that is also very common in contemporary American trap hip-hop. These elements mostly make up the entire song, but the beat’s simplistic character is in direct contrast with Imanuel’s rapping. He often changes rhythmic emphases and overall rhythmical structure of his sentences, alternating between a fast-paced, jolted style and a slower, more repetitive one. His rhyming schemes are simple but effective, most often simply using the last word of each sentence. However, most importantly, all these

53 88Rising (2016).

musical elements together form a song that is basically inter-exchangeable with most contemporary American trap songs. The simplicity of the instrumental coupled with his delivery as a rapper are important elements to the satirical quality of the video. After the initial opening shots of the suburb, Imanuel is depicted sitting on a couch while softly petting a small lapdog. His young appearance and somewhat awkward facial expressions and dance moves contribute to a nerdy or goofy image when combined with the aforementioned visual elements. This image is in stark contrast with Imanuel’s lyrics; for example, his opening line is ‘Yo bitch on me but you can never do nothing / Cuz yo momma raised a pussy.’ However, an important reason for the success of this satire and supposedly also the song itself is Imanuel’s skill as a rapper. If his rapping would have been poorly executed, the satirical effect would have been greatly reduced, since he would have simply affirmed the contrasting image created in the video. His skill as a rapper offsets the audience’s expectation that is based on his image, which successfully establishes the satirical element of the video. One might regard the satirical nature of ‘Who That Be’ as originating from an East- Asian source because of Imanuel’s presence as Indonesian artist. From this perspective, the satire could be a satirical take on American contemporary hip-hop. However, as established earlier, there are no East-Asian cultural indicators throughout the video, and Imanuel raps in English. Although necessary for the satire to function optimally, the simplistic beat that strongly follows the trend of contemporary American trap music is more likely to be perceived as part of the contemporary hip-hop scene, instead of externally confronting it through satire. Through all these observations, we have to conclude that ‘Who That Be’ cannot be considered part of East-Asian culture, but is rather an outing of contemporary American popular hip-hop, produced by an American company. Although it is performed by a native Chinese/Indonesian, his ethnicity is positioned by 88Rising to gain cultural distinction that promotes the material to Western markets. This conclusion is supported by the second most-watched video on 88rising, ‘Rappers react to Rich Chigga’.54 It was published on the 12th of July, 2016 and produced by 88Rising. The full title explicitly names a few of the American rappers that are invited to watch another video by Rich Chigga, ‘Dat $tick’, published on February 22, 2016. The concept of the video is commonly found on YouTube, where a certain group of people (either unknown people, celebrities, artists, YouTubers, etc.) are asked to watch a selected video and respond on

54 88Rising (2016).

camera. The particular video in this case, ‘Dat $tick’ by Rich Chigga, was the breakout video for the artist, as described earlier. It features a similar satirical presentation such as described in the analysis of ‘Who That Be’, but here, Imanuel’s nerdy image is far more heavily emphasised, as he is outfitted with a pink, buttoned-up polo and a Reebok fanny pack. Even before viewing the video, the particular respondents are the first element of interest. As already mentioned in the title, they are contemporary American rappers: Ghostface Killah (a fundamental figure within American hip-hop and member of the famous formation The Wu-tang Clan), Desiigner (who released the incredibly popular track ‘Panda’ in 2016), Goldlink, Jazz Cartier, Tory Lanez, Flatbush Zombies, 21Savage, Cam’ron and MadeinTYO. All of these rappers are currently popular American hip-hop artists, with the exception of Ghostface Killah and Cam’ron, who have a longer established career and are both widely respected artists within the hip-hop field. During the video, we see how each rapper is surprised by Rich Chigga’s rapping ability that contrasts so starkly with his image – this particular element of skill vs. appearance is of particular interest to all of them. The essential point to this video is that by validating Rich Chigga’s artistry through the positive opinion of more established American rappers, 88Rising attempts to promote Rich Chigga to the Western audiences that are already familiar with the American rappers in the video. Additionally, and more implicitly, by positioning Rich Chigga as a ‘foreign’ rapper against a selection of American rappers, 88Rising tries to posit him as part of the Other, while in fact (as established earlier) he cannot be regarded as representative of East-Asian culture in his current context. Although this thesis seeks to demonstrate how 88Rising does distribute East-Asian popular culture, it was essential to also explore their most visible artist and his relation to this distribution. For now, it is clear we have to conclude that 88Rising does not distribute East- Asian popular culture through the presentation of Rich Chigga. However, I would also like to demonstrate how their two other most prolific artists, Keith Ape and Higher Brothers, do contribute to the distribution of East-Asian culture, by moving on to a few of their most- watched videos. Together, Keith Ape and Higher Brothers represent half of the videos featured in the most-watched section, with a significant portion of their videos listing between 1 and 2.5 million views – Keith Ape is featured on 6 of the 20 most-watched videos, Higher Brothers on 4 of 20.

2. ‘WeChat’ The first video that is of interest to this thesis is actually a collaboration between Higher Brothers and Keith Ape called ‘WeChat’.55 The title is a reference to the highly popular Chinese social media application of the same name, used for instant messaging. It is the opening track of Higher Brothers’ 2017 album Black Cab, and was produced by MaSiWei, one of the Higher Brothers members. The video on 88Rising has garnered over 2.2 million views. In contrast to Rich Chigga’s song, the track is completely rapped in Chinese by Higher Brothers with one Korean verse at the end by Keith Ape, but the video also does not include subtitles. Only the very start features English, with MaSiWei explaining in sparse English how ‘there’s no Skype, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, we use WeChat!’ The video is edited in such a way to make it look as if we are watching it on the screen of a mobile phone. It comprises of film fragments showing Higher Brothers rapping along to the song in their studio, but edited to appear as if the viewer is watching them on WeChat. Near the end of the track, a notification pops up, saying how ‘Keith Ape is inviting you to a video call’; he then appears in a low-resolution video that is occasionally interrupted by a loading screen, and can be seen rapping along with Seoul’s Lotte World Tower in the background, showing that he is calling them all the way from South-Korea. All these elements propagate the image of the entire video transpiring on WeChat. The social messaging app itself could even be considered as an element of East-Asian popular culture; it currently has over 272 million active users, and more than a third of all time spent on mobile internet by Chinese mainlanders is on WeChat.56 In addition to the fragments, we are also presented with conversations through text messages that similarly appear as if they are WeChat messages. These messages are in English, and are sent by a large variety of people; some relevant to 88Rising (such as sean88, who is assumedly meant to be Sean Miyashiro, and Keith Ape; a few American rappers such as Migos, Famous Dex, supposedly exclaiming their love for Higher Brothers; and finally characters who are not identifiable but are presented as fans of Higher Brothers or Keith Ape, with one particular female fan named Grace who insists on their attention by sending suggestive photographs, and one conversation request from a contact simply named ‘Whack label’ that is promptly rejected. This all transpires in English, and therefore provides the

55 88Rising (2017). 56 The Economist (2016).

otherwise completely Chinese/Korean song with an English narrative that is also suitable for a transnational and Western audience. Although clearly inspired by American trap, MaSiWei created a beat that does set them apart. The song is a more laid-back variation on trap hip-hop, maintaining the characteristic rapping rhythms that are driven by triplets and syncopation (such as demonstrated at several moments during the song at the 0:43 to 0:56, 1:03 to 1:16, or 2:08 to 2:28 marks), but at the same time sounds different from customary American trap due to extra emphasis on ‘sweeter’ sounds, such as the repeating high chimes combined with the violin chords. Furthermore, by combining a video suitable for a transnational audience, WeChat as prominent East-Asian visual cultural element, and a collaboration between two established East-Asian rappers, ‘WeChat’ is a clear example of how 88Rising distributes East-Asian popular culture to a Western audience.

3. ‘Diamonds’ One particular video – ‘Diamonds’ by Keith Ape – is also interesting to this analysis, as it is Keith Ape’s most-watched video on 88Rising with nearly 3 million views.57 The song was produced by Jedi P, an American producer who was rather unknown before this track; a search for his name leads to a Soundcloud account where he posts his beats for a little over 5000 followers, plus a few self-released tracks on YouTube. Since the producer is American, musically seen this song is an example of the way 88Rising facilitates collaborations between East-Asian and American artists. However, in contrast to what was observed in the Rich Chigga video, ‘Diamonds’ maintains certain East-Asian cultural elements, while also incorporating elements from American popular culture, as will be demonstrated in the analysis. An immediate detail that grabs the attention is that the video opens with ‘Converse x Keith Ape present’. Converse is an American shoe company that is well-known for their production of Chuck Taylor All Stars, a shoe that has become a recognisable icon in streetwear fashion. Keith Ape wears a pair of striking white All Stars in the video, which are from a new line of streetwear called ‘counterclimate’ by Converse. The interests for Converse are obvious, as Keith Ape wearing them in the video is a clear form of commercial endorsement. However, Keith is also wearing a camo raincoat by Bape, an iconic Japanese streetwear brand. Bape, also known as A Bathing Ape, is a fashion brand founded by Nigo in

57 88Rising (2016).

1993, a Japanese fashion designer. It originated in the Harajuku area in Tokyo and was of the first Japanese streetwear brands. By wearing the coat in the video, Keith Ape also maintains his own East-Asian fashion style, even though he is simultaneously endorsing the Converse shoes. During the video, the viewer follows Keith Ape in a night out through a series of dazzling, psychedelic visual effects. At 2:39, Keith even puts on glasses that momentarily turn his surroundings into an anime-style animated world; the neon street signs around him are mostly Korean, he walks through a shop with a fishmonger preparing fish and squid; although the specific city cannot be distinguished, the signs are clearly intended to imply the atmosphere of an Asian city. By combining the commercial aspect of Converse with this atmosphere and the fact he raps about half of his lyrics in Korean, Keith Ape seems to maintain a certain autonomy instead of completely surrendering to an American commercial image to promote Converse or American popular culture. However, the video was produced by BRTHR, a duo consisting of the American Kyle Wightman and Japanese/American Alex Lee. Lee grew up in Tokyo, but moved to New York to attend film school, where he also met Wightman.58 Together they created BRTHR as a Brooklyn-based production duo, and have since produced music videos for popular American pop artists such as Charlie XCX, Jessie Ware, Miley Cyrus and The Weeknd. As their work clearly belongs to the scene of contemporary American popular culture, it is important to establish that any atmosphere of an Asian city in the ‘Diamonds’ video was created by an American film production duo, and is therefore no representation of East-Asian popular culture. All in all, the elements of East-Asian popular culture that are distributed through this video are quite limited – in fact, only Keith Ape himself as South-Korean rapper with Korean lyrics and the presence of fashion brand Bape could be considered as such. In contrast to this, the ‘Asian atmosphere’ of the grimy city around him, combined with the neon lights and psychedelic visual effects, seem to have been applied mostly to create the image of a dystopian Oriental city à la Blade Runner.59 From this perspective, the implied visual Asian elements are used stereotypically to affirm that image. Thus, although certain quite specific elements of East-Asian popular culture (Keith’s established Korean artistry, the Bape coat) are distributed through the video, they are accompanied by visuals that imply to be East- Asian cultural signifiers, but are in fact American creations. Altogether, we can therefore

58 Luk (2016). 59 Yu (2008): 54.

conclude that the video does show some specific outings of East-Asian popular cultural, but together with the larger context of the video, are used to create an exotic sense of cultural autonomy for Keith Ape to maximise his cultural capital in the eyes of Western audiences.

