Japanese hip hop
Japanese hip hop is said to have begun when Hiroshi Fujiwara returned to Japan and started playing hip hop records in the early 1980s. Japanese hip hop generally tends to be most directly influenced by old school hip hop, taking the era's catchy beats, dance culture, and overall fun and carefree nature and incorporating it into their music. Hip hop became one of the most commercially viable mainstream music genres in Japan, and the line between it and pop music is frequently blurred.