Frieren: Beyond HipHop's Rap

Ten years ago, when I saw music fans and hip-hop critics looking down on Vocaloid rap as not real rap, I made up my mind to create a fake rap that would make those people furious.

Two years later, while I was listening to the song Bad Guy by Billie Eilish, I suddenly had a thought. What if Haruo Tikada produced Billie Eilish and made a rap song? That moment became the true starting point of my fake rap project. I have always liked the music Haruo Tikada created for Kyoko Koizumi. I wanted to bring that kind of sound back to life by replacing Koizumi with Billie Eilish and turning it into rap.

After that, I also considered inviting a real rapper as a guest. However, that would go against my decision to never follow the rules of what is considered real rap, so I gave up on the idea.

About a year and a half ago, I saw a Korean fan of Xinlisupreme and came up with the idea of creating a rap performed by an anime superhero as a thank you gift. That was the beginning of Anime Hop.

I took inspiration from the anime audio dramas I listened to as a child and created a rap using short spoken phrases. Since anime is all about exaggeration, I brought that idea into rap. Just like a thumbs-up is understood around the world as a sign that means Good, I added the phrase Yo YoYo Hey men between spoken lines as a symbolic vocal gesture representing rap. This way, the spoken words that followed could be identified as rap. In other words, I turned rap into anime. This is the style I call Anime Hop. It does not follow the rules of real rap. It exists only to be free.

Perhaps in that hollow voice, which offers no emotional reward, we human beings may be able to seek the eternal love we have always longed for. It may exist beyond the endless journey we repeat until death, in the place where we are finally set free. Please enjoy this void rap that lies beyond the end of hip-hop, stripped of any reward or emotional impact.