4. ‘Made In China’ A final intriguing video is by Higher Brothers, called ‘Made In China’.60 One aspect that stands out immediately while viewing the video is that it is subtitled in English and Chinese. This provides transnational audiences with a way to follow and understand the lyrics, in contrast to the other videos by Higher Brothers that do not have this feature – which might be one explanation as to why ‘Made In China’ is currently their most popular video. The lyrics themselves are an obvious reference to China’s export of products with the iconic disclamatory line on country of origin – ‘made in China’. The first half of the hook (the only part of the song that is in English, besides Famous Dex’s verse) is a direct reference to this:

‘My chains, new gold watch, made in China We play ping pong ball, made in China Buy designer shit for my bitch, made in China Yeah Higher Brothers' Black Cab, made in China’

The last line quoted above is a reference to how their most recent album, Black Cab, is apparently produced in China. The first verse by MaSiWei mostly continues the theme of Chinese cultural and industrial export, incorporating a long list of products, from toothbrushes to umbrellas to hot sauce, and even referencing how Mandarin is now being taught at American schools. The other verses by DZ, Melo and Psy.P also equate the export power to Higher Brothers’ success in China’s rap industry so far and their intention to conquer the international hip-hop scene similarly to the capital dominance of Chinese products. Psy.P also mentions Chinese traditional poet Li Bai in his verse, stating how the greatness of his own lyrics must mean he ‘was Li Bai in a past life’. With all these lyrical references, Higher Brothers present themselves not only as a Chinese product, but one that is consciously looking to take over the world.

60 88Rising (2017).

Higher Brother’s intention to represent Chinese culture is also emphasised by the abundance of cultural signifiers throughout the video, which was shot in Chengdu, China.61 First of all, they are all wearing tracksuits from the 2012 Chinese Olympic team. Furthermore, the first shown location is a presumably Chinese interior, with objects such as fans, a mahjong board, a large standing screen with Chinese characters, Chinese porcelain and red lanterns; another location is a narrow alley decorated with paper lanterns, also with Chinese characters; a third location is in front of a large temple-like Chinese building with red neon lights; all these objects and locations seem to enunciate Chinese culture. Additionally, the featured guest artist American rapper Famous Dex does not appear in the video – instead, the viewer gets a screen that simply states ‘Dexter couldn’t make it to China’, followed by ‘This video is not available in your country’, which is probably a reference to China’s strict media policy that censors a lot of media items and services from outside of China, and is here implied to have censored Famous Dex’s contribution to the video. Another perspective on this moment is that it is actually the Western audience missing out on a part which is only accessible in China or certain parts of Asia; both perspectives work, and are mostly dependent on the location of the viewer, which is a further testament to how the video is aimed at transnational audiences. All in all, ‘Made In China’ is a song that has both lyrics and a video that significantly reference Chinese culture. Together with the targeted transnational audience, Higher Brothers’ local relevance (as demonstrated by their upcoming live tour around China and an appearance at Hong Kong’s Clockenflap festival), we can conclude that the track is a clear example of East-Asian popular culture on 88Rising that is available to Western audiences.

Synthesis Now that videos by all three prominent artists on 88Rising have been discussed, there are several important points to be distilled from the analysis. These points will also specifically aim to answer questions regarding why they prioritise these specific artists, and the image of East-Asian popular culture that 88Rising creates by highlighting them. Each of the three prominent artists represents East-Asian culture to a different extent. The first artist we discussed was Rich Chigga. As established in the analysis of his song ‘Who That Be’, his music and video is interchangeable with contemporary American trap, also since he chooses to convey himself completely in English. The video or his lyrics do not

61 Martin (2017).

show any signs of East-Asian popular culture. 88Rising presents him as a somewhat exotic rapper by also producing a video wherein American rappers react to his breakout hit ‘Dat $tick’, which positions him as an Asian rapper against more established American rappers; however, this is only an attempt to provide him cultural capital on the Western market. The next artist, Keith Ape, shows varying degrees of representing East-Asian culture. As demonstrated, he is mostly presented in a synthesis between American and East-Asian popular culture, as he mixes his own Korean rap style and East-Asian fashion with American collaborations for his video and beat in ‘Diamonds’. Although the video in its completeness is therefore no example of East-Asian popular culture, it does propagate specific East-Asian elements, and could also function as an introduction to other videos by The Cohort (Keith’s South-Korean rap crew), some of which are also on 88Rising. His feature on Higher Brothers’ ‘WeChat’ establishes him more clear as South-Korean rapper for Western audiences, as he raps exclusively in Korean on this track and is shown in front of one of Seoul’s landmarks, Lotte World Tower. Finally, Higher Brothers were discussed, who are the clearest example of how 88Rising distributes East-Asian popular culture. Their songs ‘WeChat’ and ‘Made In China’ are both characterised by an almost complete lack of English lyrics; instead, the former uses a simple narrative with English text in the video, while the latter uses subtitles, which makes both videos suitable for transnational audiences. These videos bring Chinese popular (as demonstrated by their extensive live tour around China and Hong-Kong) hip-hop to Western audiences. An element that has not been readdressed are the videos from the ‘other’ category, as described earlier in the paragraph on 88Rising’s Categorical structure. Some of these videos are very clear demonstrations of East-Asian popular culture, such as the introductions to the Japanese anime films Paprika or Akira, instructions on how to prepare kimchi, Korean seafood or sashimi, etc. Since the videos by prominent artists are more representative of 88Rising’s material, they more chosen to analyse over the ‘other’ videos; however, the videos by these prominent artists can also function as gateway to these videos, which is another way in which 88Rising distributes elements of East-Asian popular culture. All in all, the primary motivation behind 88Rising’s emphasis on these three artists seems to be their most noticeable shared element: they all produce variations of trap hip-hop. Since this is currently a popular genre of hip-hop amongst Western audiences (as demonstrated by the large amount of contemporary American rappers that use the genre, including highly prolific names such as Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Jay-Z, etc.) it

is commercially seen most viable to select East-Asian artists that also partake in this musical trend. In addition to being part of the contemporary trap trend, 88Rising seems to maintain a combination of artists that are relevant in their region of origin and artists that are simply marketable as part of Asian culture, as demonstrated for example with Rich Chigga. Through these criteria, they end up with a mix of Western or American musical outings performed by East-Asian artists on one hand, and a representation of East-Asian contemporary hip-hop that is occasionally (but not always) combined with elements of American popular culture on the other. Altogether, it cannot be claimed that all the material on 88Rising is a distribution of East-Asian popular culture, as was clearly demonstrated by the analyses. On the other hand, it has been established that, in various cases, they certainly distribute East-Asian popular culture, be it to different extents – sometimes by only presenting specific elements, sometimes through a video in its entirety.

Platform II: JaME / KoME Before we explore the platforms JaME and KoME any further, we must first again establish that the popular culture they distribute is East-Asian. For both platforms, it is important to note that they do not create popular culture themselves in the same sense as for example 88Rising; rather, they mostly distribute news articles regarding respectively Japanese and Korean popular artists. Since they both platforms almost exclusively focus on popular culture that is produced in either Japan or Korea, it is not as complex as with 88Rising to establish that they distribute material on East-Asian popular culture. The essential difference is that both JaME and KoME explicitly state the material they target to cover to be respectively be Japanese and Korean, whereas 88Rising was far more ambiguous in their claim of representing and celebrating Asian culture in general. Another argument supporting the observation that JaME and KoME target East-Asian popular culture is that there is no immediately noticeable prominent artist that represents their platforms. This indicates that both platforms actually intend to cover a broad variety of popular acts from Japan/Korea, in order to give their audience a clear overview of the contemporary relevant popular scene in both countries. Additionally, the fact that there is such a long list of artists featured on both websites makes it unrealistic to investigate each artist in terms of local relevance and biographical details. Since both websites are exceptionally explicit in stating their intention and target material (as will be explored more in-depth later on), this thesis will take these explications as valid starting point for further analysis on the way they put this intention into practice – or, the way they thus distribute East-Asian popular culture and to which audiences.

JaME overview The website JaME World is an online platform for news on Japanese popular music. JaME originated from www.JrockFrance.com, a website aimed at providing information on visual kei music. Since visual kei still remains an important subject to JaME, it also needs a brief overview to better understand the content on the platform. Visual kei is a Japanese movement in popular Japanese rock music that is not so much characterized by specific musical elements, but rather by a strong emphasis on visual expression. Artists often wear elaborate costumes and/or makeup that often create a cross-gender image, while the design of their clothing is somewhat reminiscent of the visual style found in gothic, punk and glam

rock images.62 An important facet to this cross-dressing is that it largely aims to attract attention from the mostly female fans, who often imitate or recreate outfits of their favourite band members. These fans also maintain strict social codes that govern in which section a fan is allowed to stand during the performance, what dance moves are executed at which specific time, etc. Interaction between members is an element that is highly appreciated by audience members, for example by engaging in acts of ‘fan service’, where they exchange hugs or even kisses. The imitation by female fans, the strong devotion to gain recognition from their favourite band members during live performances, and the ‘fan services’ by band members link visual kei to the ‘somewhat fetishistic otaku culture.’63 Otaku is a term used to describe intense fans of Japanese popular culture, who dedicate ‘substantial amounts of personal resources into consuming and (re)creating Japanese popular culture.’64 This fascination sometimes extends to forms of fetishism, and in the case of Japanese female otaku, this is reflected by the popularity of the genre yaoi, love stories about homosexual boys; the earlier mentioned ‘fan service’ by band members is an example of such a link between visual kei and otaku.65 Due to the intricate relationships that fans construct between themselves and artists, visual kei can be regarded more as a cultural complex than simply a musical subgenre; all in all, the crucial importance of social constructions and practices within visual kei fandom are important to better our understanding of articles regarding visual kei on JaME. In 2001, the website www.JrockFrance.com merged with www.JpopFrance.com. Thanks to the popularity of the merged product, a joint product was initiated that included voluntary participants from France, Italy, Poland and Germany. An expanded association of this project, named Japanese Music Entertainment (or JaME) was founded in 2004. Since then, it focused on connecting Japanese contemporary artists and music to European audiences and promoters/distributors. In 2005, this targeted area was expanded to also include America. Content on the JaME website is exclusively written material. The majority of articles on the website focus on news regarding past or upcoming gigs of Japanese popular artists around the world. The menu at the top of the homepage offers several categories that the user can select, with one option under the home category named “video” linking to the YouTube page of JaME. However, only 55 videos have been uploaded to the channel over the course of

62 Hashimoto (2007): 87. 63 McCleod (2013): 310. 64 Hashimoto (2007): 87. 65 McCleod (2013): 314.

over six years, with the first video dating back to January 6th, 2011 and the last to April 26th, 2017. Its most-watched video, a promotional clip for X JAPAN featuring a recording of a live performance by the band, has been watched over 1.3 million times. All other videos are either interviews (10 clips) or short video messages by artists (44 clips). The second and third most- watched videos have gathered around 53.000 views; the next six ranging from 22.000 down to 11.000; the remaining 46 videos do not cross the 10.000 views mark, of which a majority does not reach 3000. These viewing numbers, combined with the low amount of uploads over a long period, confirm that JaME prioritises written material, which they claim receives 15.000 visitors on a daily basis.

