Hey out there! This is Iowa City’s own, #1 pirate powerstation, Jet Set Radio! Over the hood, through the streets and right into your brain; we’re transmitting our signal straight to you. Y’all got your antennas on?!
The term ‘world music’ doesn’t make a lot of sense; not only is it redundant, but it seems to only imply music that is not in English. Similarly, the idea of ‘Japanese music’ is hazy because ‘Japanese’ denotes both an ethnicity and a nationality, whereas something like ‘American’ music indicates only the latter.
I’ve known a lot of people who say they are into Japanese music, but what they really mean is music by Japanese people, in Japanese and thereby, to an extent, for Japanese people. However, most of the people I’m talking about were students of the language/fans of the culture and so it makes sense that they would seek these things out in the larger quest for some degree of Japaneseness and/or a Tokyo bride (no shots).
What we try to do here at Jet Set Radio is expand the definition of Japanese music: If a Mexican girl sings a pop song in Japanese, is that J-pop? If a Senegalese salsa band sings in Japanese, is that Japanese music? If a quarter-Japanese American decides to start a career singing enka, is that authentic Japanese music?!
We’ll explore all this and more. Here on the blog portion you’ll be able to find playlists for each show, information about artists and hopefully some music you never knew you loved. So relax folks, and turn on the big speakers; this is gonna be a really good time.
-Professor B
Jet Set Radio 