Kaigen

The name Kaigen, a Japanese term meaning “to open the eye” associated with Buddhist concepts of enlightenment, lets you know that Kaigen is the type of emcee that sometimes has to get deep. Like the Poseidon Adventure. As Method Man would say. Growing up in Tokyo, Kaigen fell in love with hip-hop at a young age hearing American hip-hop tracks on basketball highlight reels, and broke into the Japanese hip-hop scene in his teens before relocating to Melbourne, Australia in 2004. Drawing inspiration from its multi-cultural atmosphere and flourishing alternative music scene, a chance encounter between Kaigen and Raceless of Curse Ov Dialect at Gaslight Music led to Kaigen’s induction into the Australian ultra-avant-garde hip-hop collective; he was also soon collaborating with other emcees like Elf Tranzporter, experimental electronic/ambient artist Ai Yamamoto and indie rock stars Architecture In Helsinki (see their 2004 ep Do The Whirlwind). Most Australians had never heard Japanese rap before, but Kaigen made sure they did, appearing at open mic spots in Melbourne sometimes as much as seven nights a week, rocking shows in Sydney and Tasmania and messing up peoples heads at the 2005 Big Day Out festival. Since then Kaigen has had an impressive musical output both as a solo artist and as part of Curse Ov Dialect, collaborating with artists from North America and Europe, while touring France (2007) Canada (2008) and Japan (2009). His last album, 2008’s Curse Ov The Kaigen, is seventeen tracks of experimental rap that defy all conventions, and a veritable acid-soaked harpoon hurled at the structures of corporatization and conformity. In his latest musical endeavour, Kaigen has teamed up with Honolulu-based Japanese emcee Meiso to create the collaborative side project Kaigen21Meiso. Their upcoming album, Root is the New Leaf ventures into new sonic territory and is destined to become a classic in the cannon of experimental hip-hop. Twelve tracks features Modulok, Ceschi Ramos and production from Omid, Sole of Anticon, K-The-I???, Curse Ov Dialect, Scott da Ros and Michita. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.