KoME introduction Like JaME, KoME World is an international platform that is focused on the distribution of news regarding contemporary East-Asian popular music, but specialises in Korean popular music as opposed to JaME. It was established in 2007 by members from the JaME team. A surging interest in Korean popular music at the time led to the decision that a similar website as JaME, but then for Korean music, would be used for global news promotion. Initially, the platform was divided into two separate URL’s, respectively www.kmusiceuropa.com and www.kmusicamerica.com. In 2008, these two websites were merged into a single one, www.kome-world.com. The content on KoME is also strictly written material. Most articles on the platform focus on upcoming tours or gigs, album releases, or interviews with Korean artists. The menu at the top of the homepage is identical to the JaME version, but features different contemporary themes, and the subcategory ‘CD Japan’ on JaME is substituted for ‘YES Asia’ on KoME. Both these links function as gateways to web shops selling respectively Japanese or Korean music, books, films, etc. Although the KoME homepage also displays a ‘Video’ link, it appears to be broken – contrary to JaME, KoME is not findable on YouTube.

Both JaME and KoME are run by volunteers. This is an important observation, since it emphasises the non-profit mentality that characterises the websites; even the ‘about’ section of both websites stresses how important the notion of passionate volunteers is to the understanding of their methods and objectives. JaME is particularly explicit regarding the constitution of their team, stating:

‘JaME presently is available in a dozen different languages produced by a team of over hundred members from many different countries worldwide. The multi-lingual aspect of JaME is a commitment of our belief in the importance of making information about Japanese music accessible to all’, and additionally:

‘It is essential to understand that the JaME team is made up of volunteers with a strong passion for Japanese music. The core of JaME revolves around the ever expanding development of the Japanese music scene within Europe and America. From 1999 onwards the scene has been growing and inspiring people to learn about Japanese music, and in turn build a mentality of spreading Japanese music even further. It is this energy which powers the enthusiasm of those who work with and for JaME-World.com.’66

This particular outlook of voluntary non-profit journalism characterising JaME’s team is important to understand their intention and objectives.

Target audience and intention The short biography on the homepage of their website states that JaME is ‘the first multilanguage information website and database about Japanese music. Since 2004, we provide you daily news, interviews, reviews and a huge database about your favorite artists!’ Their prime objective is, again as quoted from their website, to ‘spread the popularity of contemporary Japanese music to the people of Europe and America.’ This ambition is reflected in the optional nationalities the user can select to change the displayed language and relevant content. These nations are Venezuela, the U.S.A., Québec (French Canada), Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Canada, Brazil and Argentina for America; the United Kingdom, Sweden, Russia, Poland, the Netherlands (which has been merged with the UK-website since 2014 and now displays archive material) Italy (inactive since 2013), France, Finland, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium (which links to either the French or Dutch homepage, depending on selected language) and Austria as choices for Europe; China (inactive since 2013) and Australia for respectively East-Asia and Oceania round out the options.

66 JaME (2017).

KoME features a message on their homepage that is identical to the one on JaME, but then substitutes Japanese with Korean and 2004 with 2007. They showcase a similarly widespread targeted audience, though not as extensive as JaME – the listed nations are Venezuela, the U.S.A., Peru (inactive since 2012), Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Argentina for America; and the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Spain and Germany for Europe. Although the list of countries is extensive, the America’s websites all display material dating back to August 2012 as their most recently posted articles, except for Brazil (dating back to 2016) and the U.S. (last posted on June 26th 2017). For Europe, the Polish version displays material from 2014, the Dutch version dates back to 2016, the French to 2013, the Spanish to 2012, while only the U.K., Finnish and German websites are up to date. Although many of the versions are no longer being updated, their archives are still accessible. To maintain continuity across the two websites and to be able to make a reasonable comparison with platforms 88Rising and HiphopKR later on, this thesis will focus on the U.S. versions of both JaME and KoME in the categorical structure and following analysis. Regardless of the exclusion, it is important to take the availability of all the different nationalities in itself into consideration, because it greatly increases the target audience and degree of transnationality in general.

As mentioned earlier, JaME and KoME are characterised by an explicit intention, stating that they aim to promote respectively Japanese and Korean contemporary popular music around the world. The ‘About’ section of JaME is particularly extensive on this subject, listing that its primary objective is ‘to spread the popularity of contemporary Japanese music to the people of Europe and America’, and its secondary objective ‘involves assisting Japanese artists to make connections and associations within Europe and America. We work to support artists and their managements as well as assisting them to export their music to a wider audience’, as they claim in their ‘About’ section. Although this latter point might imply a certain commercial affiliation, the key difference here when compared to 88Rising is that neither JaME nor KoME have commercial interests of their own; they do not seem to own commercial labels or enterprises that profit by the spread of East-Asian popular culture. On the contrary, although an increased popularity might certainly be commercially beneficial to the artists themselves, JaME / KoME have no direct affiliation that grants them the same benefits. Moreover, both platforms feature a small statement at the bottom of their homepage, which explicitly states that ‘No article published on this website is used for commercial

purposes.’ Combined with the fact that they are supposedly completely run by volunteers – though this cannot be checked to be factual, it gives a strong impression of the websites’ primary mode of production – it appears that JaME / KoME are platforms aiming to spread East-Asian popular culture from a non-profit journalistic approach. An element that somewhat contributes to this stated intention is the practical and unadorned layout of the websites. The homepage is a list of recent articles, presented with a pragmatic title and small photograph, with the most recent article at the top with larger photograph and title. The wording in the titles is to-the-point and intended to clearly communicate what the particular article is about, without inflating it with advertising descriptions. Additionally, each article is listed with its accompanying category, ranging between interviews, live reports, reviews, biographies and news, and shows its amount of received comments and statistics regarding social media (Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook). All in all, the presentation and tone are pragmatic and match the journalistic perspective and intention as stated by JaME / KoME. A facet that needs to be addressed with regard to the non-commercial outlook of both websites is the seemingly contradictory presence of advertising and a list of partners. First of all, the advertisements are minimal; one banner at the top and banners the sides display personalised advertisements or upcoming events by artists relevant to the websites. However, any simple ad-blocker removes these advertisements, as they are no integral part of either website. The simplest explanation for their appearance might be that even when JaME and KoME are run by volunteers in their entirety, the websites still require a minimum amount of money to cover maintenance and domain costs. Furthermore, the specific listed partners are all websites similar to JaME / KoME, with exception of CDJapan and YESASIA (only visible on KoME). These sites are web shops that sell respectively Japanese and East-Asian cd’s, dvd’s, books, films, etc., and they are the only visible commercial links on either JaME or KoME. However, since the websites function more as a pragmatic gateway to these web shops, it appears as though JaME and KoME seek to facilitate easy access for their viewers much rather than function as a web shop themselves. From this perspective, the fact that these web shops are listed seems to stem more from the websites’ intention to spread East-Asian popular music around the world – their viewers’ access to third-party web shops to obtain such materials is simply a convenient tool, which more importantly does not obstruct their non-commercial outlook because they are not directly affiliated to either the shops or the artists they feature.

Now that the target audience and intention of both JaME and KoME have been established, their content should first be arranged categorically, to show the websites’ structure and preferred methods of communication to achieve their intended objectives. To shortly reiterate, the following structuring and analyses will use the U.S. versions of both websites to maintain continuity across the different platforms throughout the thesis.

Categorical structure 1. JaME & KoME website presentation The homepage of both websites is identical, except for the differences that have already been listed above and a few other minor discrepancies, which will be addressed later on. The top menu bar lists six sections: ‘Homepage’, ‘News’, ‘Themes’, ‘Articles’, ‘Artists’ and ‘Schedule’. Most categories are self-explanatory; however, the themes section refers to material that was published for a specific event or with an overarching theme, such as ‘Christmas 2015’, ‘Globalizing Visual Kei: A Web Series’, or ‘J-POP SUMMIT 2016’. Each section after the homepage features an archive at the top where the user can select a specific month from any desired year, dating all the way back to 2004 for JaME and 2007 for KoME. The artist section shows a list of all featured artists with small photographs above their names. Finally, the schedule section lists five continents – Middle-East, Africa, America, East-Asia & Oceania, and Europe – with a long list of countries beneath it. Selecting one of these links provides the user with an overview of upcoming events or concerts in that region. In this format, the sections in the top menu bar serve an archival function, listing the complete body of work by the websites in a structured and practical way. As the user selects a section from the top menu bar, the bottom menu changes accordingly, which the user can then use to filter out articles of their preferred subcategory. With the default homepage section highlighted, the bottom menu bar lists several subcategories: ‘Latest news’, ‘Top stories’, ‘Top articles’, ‘Our selection’, ‘Reviews’, ‘Concerts’, ‘Releases’, ‘Video’ (which was discussed earlier and serves as a gateway to the JaME YouTube channel), and finally ‘CD Japan’ for JaME and ‘YES Asia’ for KoME (the links to web shops). The Top stories and articles, and our selection subcategories are of special interest to this thesis, since the first two possibly show news stories and articles that are most popular amongst viewers, and the latter shows material that is marked as extra noteworthy or relevant by JaME and KoME themselves – a directly visible manifestation of the websites’ intentions, which will therefore be subject to later content analysis.

