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

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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

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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).

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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).

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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).

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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).

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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).

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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.

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(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.

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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).

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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).

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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:

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‘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).

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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

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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.

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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.

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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-

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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).

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‘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

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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

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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

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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

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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-

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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

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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).

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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.

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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,

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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).

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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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