Japanese Reggae?
The Japanese have been making reggae almost as long as Jamaicans have been exporting it. This phenomenon could have started as early as the mid-’70s, when the film “The Harder They Come” grafted the crime drama to Kingston’s reggae scene and became an international cult classic. Or, more likely, it began sometime around 1979, when Bob Marley landed for the first time in the Land of the Rising Sun. Since then, the reggae scene in Japan has cycled through several styles and sub-subcultures, but only in recent years has one crucial aspect of its identity fully emerged: Finally, Japanese reggae stars are singing in Japanese.