KREVA: Exploring the Possibilities of the Japanese Language Through Rap

It was triggered by the dance boom when I was in my second year of junior high school. I saw a video of an artist named Bobby Brown, thought the music was "cool," and started getting interested. I started with dancing, and then began rapping when a friend got some DJ equipment.

Yes. When we started rapping, senior groups in the Japanese rap scene like Rhymester had already released records.

That's right. The members of Rhymester were all from Waseda, and I first met them when I was a student at Keio. While in school, I formed a group called "BY PHAR THE DOPEST" and made my record debut in 1997. Around that time, I started doing freestyle rap, and among my peers, I apparently gained a reputation as someone who was good at it.

The first MC Battle at B-BOY PARK was held two years later, in 1999. Until then, it was still rare in hip-hop culture to sign with a record company, so showing your presence through freestyle was an effective way to emerge as a rapper. So, I would go to club events and grab the mic during the times when walk-in performances were allowed.

Exactly. Events always had an open mic time, and there was this heat where it felt like "if you're a rapper and you don't perform, you lose." I honed my rap skills in those places. When I heard there would be a freestyle competition in 1999, I thought I could finally perform on a big stage.

Beyond just rhyming clearly, I also pursue the fun of developing lyrics through word rearrangement. For example, flipping "KREVA" to "BAREKU" to create a new word and then rhyming from there. I used to test these kinds of word experiments night after night in "grassroots battles" at clubs.

The reason I started incorporating situational elements like the opponent's appearance was because opponents would bring in lyric sheets they had written beforehand. Rather than calling that a rule violation, I thought the crowd would get more excited if I defeated them with a performance that was clearly improvised.

Yes. Even in freestyle competitions, I would appear in full camouflage gear to liven things up as entertainment. Enjoying it was always the first priority over fighting.

Freestyle is truly improvised. It's like instantly assembling rhymes in my head and putting them out on the rhythm. In the movie "Spirited Away," there's a character named "Kamaji" with many long arms who takes medicinal herbs out of many drawers. I train to keep all my word drawers half-open like that.

If you expose yourself to many words and have a rough idea of where the word drawers are, they start to open in a chain reaction. That kind of skill can be acquired through training to some extent.

It's often said there are two types of geniuses, right? The true genius, and the type of genius who doesn't consider effort to be effort. Setting aside whether I'm a genius, I'm the latter. I've never thought of rap practice as effort. During my time at Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC), it took me two and a half hours one way to commute, and I would practice rhyming while looking at the hanging advertisements in the train.

Even with university entrance exams, some people get into Keio easily, while others study thoroughly. In my case, I studied a lot, but it wasn't a burden. I might be the "genuinely insensitive" type who doesn't find the steps toward what I want to do or my goals to be painful.

When I was in my second year of high school, a classmate said to me, "You haven't started studying for exams yet? There's no way you can get into university at that level." That annoyed me, so I looked up university rankings and found Keio's Faculty of Policy Management and Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at the top of the difficulty list. I thought, "Alright, I'll pass the exams here and show him," and I studied intensely.

As a result, I passed the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, and he passed Waseda, and we shook hands and went our separate ways (laughs). I only learned about the SFC AO admission system much later. If I had known about it, I might have applied with freestyle rap.

Since I had decided from the start to do music after graduation, I attended university diligently from my first year. At the time, Professor Masahiko Sato was teaching at SFC, and his lectures were just incredibly interesting. For example, the "Polinky" snacks for which Professor Sato handled the commercials. Hearing about the process of how that character was chosen from about 60 candidates down to three left a strong impression on me.

What I remember most is an assignment where we had to submit a report on a single postcard. Instead of researching a lot and writing a lot, he told us to express it on one postcard. The way to create headlines and summarize was different from a regular report assignment and was very stimulating.

During this time at SFC, Sergio Echigo also came as a physical education teacher. His sharp-tongued soccer commentary didn't have a great reputation, but when we played soccer together, he was incredibly good. I was overwhelmed by his overwhelming skill and realized his sharp tongue wasn't just for show (laughs).

My classmates also felt like a small, elite group. There were relatively many graduates from Keio Senior High School, and everyone had a spirit of trying to do something interesting. While attending university, I continued the rap I had started in high school and released my first record in my second year.