2. Publishing numbers By estimate from counting the articles in their archives, JaME has published at least over 6000 news items and over 3000 articles, whereas KoME was most active from its inception in 2007 up until 2012, after which its activity was reduced to only four to six months; nonetheless, it still published around 3200 news items and around 250 articles. These numbers imply that both websites are first and foremost distribution platforms of news regarding Japanese and Korean music artists. Articles such as interviews, live reports, reviews and more are also frequently featured, but do not seem to be their main priority. However, most new items are very concise and often only consist of a few paragraphs, whereas the articles are longer and more in-depth. A crucial addition is that the homepage of both websites does not necessarily display the most recently published item at the top; for example, on July 3rd, JaME homepage showed a live report of a concert by Hollow Mellow at the top from July 2nd, even though a news item had been released about the first single by Mikansei Alice on July 3rd. In fact, JaME’s homepage did not feature any news items from the two weeks prior to this, and instead displayed 5 interviews, 2 live reports, a review and a biography – the only news item amongst this list dated back to June 15th. This observation implies that JaME intends to keep up with the most recent news regarding Japanese music artists, but regards the in-depth articles as its focal point. Based on these numbers, it can also safely be stated that JaME is far more active than KoME, and has even been exceptionally active in general, as it steadily published over 30 news items and around 15 articles per month over the past 12 years. More importantly, although KoME had a very active five-year window when it was founded, its output since 2013 has been quite minimal. Therefore, JaME should be considered more relevant to the distribution of contemporary East-Asian popular music. We will proceed by inspecting the particular items from the Top stories and articles, and Our selection sections in-depth, to see how they relate to JaME’s explicit intention of spreading Japanese popular music in a non- commercial way.

Analysis As mentioned above, the analysis will focus shortly on three separate sections from JaME: Top stories, Top articles, and Our selection. Each section features 12 items. For all three sections, the first thing that stands out as common aspect is that there is no mention of how the inclusion of the articles is determined. This omission is most glaring in the Top stories and articles sections; does Top denote most-viewed, most-liked, most-shared, most-

commented? Or is it simply another normative description by the website itself, similar to the Our selection section? All articles do display a Facebook recommendation counter beneath their summary, which assumingly shows the amount of times it has been shared on Facebook by a viewer. However, these amounts vary greatly, ranging between 0 and 1700; moreover, the articles with the most recommendations are not featured in the Top lists, but instead only show up in the Our selection section. This observation supports the notion that items in the Top lists are also consciously selected by JaME, instead of representing popularity or high amount of views. Therefore, it is important that this analysis attempts to demonstrate which underlying intention dictates the constitution of the Top lists.

1. Top stories The Top stories section is comprised of short news articles, arranged by date of publication, which goes back to 2014. Two items that immediately grab the viewer’s attention are two news articles regarding Yoshiki, drummer and bandleader for X Japan, a visual kei band that was formed in 1982 and is widely regarded as one of the bands that pioneered the visual kei movement.67 Moreover, it is one of Japan’s most successful rock bands ever; they have sold over 30 million albums, singles and videos combined and have sold out the Tokyo Dome (with 55.000 seats) 18 times.68 They disbanded in 1997; the original lead guitarist, hide (stage name for Hideto Matsumoto), committed suicide only a few months later early in 1998. However, the band reunited with a partly new formation in early 2007 and has been active ever since. One item describes how Yoshiki had to undergo emergency surgery,69 whereas the other describes the successful operation and subsequent start of recovery.70 The items stand out due to the capitalisation of the names YOSHIKI and X JAPAN in the titles, which is maintained throughout the articles themselves; the names are additionally written in bold lettering (this last particular stylisation is used throughout all JaME articles). However, the tone of both articles is exceptionally neutral and technical, as the first item thoroughly discusses the exact injury – for example, the fifth paragraph states that:

67 McCleod (2013): 311. 68 X Japan (2017). 69 SaKi, Silverfaye (2017). 70 Silverfaye (2017).

‘After suffering from a herniated disc that has worsened over the past six months, YOSHIKI has experienced symptoms including numbness and severe paralysis of the left hand and arm, which have since affected his musical performances. Upon receiving a complete examination by his doctors in both Japan and the US, YOSHIKI was diagnosed with cervical foraminal stenosis (radiculopathy of the left arm and herniation of intervertebral disc C5-C6). After thorough consultation, it was decided that YOSHIKI has to undergo surgery at this time.’

As one can see, the medical technicalities mentioned in this paragraph are of exceptional detail. This is in contrast with a passage that reads more like an anecdote from the second item, stating how:

‘Ordinarily, YOSHIKI should remain in the hospital for at least a few days after the surgery. After waking up from general anesthesia and under heavy analgesics, he expressed that he wants to record a song he was writing from last night till right before surgery. Persuading his doctor into releasing him from the hospital a few hours after surgery, he headed for the studio and stayed there for half an hour. However, since his condition after surgery was too extreme, his staff and the accompanying nurse managed to get him back home to rest under his physician’s care.’

Although the general tone of this passage is still quite neutral and technical, the mentioning of Yoshiki’s unordinary perseverance to record a song, despite his condition, underlines JaME’s attempt to establish Yoshiki’s extraordinary dedication to his music. More importantly, it gives Yoshiki’s fanbase the idea that they are granted access to every detail surrounding his operation. This element of fan involvement will be revisited later on, as it is an important facet to JaME’s presentation. Another item on Yoshiki further down the page describes the opening of an exhibition at the Grammy museum in Los Angeles, accompanied by a short performance. What is particularly striking about all the articles on Yoshiki, is their length compared to the other items in the Top stories section. There are four stories on several JaME contest winners, and five stories on other artists. However, all these items are incredibly concise, ranging between two to five paragraphs, whereas the stories on Yoshiki are noticeably longer. Additionally, all stories on Yoshiki have received significantly more Facebook recommendations by readers (232 in total) than all the other stories combined (146). All in all, because of the numerous

features and capitalisation of his name, Yoshiki clearly attracts the viewer’s most immediate attention when accessing the page for the first time.

2. Top articles and Our selection In contrast to the Top stories section, the Top articles have all been published in 2017, except for two items dating back to 2013 and 2006. In all, there are 5 live reports, 5 interviews, a biography and a review. Four of the five interviews were conducted when the artists were either in Europe or the U.S., and those four interviews all strongly emphasise this transnationality by asking specific questions on the artists’ thoughts on playing abroad. The five live reports feature three concerts in Japan and two in Canada. They are all stories that attempt to draw the reader in by describing the events in great detail, and are all characterised by an explicitly subjective tone that aims to bring across the enthusiasm and energy of both the artists and audience during the concert. The reports all share a common setup, where the author simply aims to step-by-step recount the progress of the concert, which exact songs were played, how the artists moved and interacted with the audience, how the audience in turn responded to this, etc. The interviews and live reports seem to share a common element of attempting to incite enthusiasm in the reader. The interviews do this by emphasising the transnational dimension (worldwide touring), the exciting process of releasing a new album, and/or the artist’s love for musicianship and playing in front of an audience. Stylistically, the interviews all share a quite subjective tone, mostly because of many significant inclusions describing how exactly the interviewed artists respond; specifically, they are often noted to laugh, which is denoted by the writing of ‘(laughs)’. Furthermore, the interviews are often presented in a format that appears quite rough as opposed to cleanly edited for clarity; band members are often noted to react to one another after their answers, sometimes only with ‘Yes, yes, yes!’. Presenting the interviews as dynamic, organic, or casual conversations rather than formally stylised interviews creates an atmosphere of closeness; it is easy to understand how one could picture oneself sitting on the couch next to the featured artists while reading the interviews. This emphasis on creating a feeling of connectedness with the reader is a notion that was also used in the articles on Yoshiki, but is employed with even more noticeable effect here. The live reports try to recreate the concerts’ ambiance by describing them step-by- step and zooming in on the artists’ playing, movements, crowd interaction, etc., and the audiences’ reactions and general atmosphere. The element of detailed descriptions on how live performances transpire is an important element in the Top articles section, as it is a

theme that returns in both the live reports and the interviews. This emphasis on live music experience can also be attributed to JaME’s roots in visual kei, as fan involvement during concerts is essential to the live experience of a visual kei performance.71 Although audience interaction and involvement are a key element to a live visual kei performance, the concerts that are described in the live reports are not exclusively visual kei concerts. From these reports, two are on visual kei bands (Luna Sea and G.L.A.M.S.) while the three other are slightly more varied genre-wise: one features multiple artists performing songs from popular anime series at the Anime Expo 2017 in Washington, another features a Japanese rock band called MAN WITH A MISSION, and the final one focuses on a performance by Mashiro Ayano, a female singer who became popular due to her opening theme for the anime ‘Fate/stay night’ and contributions to several other series since. Even though the genres are slightly more varied, most artists produce a variation of Japanese rock music. All these live reports strongly focus on the earlier mentioned elements like crowd involvement, interaction between band members, etc., even though only two out five reports are on visual kei bands. The blueprint for detailed coverage of occurrences at live performances is therefore not excluded to articles on visual kei artists, but also extends itself to articles on other artists; all in all, it seems to be JaME’s primary method of covering live performances, and overall the most prevalent element in the Top articles section. The third and final section is Our selection, a section that is noteworthy since, as the title at least implies, it features articles that are deemed most relevant or interesting by JaME itself, and are as a result specifically recommended to viewers. However, essential to this section is that it changes each time one visits the page. There is a predetermined pool of articles that constitutes the twelve featured on the page. After numerous times refreshing, additional new viewings did not yield new articles that had not been included before, and it could be established that the pool of articles consists of 25 items: 17 interviews, 5 live reports, and 3 files. Clearly, this section mostly features interviews, but with a wide range of artists from different genres; visual kei, rock, reggae and pop, with visual kei and rock still being the most dominant genres, as there are only 2 interviews with reggae artists and 4 with pop artists. Nonetheless, nearly all the articles feature different artists, with Luna Sea being the only band featured in more than one article (namely two). Because of the variation in presented articles, JaME prevents specific items to dominate their selection, in contrast to the Top stories and articles, which are fixed in their constitution and therefore also seem to

71 McCleod (2013): 314.

promote certain artists/articles more strongly, such as observed in the Top stories section with the strong presence of Yoshiki-related items. A last important addition should be made regarding the 3 files that are featured amongst the Our selection items. One of these files is a series of short articles on visual kei, which explores a selection of topics related to the genre, such as a historical overview of its rise, interviews with selected artists and industry personnel, its connection to anime, overseas marketing and the global spread, and predictions for the future of visual kei.72 Other genres, such as rock or pop, are not explicitly explored in the same way on JaME. This exclusiveness does denote the importance of visual kei on the platform. Furthermore, it was published back in 2011 and is one of the oldest items within the Our selection section. The fact that JaME still insists on presenting it in this section also demonstrates that they still regard visual kei as one of their most prolific and important genres. However, as it is only a single item amongst many others from the Our selection category, it only rarely shows up on the page, since the selection of presented items seems to randomised. Its impact on JaME’s general audience is debatable and not likely to be very significant, and therefore this item itself will not be further analysed; regardless, it is its very inclusion after six years that shows how JaME does value visual kei as an important genre to their platform. In addition to the first file on visual kei, there is also a second file named ‘Visual Kei Concert Etiquette: A Beginner’s Guide’.73 This article is an in-depth guide, explicitly aimed at Western fans, to help them understand the social complexities surrounding a visual kei concert experience. The experience is dissected chronologically, starting by explaining procedures before the show (such as ticket numbers and checking in at the venue), crowd behaviour during the concert (where subject such as the strict hierarchy amongst fan groups, their respective place in the crowd, etc. are touched upon), and ending with typical behaviour after the show. In the guide, many very specific cultural phenomena are explained: the saizen, or the front row of fans at a concert; jouren, dedicated fans who follow their band across the nation; the shikiri, someone who divides the tickets and acts as the event’s organiser; the moves during the concert (hand dances called furitsuke), which are initiated by the saizen and then copied throughout the venue; the strict norms regarding when it is appropriate to touch members of the band, etc. The extensiveness of the guide again shows JaME’s prioritisation

72 Pfeifle (2011). 73 Pfeifle (2011).

of visual kei, but also how they actively intend to educate Western audiences on its cultural idiosyncrasies.

