Musical Discovery - Nujabes

This post is technically two days late.  However, to me it is the most meaningful post I'll have this month.  Three years ago, on February 26, 2010, Seba Jun aka Nujabes died in a motorcycle accident.  As a musical figure, Nujabes was honestly the first time I enjoyed hip hop music.  As such, I feel a great sense of disappointment and grief in knowing that no more of his music will ever exist.

The genre that Nujabes preferred to work in was a blend of hip hop beats and jazz that even if you didn't always agree with, always worked and was always a pleasure to listen to.  In the United States, my guess would be that he is most famous as the composer of the soundtrack to Samurai Champloo.  With tracks like the opening, 'Battlecry', to 'World Without Worlds' to 'Aruarian Dance', Nujabes made sure to make interesting beats meld with really traditional themes to create beautiful music for the anime.  On another note, 'Aruarian Dance' is actually an arrangement of Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante defunte' with a hip hop undertone.

What's sad to me in particular though, is that it took Nujabes' death in order for me to go back and really listen to everything he's done and properly enjoy his music.  While he had catchy songs like 'Lady Brown' and 'Blessing It', you understand that hip hop and jazz are his roots.  But as mentioned earlier, he had a great understanding of past music and respected classical music enough to put his own stamp on a theme well known in the classical world.

In general, I still find myself averse to hip hop music.  However, my reasoning for that is that there is much too much 'stereotypical' hip hop music that takes generic beats and places inappropriate and pitiful lyrics over top.  In my opinion, all musical forms can be powerful and evocative but it takes a mind willing to understand the underpinnings and weaknesses of a musical form to be able to enrich it to a level that's truly enjoyable.  Not to bash on hip hop music, I feel the same about most pop music in the US at this point too.

Nujabes released a ton of music from 2003 until his death in 2010.  Obviously I can't say all of it was amazing, however regardless of whether you like hip hop or not, it would be unforgivable of me to not request you check out Nujabes' music.  Beyond hip hop, beyond jazz, his music is simply beautiful and just plain good, and there is no better compliment I can really give to any artist alive or dead than that.  With that, I hope you enjoyed the post and I really hope you take a listen.

--CsMiREK