Guinness Records and Sweet Sticky Thing

Jun grew up in eastern Tokyo, Japan. Drawn to music from a young age, he would go on to own Guinness Records in Shibuya, investing himself into the business side of music. The physical shop was closed in 2011, a year after Jun’s passing. However, it continued to operate digitally through Tribe, the shop underneath Guinness Records on the third floor, which managed Hydeout Productions’ record sales. There is also a very rare video of his record shop, shot around 10 years ago, courtesy of DJ Sarasa.

Pase Rock, one of Jun’s closest friends, gives interesting insight regarding the dynamics of Tokyo record shops:

So, as you may know, each record shop in Japan has [had] its own sort of style and flavor. They’re all gone now, but back then it was an identity for each store, and you went to each store for whatever sort of music they had. Jun’s shop was, for lack of a better term, the underground hip-hop spot.

His store leaned more towards stuff you’d sample, and underground hip-hop. Soul, jazz, lots of stuff like that. 60% underground hip-hop, 40% other. Jun didn’t really like the commercial hip-hop, so if it wasn’t like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, or Five Deez, he wasn’t with it.

While working at his record shop, Jun eventually dove into the world of production, making his own beats. Learning the ropes of how they were crafted, Jun went on to remix Nas’ One Love off Illmatic, pressing it on wax through Top Graphicers in 1998, and mixing it in with the popular records at the time, to gain traction of his moniker (Dimention [sic] Ball at the time)—a technique heralded as a ‘crazy hustle’ by Pase:

I think he [Nujabes] did a Nas bootleg of One Love, that’s what his brother told me. He would then take that, press it onto vinyl, then throw it in with the Nas bin, so people would be looking for Nas, who was one of the top artists at the time, and they would stumble upon this strange record and think “Who is Nujabes?” not knowing it was the actual owner of the store.

Crazy hustle. Tokyo is tens of millions of people, so lots of customers moving through the shop, and he did really well. I learned the hustle from him.

Within the same year, a 36-track mixtape—18 A-side, 18 B-side—called Sweet Sticky Thing ~Reload All Good Music From Old To The New~ was released through Hyde Out Recordings (now Hyde Out Productions, a sister company). Often discussed and referred to as simply, Sweet Sticky Thing, the title is nod to Ohio Players’ track of the same name on their classic album Honey.

The cassette is considered a grail among underground hip-hop cassette collectors, given its extremely limited cassette-only, local-only release. It is the first full-length piece of work under the pseudonym Nujabes.

Nujabes also started collaborating with L-Universe near this time, known as Verbal today (and affiliated with his wife Yoon, with their AMBUSH line). Marcus had a few words to say about that:

L-Universe is Verbal. Verbal is a ridiculously huge pop star.

A lot of people don’t know this. I actually didn’t know this myself until I flew back to Seattle and met up with my friend, and showed him a picture and said ‘I got a picture with L-Universe, he collaborated with Jun’ and my friend was like ‘Yo, that’s Verbal!’

Ain’t No Mystery, a collaboration between Nujabes and L-Universe (Verbal)The cover for Sweet Sticky ThingTracklist for Sweet Sticky Thing; courtesy of maxwellwtPhysical cassette of Sweet Sticky Thing

Creating ‘To This Union A Sun Was Born’ with Substantial

Stanley “Substantial” Robinson, a musician, passionate activist, community organizer, and one half of Bop Alloy, has been a student of hip-hop for over two decades. It all started with a phone call.

I met Jun through a friend in college. That friend later went on to become a rapper that people would come to know later as Sphere Of Influence. When my friend went back home to Japan, he got a gig at Jun’s record store. This was before anyone knew who “Nujabes” was.

Jun hit up my friend and asked him if there’s any rappers in New York at the time worth checking out, and my homeboy told Jun to listen to me.

My friend went on to play a mixtape that was made in school, called Disc 1, which happened to have me on it. Next thing you know, Jun calls me up out of the blue.

I thought it was a prank call. The man on the other end of the phone had a really thick accent, and I’ve got a bunch of friends which are clowns [pranksters], so I just thought it was one of my friends.

