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Over the past decade various elements of Japanese popular culture such as manga, anime, costume-play and several incarnations of popular music including J-Pop and Visual kei have become influential in the production of much Western pop culture. The themes, styles and formats of these art forms are often predicated on futurism and advanced technology which furthers a stereotypical Western view of Japan as a technologically advanced but dehumanised society. Termed 'techno-Orientalism' (Morley and Robins 1995), such notions resonate with those of Afro-futurism which involve comparable African American signification of a technologically emancipated future.
The reach of Japanese popular culture has recently extended into Western popular music. Several prominent Western hip hop artists, including Wu-Tang Clan, Kanye West and Nicki Minaj, have been particularly influenced by and have adopted many aspects of Japanese pop culture. Following a discussion of the rise of techno-Orientalism, this essay focuses on the intersection of hip hop and Japanese pop culture found in the Afro-Samurai anime soundtrack, Kanye West's use of Japanese musical technologies and futuristic pop cultural references in Graduation (2007) and 808s & Heartbreak (2009), and Nicki Minaj's 'Check it Out' (2010). These works manifest a fusion of techno-Orientalism and Afro-futurism evincing a sympathetic connection based, in part, on shared notions of Afro-Asian liberation. The common element of utopian empowerment achieved through technological mastery and an aesthetic outlook based on hybrid cultural appropriations and re-appropriations represents a powerful and recurring trope in both hip hop and Asian popular culture. As such, this essay explores how Japanese popular culture has been understood both within its own borders and how its exportation has been adopted by and has played into notions of African American identity.1
Japan and techno-Orientalism
Much of the world's image of Japanese popular culture revolves around what Eri Izawa has termed 'the heartless, flat image that many people hold of Japan' (Izawa 2000, p. 138). Indeed, many Westerners see Japan as a cold, calculating country populated by soulless workers, consumed by mathematical efficiency and overwhelming bureaucracy while being obsessed with technology. Although such a stereotype has hopefully been mitigated, if not eliminated, in the wake of the human tragedy surrounding the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Japanese society...