3. The ‘Themes’ A final element of the JaME platform that needs to be shortly addressed is its highlighting of specific themes. These themes are also quite noticeable on the JaME homepage, as they are presented individually below the top bar that designates the various sections, which makes them somewhat stand out. They are not visual or aesthetic changes to the site as one might expect, but rather bundles of articles that have mutual thematic subjects. In total, JaME features four of these themes: ‘Anime Expo 2017’, ‘Oricon Charts 2017’, ‘HYPER JAPAN Christmas Market’, and finally ‘J-POP SUMMIT 2016’. The Oricon charts theme is simply a collection of weekly listings from the Oricon charts, a Japanese corporate group that distributes statistics on the music sales in the Japanese music industry; this theme is quite straight-forward and simply lists the various charts for singles, albums DVDs, etc. as supplied by Oricon. The other themes are of more interest, because they focus more explicitly on overseas live performances: the 2017 Anime Expo in Los Angeles (11 items), the 2017 Hyper Japan Christmas Market in London (8 items), and the 2016 J-pop Summit in San Francisco (11 items), where the latter two events mostly focus on J-pop. The first theme, the 2017 Anime Expo, deserves a bit more consideration. Although it is not explicitly mentioned as an independent category, anime can be found throughout many articles on JaME. From the total of 49 items discussed (12 Top stories, 12 Top articles, 25 Our selection items), 15 items were related to anime (5 in Top stories, 2 in Top articles, and 8 in Our selection). This relation is very often only excluded to a reference at the beginning of the item stating how the respective artist has produced a theme song for an anime. The presentation of this particular theme is the only explicit and direct reference to anime by JaME; however, even the items included in this theme only mention anime in relation to the featured artists, and besides that focus exclusively on their live performances during the Expo in the same way we observed with the earlier live reports. Therefore, we can conclude that JaME only mentions anime in context of the affiliated artists, even though it is relatively frequently mentioned and even has its own seemingly dedicated theme; it does not distribute news or information on the anime series themselves and chooses to highlight the artists behind the theme songs.

For quick comparison, KoME employs the same methods as JaME. Its Top articles have multiple items on a few artists in particular: 2 articles on Super Junior, 2 on Epik High, 2 on Se7en, and 4 on Tohoshinki, whereas the Top stories are varied in a similar way to those on JaME. The Our selection section is similarly changeable as on JaME; therefore, KoME generally seems to use the same publishing approach as JaME, but will not be investigated more in-depth, since it has been mostly inactive since 2013 and is also curated by JaME team members.

Synthesis First of all, there is an important facet of JaME’s top sections that needs readdressing for the synthesis: its active influence on the sections’ constitution of articles. As observed, the Our selection section features a varying selection of articles that changes upon each visit. Combined with the implication that goes with the section’s name, we can safely assume that JaME actively picks these articles to be featured instead of relying on a random generator. In contrast, the other two sections only show a rigid, fixed selection that does not change in order or constitution. Therefore, compared to the fluidity of the Our selection section and the subsequent implication of JaME’s active influence, the two Top sections seem to be far less actively selected by JaME. Conversely, there are several scenarios possible for the sections’ constitution as they are:

(1) JaME has no influence over these sections and they are completely dictated by popularity, including/excluding certain articles purely on basis of amount of views. (2) JaME takes notice of articles’ popularity and bases the options for their lists on this, but ultimately selects articles and stories that they deem to be of higher quality/relevancy than others. (3) JaME completely disregards popularity of specific articles and purely bases the constitution on their own opinion, much as the Our selection list does. However, in contrast to the latter, the two Top-lists are not fluid but remain static in order to emphasise specific articles that JaME intends to highlight.

Although all three scenarios are possible, it is not possible to establish which one is true from the outside. However, another important aspect to the issue of presentation is which resulting

image is ultimately distributed to the viewer, and if these different sections play a specific role in shaping such an image? Going back to the Top stories list, it is clear from the analysis that Yoshiki is highlighted most compared to the other subjects in the list. The fact that he is so well- represented in the ‘Top stories’ section, creates an impression for the viewer who is not yet familiar with him that he is a generally important and popular artist. However, it is also crucial to again remark how JaME originated from a visual kei magazine; the focus on Yoshiki is therefore an affirmation of JaME’s connection to visual kei that is still strong, since Yoshiki is an essential and pivotal artist in the genre of visual kei. This point is further supported by the specific style that JaME employs in the articles on Yoshiki, which is detailed in both aspects of medial technicalities and anecdotes regarding his incredible passion for music. Such a style arguably implies a feeling of closeness and connectedness, and seems to be an extension of the high degree of involvement as seen with otaku fan- culture and passionate visual kei fans. Although JaME does not specifically target such fans exclusively, the tone of these articles does seem to flow from this highly dedicated visual kei fan culture. On the other hand, the Top articles section is not characterised by specific highlighting of individual artists, and seems to describe occurrences at live concerts and backgrounds of several artists in a more general way. In this sense, the Top articles emphasise Japanese popular artists and the experience of attending their concerts in general, rather than highlighting specific artists. The in-depth recounting of specific occurrences during the performances that were demonstrated to be an integral part of articles in this section, such as timely synchronised dance moves, the interaction between the band members on stage, and the interaction between band members and audience, all return throughout the Top articles section. Although these elements in themselves are also closely connected to the their importance during live visual kei performances, JaME also applies this coverage of live events as a sort of blueprint to recreate the atmosphere of live concerts that are not visual kei. Altogether, JaME provides its audience with a wide variety of articles that seem to highlight two specific elements of Japanese popular music: visual kei/Japanese rock, and the experience of attending live performance by Japanese popular artists. To achieve this, JaME does not seem to employ a set of criteria to govern its artist selection, but simply distributes news regarding Japanese popular artists, albeit with an emphasis on mostly visual kei and to a lesser degree J-rock artists. By providing their audience with an in-depth overview of visual kei and an extensive guide to its live concert etiquette, JaME also seeks to educate their

audience on very specific elements of Japanese popular culture. Although they do maintain this emphasis, artists from other genres are also included in the platform’s most prolific sections, mostly featuring J-pop and even some reggae. All in all, this approach characterises the way in which JaME distributes East-Asian popular culture to a very widespread transnational audience.

Platform III: HiphopKR Once again, we need to establish that HiphopKR distributes East-Asian popular culture before diving any deeper into their content. HiphopKR is a platform that specialises in news surrounding Korean hip-hop. Its biography states it was founded in November 2010, and that ‘HiphopKR delivers the latest Korean hip-hop news to international fans around the world. Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest albums, events, and new artists in the Korean hip-hop scene’, and that HiphopKR is ‘Your #1 English source for Korean hip-hop music’. The platforms focuses on Korean hip-hop (and to a lesser degree also some Korean rnb) and seeks to cover news on Korean rappers, album releases, upcoming concerts and interviews. It does this by publishing translated articles from several Korean websites on hip- hop and music: www.hiphopplaya.com, www.rokhiphop.com, and www.mnet.com. These translations are made ‘by passionate Korean hip-hop fans around the world’ and a core group of four writers/editors.74 Furthermore, it also offers original exclusive interviews with Korean artists, an extensive database of translated interviews and lyrics, and concise artist profiles featuring details on some biographical information, current affiliations, past stage names, and often links to freely accessible music. Since HiphopKR offers articles on a very wide selection of artists and does not feature a noticeable section with recommended articles or prolific artists, it is not possible to further establish whether they distribute East-Asian popular culture by exploring their most prolific artists. However, there is another facet to HiphopKR that is quite prominent – their coverage of popular South-Korean television series ‘Show Me The Money’, of which season 6 is currently in progress. It is being aired by Mnet (short for Music Network), a South Korean music television channel that targets the youth. The show consists of rappers as participants who face each other in a series of challenges that are meant to showcase their rapping ability. It is constructed as a knockout competition, and each week several participants are selected to leave the show. The participants are coached and judged by more established and experienced rappers. Last season, these coaches included rappers Dok2 and The Quiett from South- Korean record label Illionaire Records, and Kush and Zion.T from South-Korean label YG Entertainment. The latter label is a large South Korean entertainment company with high- profile K-Pop signees such as Psy, BIGBANG, 2EN1 and CL, and also operates several ventures which include a clothing line and a cosmetics brand. It is regarded as one of South- Korea’s largest entertainment companies, and its overall combined revenue in 2016 was

74 HiphopKR (2017).

listed as $155.8 billion.75 Illionaire Records is considered to be one of the most influential independent labels in the Korean music industry; last year, two of its founders and most prolific artists, Dok2 and Beenzino, produced three hit songs (‘111%’ and ‘Multillionaire’ by Dok2, ‘Dali, Van, Picasso’ by Beenzino) that reached the top 10 of Korean online music charts.76 Its three founders, Dok2, The Quiett and Beenzino, decided to keep the label streamlined and small by limiting its number of signed artists – the three of them are still the only self-sustaining artists on the label, and they only employ a single employee to assist in production and scheduling. Overall, the combined relevance and popularity of the labels that Show Me The Money involves clearly establishes the show as a product of East-Asian popular culture. Because HiphopKR exclusively focuses on Korean news surrounding Korean contemporary hip-hop, additionally offers an extensive database of news articles, lyrics and interviews that have been translated from Korean to English, and features highlighted coverage of television series Show Me The Money which involves highly prolific artists, we can for now safely conclude that HiphopKR seemingly distributes enough element of East- Asian popular culture to warrant further investigation.

