Samurai Champloo: Mixing Ancient Japanese Traditions with Hip-Hop

A bold and anachronistic approach to Japan’s Edo/Tokugawa period (1603 to 1868), Samurai Champloo flooded the niche of hip-hop heads with a penchant for anime. Above pic via mcorrgon. Although not the first attempt at such, it was an example of how a new standard could be set with pinpoint execution. From the director himself:

The show is set during the Edo era some 60 years after the confusion of civil war lifted. But forget the historical details. Think of it basically like some period in time 60 years after the end of a war.

Although known for weaving a wide range of genres into anime flawlessly, hip-hop was a first for legendary Kyoto-born anime director Shinichirō Watanabe. Admittedly not a huge hip-hop head, he was steadfast and determined to make the unusual mix work. Coming roughly 7 years after acting as associate director for Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo was released to the world.

Little did anyone know, it would become a timeless classic within its space, and act as impetus for the little-known modern hip-hop “lo-fi” movement. A hyperbolic revival of traditional low fidelity ideals with down-tempo, instrumental beats, often with a Japanese aesthetic for samples or accompanying visuals, lifted from anime or Japan during the 1980’s or 1990’s.

The three main protagonists in Samurai Champloo; Mugen, Fuu, and Jin

Marcus on the lo-fi movement:

Well, there’s lo-fi and then there’s “lo-fi” [laughs]

The people who say Nujabes influenced the current wave of lo-fi definitely aren’t wrong, but I think there’s some misinterpretation.

I obviously can’t speak for him, but I think Nujabes would have been making something entirely different if he were still alive. Most of his close friends say that he was transitioning into house music, which you can hear in “World’s End Rhapsody” on Modal Soul and a number of other experimental tracks…so I don’t really see the connect between his music and finger drumming over YouTube rips of old jazz songs, which I’m not saying all lo-fi is, but yeah.

On the other hand, music is self-expression, and I know for a fact that’s something he stood for. Expression and creativity are things the lo-fi scene actively cultivates and nurtures from what I’ve seen. It’s allowed for people to break out of the box of traditional hip hop beats and ignore a lot of the rules that hip hop purists elitists put on them. When I was coming up, there was always some old head telling me I wasn’t doing it right because of an unwritten set of rules I had to adhere to. I haven’t seen any of that with lo-fi, which is a positive thing. I dig that aspect of it.

Pase on the lo-fi movement:

An SP-1200, MPC, they each have a specific sound to the machine. Combine that with sampling from vinyl and no proper mix on the song, Voila! You get “lo-fi.” Record crackle and whatnot. So, it wasn’t necessarily the artists trying to make their stuff sound dirty, grimy, lo-fi. At the time, that’s what was available and learning how to mix you probably had to go to school for. These were complete do it yourself times. If you don’t have a proper engineer to mix your songs then it’s going to sound lo-fi, or rather, what they call lo-fi now.

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But in the hip-hop sense, I think you’d have to look at the Anticon movement and a whole lot of west coast hip hop movements and instrumental hip hop that would probably be considered “lo-fi” now.

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Early Diplo, Jel, Odd Nosdam and RJD2 come to mind. DJ Shadow’s albums were all great and probably a better example of well mixed “Nujabes style” music, for lack of a better term. Ninja Tune and Mo Wax records etc. DJ Krush was the king of this style of music especially from a Japanese standpoint. I say all that to say there are a lot of great examples of where “lo-fi” came from than just Nujabes or Dilla.

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It’s like putting an Instagram filter on a photo or something but just with audio, I get it. It’s nostalgia of a time gone by. I think it probably feels romantic in a way if you weren’t alive in 1994 or 1997 and I realize that’s just the way life is, things go in cycles. But it’s not 1997 anymore and I’m not big on nostalgia. I lived through it, I was there. I don’t want to go backwards so to speak (musically).

It doesn’t serve me or my life in any way. So “lo-fi” is probably just not for me. That being said, I haven’t listened at all so maybe I’m just ignorant and am missing out!

Samurai Champloo limited comics, the first partSamurai Champloo limited comics, the second partDVD for Samurai Champloo; Volume 7

Above, scans by AC73, one of the most prominent archivists from Zero Chan. Rising up in the hip-hop space a few years before SoundCloud rap got on its feet, the modern lo-fi movement went on to birth a whole league of new bedroom producers who latched onto this aesthetic, often attributing their interest to Samurai Champloo, its soundtrack, and an enthusiastic mindset towards Japanese culture. Among the largest containing millions of followers on YouTube, resulting in a large wave of always-on streams for such music, which branched into more labels such as chill-hop, chillwave, study beats, and more.

The soundtrack was a primary reason why viewers connected to the anime, also giving the show a unique vibe that no other show at the time had. Surprisingly, most of the background music and filler music heard between sequences is produced by Shinji “Tsutchie” Tsuchida, while many are mistaken in thinking Nujabes produced the majority. Also something which may be a little-known fact, is that there are actually 5 albums (technically, 3 albums, and 2 playlist compilations) for the complete Samurai Champloo soundtrack, not just the two which were collaborations between Nujabes and Fat Jon.

There are also several tracks which are not listed within any of the playlists or soundtracks for the anime itself, which come from external sources. You can read more about that, in-depth, here. Below you will find artwork and information about the anime’s music below, via Discogs.

DepartureImpressionMasta / Masta MixPlaylist with additional sleeves