Someone who heard my previously released music invited me to a recording. I reached out to members I was performing with at rap events at the time and suggested we make a song with the theme of "Kan-keri" (kick the can). From there, people around us started calling us "the kick the can people," which is the origin of the group name "KICK THE CAN CREW (hereafter, Kick)."

That's true. Especially LITTLE, a member of Kick, raps by aligning the rhythm perfectly when broken down into vowels, in a homophonic way. In contrast, I do what I call "forcing it"—for example, finding words that sound similar, like a combination of English and Japanese, and trying to make them sound like the same rhyme through the power of rap.

Yes. "Itsunaro-ba" is a song with a summer theme, and the origin of the title is "It's not over," conveying the meaning that "summer isn't over." I used an English-like kana notation for this pronunciation, similar to how "What time is it now" sounds like "Hotta imo ijiru na." Probably "Itsunaro-ba" is easier for native speakers to understand than saying "It's not over." I thought this kind of fluctuation was interesting as Japanese and made it the song title.

"KREVA CLASS" is written and directed by Kentaro Kobayashi, and it's basically a comedy skit throughout. KREVA, in the role of a teacher, gives a lecture on stage about the history of rap rhyming and turntables (record players). It's a stage where this play functions as a single school.

I've asked Kentaro to direct commercials for Kick before, and conversely, I've appeared in skits on the NHK program "Kentaro Kobayashi TV." Actually, I've been to almost all the plays Kentaro has directed. My desire to create a stage together with Kentaro, whom I respect so much, grew, and it finally came true this year.

Because I wanted to expand the range of stages I can stand on, beyond just doing live shows at live houses and halls. "KREVA CLASS" performed at the Kanagawa Arts Theatre in April, which is an unusual venue for a rapper's event. However, I felt that with Kentaro, there must be a form of performance possible even at an arts theater, and I had a desire within myself to pursue enjoying the Japanese language as an artist.

Yes. Periods where I want to make such easy-to-understand songs come around regularly. But actually, doing something that is easy for everyone to understand in a cool way is very difficult.

People who have no interest in rap at all. While being allowed to stand on various stages, there have been times when people thought, "Who is KREVA?" Each time, I've tried to choose words and vocalizations that reach even those who don't know rap.

In "KREVA CLASS" as well, Kentaro pointed out a lot of my speaking habits, such as rap flow and how to add dynamics. For example, when saying "...dayone," he told me to leave the mouth shape of the final "ne" so that even the person in the very back seat of the theater could understand. I received detailed guidance that only a professional stage director could provide, and I learned a lot.

Kentaro is also someone who is good at rhyming with homophones, and he wrote almost all the lines for "KREVA CLASS." Many rhyming lines appear in the script. I feel a commonality with Kentaro in exploring the use of the Japanese language, but I also feel he has things I don't.

I've incorporated skit-like elements into my live shows before, but this time, by being taught by a professional who does it for a living—such as how to take pauses and how to utter words—it became something completely different. As a result of these interactions, I believe we were able to create a serious stage at a level far higher than just a rapper trying out comedy.

While you're a student, things like writing papers or doing research might seem unrelated to what you want to do. But I think you should do as much as possible of the "things you can do if you try." This is because you really don't know how these things will connect in the future.

That's because when I was given an assignment to create video and music as a team using computers during my student days, even though my friends invited me, I used being busy with music activities as an excuse and didn't do it seriously. I still regret that a little bit today. I feel that if I had a mindset of being more actively involved with the university, I might be in a better position than I am now.

That might be unrelated to whether it's useful for my future, but the important thing is not to leave behind the feeling that you could have done it but didn't.

My awareness of wanting to get better at rap isn't that strong now or in the past. It's more like I keep doing it because I want to, and as a result, I'm improving.

On the other hand, in 2022, I produced a song called "ichiban" for King & Prince. At that time, the first song I submitted was sent back with the comment, "Please make it something more like KREVA..." What I realized then was that I'm probably better at producing myself than producing others. Since I always have the desire to stand on stage, I'll probably continue as a player as long as I feel that way.