Overview of HiphopKR HiphopKR is produced by four main editors who are only listed by their first names: Andrew, Lena, Chris and Nahea. The most prominent member is Andrew, who is also listed as the founder. He is a native South Korean living in the U.S., and his interest for Korean hip- hop was sparked by artists such as Epik High, Dynamic Duo, and Drunken Tiger. However, as he explored the Korean hip-hop scene, he was disappointed by the limited amount of news sources that specifically target Korean hip-hop; eventually, he started translating Korean articles into English himself to accommodate English fans. This led to the founding of HiphopKR in November 2010. The platform consists of its own dedicated website, www.hiphopkr.com, a YouTube channel, and also uses various social media: Facebook, Instagram, Soundcloud, Snapchat, Tumblr and Twitter. Apart from an actively publishing website, the platform is also significantly relevant on Facebook (with nearly 80.000 followers and likes) Instagram (13.400 followers), and Twitter (nearly 20.000 followers). Although the amount of viewers

75 Yonhap News Agency (2016). 76 Cho (2015).

for their website is not traceable, the noticeable amount of attention on social media, and the fact that content from their website is directly linked to the published content on their social media pages, solidifies the relevancy of the platform. The website is split up into several sections, which are: the homepage (which always shows its most recently posted items), news, magazine (which is what the section with written articles is named – the platform does not have an actual printed magazine), collections, HiphopKR calendar, and finally an online store. The news header of HiphopKR features a clickable subtitle that is specially reserved for articles on Show Me the Money. Although the presence of a store somewhat implies an additional commercial outlook, the web shop only offers a small selection of HiphopKR-branded hats in five variations. Due to its very limited size it hardly presents itself as a main aspect of the platform and seems to be included as a service to interested viewers or fans. Furthermore, the segment of HiphopKR that is presumably most noticeable is a large menu bar at the top of its homepage, which displays five pictures. These pictures are links to four exclusive interviews conducted by HiphopKR, and in the case of the fifth picture of Show Me the Money, a link to a database of season 6 contestants. The explicit presence as one of the eye-catchers on the homepage underlines the prevalence of Show Me the Money on HiphopKR, and will therefore also be a returning element during the analysis.

Target audience and intention HiphopKR’s target audience is explicitly stated as ‘international fans around the world’. It is quite straight-forward to establish that it targets non-Korean speakers, as their main focus is to bring translated news and lyrics to fans of Korean hip-hop who would otherwise have trouble accessing this material. Due to the fact that all their material is in English, combined with emphasis on translations, it is easy to conclude that HiphopKR definitely targets a transnational audience that is interested in reading translations of Korean hip-hop items. Their intention is simple and very concisely described in their ‘About’ section: ‘Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest albums, events, and up-and-coming artists in the Korean hip-hop scene.’77 The main method to accomplish this is through translating relevant material. However, because of the fact that HiphopKR frequently posts an embedded music player to accompany their written material, their own stated intention of simply informing

77 About section HiphopKR

readers is partly also surpassed: by including music videos alongside the articles, HiphopKR also becomes a direct gateway to the music itself, although it is not on the same level of practicality as services like YouTube or Spotify. It actually uses services like YouTube, Soundcloud etc. in embedded form to give direct access to music that is covered in the articles. Since HiphopKR not only informs readers of Korean hip-hop, but also spreads the music itself, there is even more reason to establish its extent of commercialisation in order to better understand the motivation behind certain publications. On the surface, there is no sign implying that HiphopKR generates much income by itself; though they have their own web shop as mentioned earlier, this rather seems to be included to broaden its own presentation and as service to fans interested to show their support and affiliation. Another point of commercial interest lies with the selection of artists presented most prominently. The first element from HiphopKR that can immediately be connected to this point is the prevalent presentation of the Korean hip-hop television series Show Me The Money. As mentioned earlier, it is produced and broadcasted by Mnet, one of the largest music media channels in Asia. Further analysis will be needed to establish the extent to which HiphopKR prioritises publications on Show Me The Money. Although at first glance HiphopKR’s intention seems to be quite clear-cut and achievable, an analysis of selected items can confirm whether they follow their stated intention or rather emphasise certain items that lead to an image differing from their original intention. However, we first need to understand HiphopKR’s general layout and structure before proceeding to explore their articles more in-depth.

Categorical content 1. Website presentation HiphopKR’s website is divided into several sections. The first section that also draws most attention when opening the website is the top bar; it consists of 5 photographs with an accompanying title, which act as a link to the corresponding article. As of July 10th, these are: an interview with XXX; one with Hoody; the earlier mentioned database of future Show Me the Money contestants; another interview with Tiger JK, Yoonmirae, Bizzy, Ann One and Junoflo; and finally one with Dok2 and The Quiett. They are all quite recent articles, with the oldest one dating back to March 9th (the interview with Dok2 and The Quiett). The other three interviews were all conducted at the 2017 SXSW Conference and Festivals in Austin, Texas. Moreover, all of these interviews are not translated from other websites (as one of the

main purposes of HiphopKR is), but are rather exclusive interviews conducted by one of HiphopKR’s writers. This notion of exclusivity is also highlighted in the titles of the photographs, and creates an image to the viewer that HiphopKR also has some autonomy and relevancy within the journalistic field covering Korean hip-hop, instead of purely reproducing existing Korean articles in English. The menu bar beneath the top bar displays 6 sections: ‘Home’, ‘News’, ‘Magazine’, ‘Collections’, HiphopKR calendar’, ‘Online store (new)’, and finally a search function. The News section is split up into the subcategories ‘Music releases’, ‘Events’, ‘Show Me the Money’ and ‘Videos’; the Magazine section exists of ‘Interviews’, ‘Reviews’ and ‘Series’; the Collections section features subcategories ‘Artist profiles’, ‘Translated lyrics’ and ‘Translated videos’. Finally, an area at the right side of the website displays additional information and collections from the website’s articles. A set of small icons display the earlier mentioned social media platforms that HiphopKR uses; a small list shows the five most recent articles; another list shows four popular articles; two thumbnails show popular translations; a small list displays the five snapback caps that are available for purchase in their web shop; a gateway to a ‘friendly site’, www.hiphopkonvey.com, is broken and forwards the user to a simple HTML-site with a link to information on the domain; and the final section is an embedded Soundcloud playlist called ‘HiphopKR playlist (new music)’.

2. Publishing numbers As of July 9th, HiphopKR has published 2055 items on their website in total. From this total, 1538 are short articles or news items on new music releases by Korean artists, ranging from announcements regarding upcoming releases of singles, albums or mixtapes to embedded videos of newly-released music videos. They cover a large variety of artists: on the most recent two pages of music releases, there are 27 different artists covered, with none of them mentioned twice. There are also 70 items detailing upcoming events, concerts or tours by artists. 16 items specifically focus on Show Me the Money, varying between recaps or summaries of episodes, fan reactions, announcements of upcoming voting opportunities, and short dissections of the participants’ rap lyrics. 258 items are short articles aimed at videos. Often, they also include the videos themselves, which are music videos, interviews, documentaries, etc., but occasionally they are simply announcements of upcoming video releases. Furthermore, there are 91 interviews, both written and filmed; 15 reviews of both albums and concert; and finally 67 items that are presented as returning themes, such as ‘K-

fan news’ (detailing ‘the hottest topics among Korean hip-hop fans these days’) ‘Throwback Thursday Jams’ (instalments that explore hip-hop from the past), or ‘Epic Punchlines’ (articles that analyse punchlines from hip-hop verses and specifically address the nuances that often lost by directly translating Korean to English). These statistics demonstrate how HiphopKR’s preferred type of article is clearly a short news item. However, in contrast to the short news items as observed in the analysis of JaME, HiphopKR often additionally includes embedded videos with the music that the item reports on. In doing so, the music being described in the article becomes immediately available to the user. Apart from this musical inclusion, it is interesting to see that, although the vast majority of its output falls in the news category, the most visible items on HiphopKR (the five items listed in the top bar with accompanying photographs) are mostly in-depth interviews that are not part of this category. The element of visibility will therefore be an important deciding factor in the selection of items to be explored more in-depth during the analysis. Because it is not possible to establish what items are most popular purely based on viewing or comment numbers, the selection for the items used in the analysis has to happen differently. The website provides us with a Most Popular articles list, which shows that articles covering Show Me The Money are seemingly most popular. However, to fully grasp HiphopKR’s intention it is also crucial to include articles that are otherwise strikingly presented. Thus, in order to use items that are an adequate reflection of the content on HiphopKR, the analysis will zoom in on three separate types of articles: (1) an item from the Epic Punchlines category, because one of HiphopKR’s main aims is to bring translations of Korean raps to their readers, yet direct lyrics translations do not have enough substance for actual analysis; (2) two exclusive interviews, since these are most prominently featured in the top banner of HiphopKR’s homepage; (3) an item from the Show Me The Money category, since they are also prominently displayed and additionally list high on the short Popular articles list by the website itself.

Analysis 1. Epic Punchlines The first article to be analysed is an item from the Epic Punchlines series. Punchlines are a phenomenon in hip-hop where the rapper delivers a climactic joke, play-on-words, diss (another phenomenon that entails how raps are used to explicate disrespect or insult), etc. and packs it into a single sentence, often (but not necessarily) being the final sentence of a

verse.78 Since such punchlines often rely on intricate wordplay, it can be difficult to fully understand them in another language. This is the main motivation behind the Epic Punchlines series: to translate Korean punchlines from popular hip-hop tracks in such a way that their elaborate linguistic qualities stay intact, instead of getting lost in translation. The Epic Punchline article that we will explore focuses on a punchline by Korean rapper Swings (stage name for Moon Ji-hoon). Ji-hoon mostly gained his popularity when he participated in the second season of Show Me The Money and returned as a producer and coach for new participants in the third season. The article’s layout is quite simple: after a brief introduction on what the Epic Punchlines series involve, the reader is presented with the punchline written in both Korean characters and its romanisation, along with the full track itself embedded in a YouTube player. Hereafter follow two translations of the punchline in question, explaining how the included pun originates from the Korean words for ‘to beat up’ and ‘to break’ sound like ‘George Bush’ when pronounced. This observation is then explained in further detail by breaking the sentence down word by word and providing the reader with extra notes explaining more complex issues regarding English translations. The aspect that is most striking is how explicitly the intention of clarifying Korean hip-hop to non-Korean speakers is established. Its opening paragraphs even disclose that the more detailed explanation is specifically ‘addressed to everyone learning Korean.’ This is supported by the amount of attention dedicated to grammar and syntax throughout the detailed explanation. Since language is such a crucial element to hip-hop, this focus on the specific linguistic qualities of a single punchline and the difficulties that come with translating it is very understandable and probably highly interesting to fans of Korean hip- hop who do not speak the language. Simultaneously, it confirms that HiphopKR mainly targets Korean hip-hop fans outside of Korea, since this article is mostly aimed at English speakers who do not speak Korean. Although the possibility of HiphopKR also addressing an inter-Asian audience is not excluded by this observation, it shows its transnational potential by presenting translated Korean popular hip-hop to any English-speaking audience, and confirms the ease of accessibility for Western audiences.