Luckily, I didn’t hang up, and I took him seriously. He requested I send him more stuff, and I sent him more of my material. After he heard it, he sent me some beats back. This was ’99. Ended up signing a contract with him shortly after, and in ’00 he flew me out to Japan for a month. That was the first time meeting him in-person. That’s when we started working on To This Union a Sun Was Born.

This would act as the first stepping-stone in their tight-knit relationship together, making music for several years afterwards. Sub ended up heading back to Tokyo to record Blessing It, Metaphorical Music’s opening track.

That session came later. The initial stuff with my debut album was recorded in, I want to say January of 2000? Then when I went back out there [Tokyo] to record Blessing It, I also recorded a few other tracks that were unreleased, as well as Eclipse.

When asked about the volume of music created between him and Jun, Sub puts the number between 30 and 40 tracks, with half of those to remain unreleased. Despite having a few back-and-forth moments in the studio, at the end of the day, the two always came back around, and made sure things were set right between each other. A full relationship.

Yeah, man; there’s basically enough for an album and an EP. I think it’s safe to say we made between 30 and 40 songs.

…

It is easy for us to remember the positive, or the easy times; the smiles and laughs. I shed tears in front of that man [Jun]. We had fallouts, real fallouts, raising our voices at each other, but we made sure to come back around and break bread after.

I feel like that’s a full relationship; the good and bad. The people who I love the most, am the closest to, and have had the most powerful experiences with, it wasn’t just one-sided, or one way all the time. It was a spectrum of emotions, and I’m glad I had all the experiences with him. From the good, to the not-so-good.

More important than any music they ever made was the relationship the two shared, becoming close friends over the years, with Jun introducing Sub to Japanese culture, and everything else that came with extended stays in Japan. Humble and respectful in character, Sub would take interest in these traits and see it reflected in general within Japan’s societal culture:

I liked how humble folks were about things they knew they could do well, but there wasn’t much bragging. If someone said they could do something,that meant they could do it very well.

…

That was a major takeaway for me. You can be great and humble at the same time.

Sub goes on to share stories about how him and Jun used to hit up the same curry spot day after day when he would be in Japan. A testament to Jun being a huge foodie, a curator of good eats, and the need to share it with his close friends so they, too, could enjoy it.

Jun was a huge foodie; anytime he’d find a good spot to eat at—he loved curry—there was this place, this restaurant that we’d always go, and it was called Bowery Kitchen. We loved that spot; think we hit it up twice a week.

Perhaps this was the reasoning behind the name ristorante / good music cuisine: making’ good beats like cooking’ good foods which is a mixtape released in 2002, with an aesthetic theme of culinary art, blended with smooth relaxing instrumentals.

Sharing was very important to Jun, especially with music in regards to conveying a message through sound, putting part of himself in the music, and evoking emotion from the listener.

When you hear his music, you hear parts of the man himself, in all different places. There are certain beats where you can hear the happiness, the sadness, others just relaxing, some chaotic.

A mixtape with aesthetic lifted from Italy’s age-old local restaurant culture; courtesy of maxwellwtBowery Kitchen, the very [see: exact] spot that Sub and Jun would hit up, due to the famous curry created thereA shot inside of the joint

As anyone who worked closely with Jun will tell you, he was very much a student of hip-hop and took influence from those in his circle extensively, to craft and refine his own sound. These close relationships were a large part of what shaped the sound of the music listeners enjoy still today. Sub wrapped things up by expressing how tangible the passing of Jun was for him, and how it still very much is, due to how much time they spent together and how it’s more real. A close friend, not just a figure of music discovered through YouTube. Deeper than music, and closer to home:

I guess for me, it’s not this dream thing. It’s still a very real thing. My wife, which Eclipse is about, who I’ve been with for 20 years, she got to meet him in my second trip.

When someone close to you—because obviously I don’t see Pase or Funky DL or Shingo often—to have somebody next to me, on a regular basis in my life, someone who has seen the challenges we faced and how we overcame those challenges together, it makes it that much more real for me.