2.1. Exclusive interview: Hoody. The first exclusive interview that will be explored is with South-Korean Rnb-inspired singer Hoody (stage name for Kim Hyun-jung). She was originally part of the all-female hip-

78 George (2005).

hop crew Amourette, which consisted of three other Korean rappers, KittiB, Nieah and SERI. In 2015, she decided to start a solo career and was signed to South-Korean label AOMG based in Seoul. The interview transpired at the 2017 SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas, where Hoody was also one of the performers. The interview follows a usual layout, with its questions printed in bold red. Most of the questions deal with common subjects such as the experience of playing at a festival, the original motivation behind the pursuit of a musical career, working with a music label, etc. Although the interview is quite concise, there are two specific points that stand out with regard to this thesis’ subject. First, the location of the interview is Austin in the U.S. at one of its largest music festivals, SXSW Conference and Festivals. The location itself already implies that we can ascribe a transnational element to Hoody – the fact that she is performing and interviewed at one of the largest festivals in the U.S. confirms how she is consciously also targeting Western audiences. The interview incorporates several questions and notes that directly deal with this transnational aspect: Hoody is specifically asked to name three ‘international artists’ that she would like to collaborate with. However, instead of also including producers from Korea or even Asia that operate on an international level, the question seems to imply American or Western artists, as the notion of ‘international artists’ is directly opposed to a short list of South-Korean producers that Hoody worked with on her latest EP: ‘Your latest EP [On and On] features contributions by a handful of producers: GRAY, Cha Cha Malone, and PEEJAY. Are there any international artists or producers you want to work with this year?’ (emphasis added by original author). Her answer seems to follow this implication, as she proceeds to list three American artists (Blood Orange, Thundercat and Kelela). Additionally, at the end of the interview, Hoody is asked to share any closing remarks that are specifically aimed at her ‘International fans’. Hoody’s answer to this is that she would ‘love to visit and perform in front of my international fans in as many cities as possible’. The question emphasises her openness regarding transnational performances and connecting with fans across the world. Moreover, the fact that the question itself is formulated with an emphasis on ‘International’ further demonstrates how HiphopKR is mainly focused on representing audiences all around the world, and as of such deliberately and actively seeks to present itself as a go-to platform for these audiences.

2.2 Exclusive interview: Koncept. Another interesting exclusive interview that appeared more recently on July 25th is with American rapper Koncept. As the interview describes, Koncept originates from Queens, New York, but released his new album 14 Hours Ahead through a deal with Sony Music Asia while staying in Seoul. Before this deal, he recorded his music at the Red Bull studios in Los Angeles. The initial most obvious aspect to this interview is that Koncept is not a Korean artist, but rather an American rapper working and recording in Seoul. His raps are exclusively in English and generally do not feature any references to East-Asian popular culture; one particular music video for his song ’Hug Someone’ does show parts that were (due to his location) presumably shot in Seoul, but otherwise his music mostly does not include noticeable references to Korea or Asia. Therefore, we quickly come to the question: why is Koncept covered at all on HiphopKR – and more importantly, why is this specific article then of interest to this thesis? Interestingly enough, the interview’s main perspective is to explore his experience of living in Seoul as an artist, his collaboration with Vismajor Company (a Korean music label), the different atmosphere at live venues compared to those in other countries, etc. In short, the interview is an attempt to establish Koncept’s perception of the Korean hip-hop scene, both on a personal and professional level. The quote in the title of the interview (‘”Seoul will always be a home of mine now”’) supports this view. If we apply the interview’s perspective to the motivation behind its publication, it becomes clearer why HiphopKR decided to feature Koncept, despite him being American and solely producing American hip-hop. To HiphopKR’s audience, Koncept’s personal and professional take on Korean hip-hop is an enrichment of their own perception, because it is the story of an ‘outsider’ who integrates into the local hip-hop scene. Regardless of the fact that he does not create Korean music, HiphopKR prominently features this interview on their homepage to communicate the experience of living and working in a Korean city from an American’s point of view to their audience. Intended or not, this creates an overview of a transnational dynamic put into practice.

3. Show Me The Lyrics The final article that will be explored is an item on the Korean hip-hop contest Show Me The Money. As mentioned earlier, the articles on Show Me The Money are listed by HiphopKR itself as most popular on their website. The show follows a selection of rappers that go up against each other in challenges, after which a panel of judges eliminates the weakest contenders from the show. The contestants are also mentored by one of the judges,

who are all experienced rappers or producers. Season 6 of show attracted around 12.000 participants for the preliminary try-outs, and will be the first season to feature try-outs in both Korea and the U.S.79 The specific article that will be explored here is the fifth instalment from a series called Show Me The Lyrics, which features articles that delve deeper into lyrics from the show. This particular show featured 7 contestants who each had to rap a freestyle over a random beat. Again, as we witnessed before in the Epic Punchlines analysis, the translation of Korean rap lyrics are the main priority of the article. The raps from a selection of contestants are written out in English on the left and Korean on the right. However, this article also serves the additional purpose of providing a subjective commentary on the lyrics. Each translation is introduced by a short text that provides context to the beginning of each rapper’s freestyle. These are not objective descriptions of the scene, but also detail how some of the contestants must have been feeling after a particular diss or how their lyrical thematic choices differed from the rest. Similarly, after each of the translated lyrics, a brief summary details whether they did well according to the author and what specific elements of their freestyle were impressive or a disappointment. The tone throughout is different from, for example, the exclusive interviews – it is more colloquial and subjective. An added value to the translations and summaries of each freestyle is that it makes it easier for a non-Korean speaker to fully comprehend the lyrics. Consequently, it also becomes possible to better determine which rapper performed well during the freestyles. The personal tone throughout the item helps to excite the reader and sheds some light on the quality of their puns and punchlines that may have escaped anyone with less linguistic knowledge. Additionally, certain readers who are fans of Korean hip-hop in general might not be familiar with Show Me The Money, making this series of articles a way to introduce them to a show that might interest them. Embedded videos of all the featured freestyles make the material directly accessible. It is also important to readdress how popular the show itself is in South-Korea; it attracted 12.000 hopeful participants alone this season, and its popularity has only been growing over the past seasons.80 For this reason, it is understandable that HiphopKR has created a dedicated category for Show Me The Money, since omitting it from its coverage would leave a significant hole in its overall reports on the Korean hip-hop scene. At the same

79 Kim (2017). 80 Kim (2017).

time, it has been established that HiphopKR maintains their dedication to distributing translations of Korean hip-hop to non-Korean speakers, instead of simply promoting the show.

Synthesis If we return to HiphopKR’s stated intention – to inform readers of the latest albums, artists etc. in the Korean hip-hop scene – the main remaining question is whether they manage to autonomously cover a wide extent of the hip-hop scene or rather prioritise certain artists or elements to gain a commercial advantage. This question is important, because HiphopKR’s explicated intention is quite neutral and objective, and would lead its readers to believe that they are being informed of the complete range of Korean hip-hop. As stated previously in the exploration of HiphopKR’s intention, the Show Me The Money series are at first glance the most likely element to influence this neutrality. However, as the analysis has pointed out, HiphopKR maintains a strong tendency to prioritise translations of the raps that are used. This observation is in line with HiphopKR’s overall output, as the other analysed articles have demonstrated. Additionally, when placed in the larger picture of HiphopKR’s total publications, the amount of articles dedicated to Show Me The Money (16) is still dwarfed by the number of general news items (1538). These news items cover a wide range of artists as shown earlier. Even though items in the latter category are mostly archived and not featured as prominently as in the former category, it shows that HiphopKR is dedicated to informing their readers of overall developments in the Korean hip-hop scene in the first place. Together with the findings from analyses of two exclusive interviews and one Epic Punchlines items that are similarly prominent as the item on Show Me The Money, it can be concluded that HiphopKR emphasises the translation of Korean rap lyrics and the distribution of relevant news above the promotion of Show Me The Money. Altogether, HiphopKR distributes elements of East-Asian popular culture through several ways: through the translations of Korean news articles, interviews and rap lyrics; through the inclusion of embedded music videos beneath these translations; and finally by highlighting the popular and relevant South-Korean television series Show Me The Money. Throughout this process, HiphopKR has been found to emphasise Show Me The Money to a certain extent, mostly because it is highly popular and an important facet to the popular contemporary Korean hip-hop scene; however, the largely remaining part of the website’s content has not been found to prioritise articles on specific artists. HiphopKR’s main and

only criterion in their selection of artists to be published seems to be that they are contemporary Korean hip-hop artists. In doing so, they offer a wide overview of contemporary Korean hip-hop.

Overall synthesis and discussion We have now seen several extents of distribution of East-Asian popular culture across the three platforms. I will concisely revisit the results for each platform, before moving on to an overall synthesis that seeks to introduce several theoretical concepts to help us better understand how the platforms distribute their material. To begin with, it was established that 88Rising does not exclusively distribute East- Asian material, even though they generally claim to represent and celebrate Asian culture. 88Rising mostly seems to focus on two things: (1) creating and facilitating syntheses and collaborations between East-Asian and American artists, and (2) they want to highlight certain East-Asian hip-hop (and more specifically trap) artists, regardless of whether they produce East-Asian or American popular culture. Through these two points, they seek to establish their own brand as a ‘cool’ platform for contemporary overseas hip-hop. Overall, 88Rising distributes East-Asian artists like Higher Brothers to Western audiences, but accompanies this with American popular culture synthesised with East-Asian artists, such as Rich Chigga’s ‘Who That Be’. Their careful selection becomes especially apparent when we compare the wider scope of HiphopKR, which also focuses on hip-hop but presents its audience with a significantly larger collection of Korean hip-hop artists that are never mentioned on 88Rising. Meanwhile, JaME was demonstrated to base the selection of their prominent artists (or in this case prominent genre) selection on grounds of their roots in visual kei. Although the platform also included artists from genres outside of visual kei, such as J-rock and J-pop, the inclusion of articles dedicated to visual kei in the Our selection category showed that JaME does prioritise visual kei, since these other genres do not have similar articles published on the website, let alone in its the most prominent sections. Moreover, such articles make the genre of visual kei more accessible to Western audiences, since they also seek to inform their audience of idiosyncratic elements such as concert etiquette, hierarchy amongst fans, etc. Altogether, JaME distributes visual kei as prominent Japanese genre to Western audiences, and to a somewhat lesser degree also adds genres such as J-rock and J-pop for a broader overview on Japanese contemporary popular music. Finally, HiphopKR was shown to mostly distribute translations of Korean hip-hop news, interviews and rap lyrics. Additionally, the platform also prominently features articles on South-Korean hip-hop series Show Me The Money, which also focus on translating the lyrics from the show to its English-speaking audience. In doing so, HiphopKR makes Korean contemporary hip-hop more accessible to transnational audiences. Although they also feature

several prominent exclusive interviews, HiphopKR’s main focus remains the translation of Korean hip-hop news, as evidenced by the significant amount of news articles they published compared to other categories. The interviews broaden the platform’s material by offering artists’ perspectives on working and performing on transnational levels, as well as sharing some biographical details. Together with the inclusion of embedded music videos beneath lyrics translations, HiphopKR offers a broad transnational view on contemporary Korean hip- hop. If we compare the methods of all three platforms, there are several interesting points that provide us a wider perspective on how exactly they distribute East-Asian material. First of all, the commercial drive behind 88Rising becomes even clearer when comparing it to JaME and HiphopKR, two platforms that are less commercially engaged. Instead of simply publishing new releases by their artists in the more journalistic style of JaME and HiphopKR, 88Rising tends to generate and highlight content that emphasises the ‘cool’ factor of their platform. From this perspective, their method is somewhat reminiscent of the ‘Cool Japan’ strategy; it highlights elements of popular intellectual property to create an attractive, hip image of Asia, facilitating a form of soft power81 – audiences are actively targeted to be attracted to this image. However, since a significant portion of 88Rising’s content rather belongs to American popular culture, this image is also highly ambiguous, as a viewer browsing through 88Rising’s material cannot be certain if they are watching a video more connected to East-Asian popular culture (such as Higher Brothers) or American popular culture (such as Rich Chigga) without reflexive consideration and some research of their own. Presenting Western audiences with an attractive yet highly ambiguous image of East- Asian culture can also be connected to the notion of ‘cultural discount’, which denotes a phenomenon where ‘a particular program rooted in one culture and thus attractive in that environment will have a diminished appeal elsewhere as viewers find it difficult to identify with the style, values, beliefs, institutions and behavioural patterns of the material in question’.82 By communicating a hybridised form of East-Asian/American popular culture, 88Rising attempts to overcome such potential difficulties for its audience; however, in doing so they run the risk of presenting this hybridised form as unaltered and essentialist Asian culture that denies the impact of American popular culture on their material. Moreover, if we

81 Yano (2009): 683. 82 Hoskins, Mirus (1988): 500.

look at JaME and HiphopKR, both platforms choose to educate their transnational audiences by spreading information on language, values or behavioural patterns that are idiosyncratic for the genres they discuss. From this perspective, precisely the elements that could be connected to cultural discount become the subjects of their material. Another interesting point can be made with regard to the notion of mukokuseki, which entails a lack of cultural signifiers in phenomena of Japanese popular culture such as anime, manga or certain video games.83 It is this ‘cultural void’ which creates appeal to transnational audiences by removing cultural distance between the producer and the recipient.84 If we apply this notion to 88Rising, we can see how the platform displays some elements of mukokuseki- ness to appeal to Western audiences who might otherwise be too unfamiliar with East-Asian cultural elements to identify with them. Two examples from the analysis are the anime fragment in Keith Ape’s ‘Diamonds’ and the lack of cultural signifiers in Rich Chigga’s ‘Who That Be’; both are instances that have been stripped of cultural representations, but are nonetheless presented as Asian popular culture in the larger context of 88Rising. However, the essential difference is that the lack of cultural elements in Rich Chigga’s video is not a signifier of an attempt to decrease any cultural distance with the product’s original culture and that of its audience – rather, it is a product of American popular culture that is kept ambiguous, so that it can still be presented as part of 88Rising’s Asian cultural material by combining it with a native East-Asian artist and an Asian narrative. On the other hand, if we look at JaME, it is interesting to see that their intention is almost the complete opposite, as its analysis demonstrated how JaME seeks to distribute an idiosyncratic element of Japanese popular culture in the form of visual kei. To Western audiences, the complexities surrounding concert etiquette, social structures and hierarchies amongst fans, cross-dressing and ‘fan services’, are all arguably quite culturally distant; however, JaME attempts to inform and educate their audiences of such nuances, instead of presenting them in a mukokuseki form that is more culturally proximate and easier to identify with for transnational audiences. However, with all the descriptions of East-Asian cultural elements throughout this thesis, an important closing remark must also be made regarding the essentialisation of culture. It is tempting to assume how the incorporation of certain idiosyncratic cultural elements into an outing of popular culture automatically subscribe it to a specific national culture – or, contradictory, that a lack of such elements conversely means that it is not part of

83 Iwabuchi (2002): 71-72. 84 Adamowicz (2014): 2.

this culture. It is easy to dismiss certain ambiguous cultural outings as American popular culture with a somewhat exotic character, and equally difficult to continuously look for elements of East-Asian culture in exotised American products. However, it cannot be denied that there are transnational cultural flows from East-Asia to Western audiences, which arguably typify certain characteristics of East-Asian culture. With this in mind, this thesis has attempted to demonstrate how three internet platforms distribute East-Asian popular culture to Western audiences by clearly establishing their most prolific means of communication and subsequently exploring their relation to East-Asia. In doing so, it has demonstrated that certain elements of East-Asian popular culture can indeed be pinpointed and shown to be distributed to Western and transnational audiences, as was also the main research question throughout this thesis.

Conclusion This thesis set out to explore and analyse the way three internet platforms distribute East-Asian popular culture via transnational means to Western audiences. To accomplish this, three platforms were selected: 88Rising, JaME and KoME, and HiphopKR. For each platform it was established that they indeed distributed forms of East-Asian popular culture by further exploring their most prolific artists. For 88Rising, these were Rich Chigga, Keith Ape and Higher Brothers; in the cases of JaME / KoME and HiphopKR, the platforms did not have noticeable prominent artists. Other noticeable sections of the platforms were explored, which were respectively an explicitly stated intention to focus exclusively on Japanese popular music, and the highlighting of a South-Korean television series called ‘Show Me The Money’. After each platform had been demonstrated to distribute forms of East-Asian popular culture, a general overview for each platform was established. 88Rising was found to be a media company owned by Sean Miyashiro and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Its most prevalent media outlet is its YouTube channel, simply called ‘88rising’. Miyashiro is also founder and owner of CXSHXNLY, a music label that has also signed 88Rising’s prolific artists Rich Chigga, Keith Ape and Higher Brothers. JaME is a website that distributes written news on Japanese popular music, and is operated by an international team of volunteers. KoME is a website that diverged from JaME after the growing interest for Korean popular culture, and covers news on contemporary Korean popular music. Finally, HiphopKR is a website that focuses on informing their readers of developments in the Korean hip-hop scene. It is mostly curated by four writers, but also accepts material that is sent in by volunteers. Its other primary objective is to distribute translated news and lyrics of Korean hip-hop artists. After an overview of each platform was provided, their respective target audiences and intentions were explored. 88Rising was found to target millennial Western audiences; JaME and KoME both offered a wide range of options for the user to select their preferred nationality, and were shown to predominantly target Western audiences as well. HiphopKR claims to target an international audience or anyone with an interest in Korean hip-hop. It does not necessarily focus on Western audiences, and possibly also includes inter-Asian audiences. Concerning intentions, 88Rising was shown to also harbour a different intention than explicated: though they claim to want to represent Asian culture on a global scale, they clearly limit their scope to East-Asian popular culture, and more specifically they are mostly recognised for their videos by a small amount of popular East-Asian hip-hop artists. JaME

and KoME aim to promote respectively popular Japanese and Korean music around the world. HiphopKR aims to inform readers on developments in the Korean hip-hop scene, but also seeks to distribute translations and explanations of rap lyrics to their audience. Each platform was dissected on a structural level to show their preferred type of communication. Afterwards, a selection from the content by each platform could be analysed. The analysis of 88Rising focused on four videos that were most popular: ‘Who That Be’ by Rich Chigga, ‘Rappers react to Rich Chigga ft. Ghostface Killah, Desiigner, Tory Lanez & More’, ‘WeChat’ by Higher Brothers and Keith Ape, ‘Diamonds’ by Keith Ape, and finally ‘Made In China’ by Higher Brothers. These analyses showed that 88Rising is mostly steered by their commercial interest in promoting specific East-Asian artists (Rich Chigga, Keith Ape and Higher Brothers) to solidify their own brand as distributors of ‘cool’ Asian culture, rather than representing Asian culture as a whole as they originally claimed. For JaME and KoME, it quickly turned out that KoME had not published enough in total or recently enough to be as relevant as JaME, and for this reason, only JaME was included in the following analysis. Since it was problematic to directly establish what articles were most popular amongst JaME’s audiences, the analysis focused on three separate sections due to their prevalence on the homepage and the fact that they were apparently highly popular or recommended by JaME itself: the Top stories, Top articles, and Our selection. Throughout these three sections, the coverage of visual kei was most noticeable, as demonstrated by the prominent presence of Yoshiki in the Top stories and several items dedicated to cultural idiosyncrasies of visual kei. Furthermore, JaME also seeks to communicate the experience of live concerts in general by Japanese popular artists in items called live reports, which focus on occurrences during the concerts such as crowd reactions, interaction between band members themselves but also with the audience, etc. Finally, the analysis of HiphopKR focused on three prominent items, since it was similarly difficult to establish which specific articles were popular amongst its audiences. These items were one from the Epic Punchlines category, two Exclusive interviews, and one Show Me The Lyrics, an article that covered the popular South-Korean television series ‘Show Me The Money’. Through these analyses it was demonstrated how HiphopKR prioritises the distribution of translations and explanations of Korean rap lyrics over the promotion of Show Me The Money. Furthermore, the amount of news articles on a wide variety of Korean artists additionally showed how HiphopKR also strongly focuses on the distribution of relevant news regarding Korean hip-hop to their audiences, by bringing them translations of Korean news articles.

The final overall synthesis and discussion provided a broader and more theoretical overview on the results from the analyses. By incorporating elements such as ‘Cool Japan’, mukokuseki, cultural discount and cultural proximity, I tried to apply a deeper theoretical layer to better understand the mechanics behind the distribution of the platforms.

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