As a writer, one of the toughest things to gauge is just how deep you want to go down the rabbit hole of history. If you’re Japanese, the name Kan Takagi likely needs no introduction. Alongside Hiroshi Fujiwara—whether as musicians or as original tastemakers—they’ve shaped the direction of contemporary Japanese culture in so many ways that focusing on one part of their legacy risks neglecting other, equally inspirational contributions or rehashing well-told stories.
Yet today, I’d like to hone in on one often-overlooked piece from Takagi’s music career: Artman (1997), a record that, in my humble opinion, has flown far too low under the radar for my taste.
Kan was born in 1961 in the sleepy seaside city of Zushi, Kanagawa. By the time he was a teenager, like many others, he began to rebel against authority. He fell in love with punk music, became the vocalist for his first rock band, FLESH, in 1979, and by 1981, had set up roots in Tokyo to form his own New Wave group, Tokyo Bravo.
In 1984, while working as a DJ, Kan fell under the spell of a new groove arriving from America—hip-hop. It breathed new life into the disco and funk records he was already spinning in clubs. Inspired by a budding friendship with Hiroshi Fujiwara, the two would wake up early and line up outside Tokyo record shops, eager to dig through crates stuffed with rare grooves, seemingly destined to be sampled as they took their first stabs at crafting homegrown rap music.
In 1986, together with vocalist Seiko Itoh and Hiroshi Fujiwara, Kan formed Tinnie Punx and released their debut, 建設的 (Constructive)—planting a flag for a new wave of Japanese urban music inspired by the swag, verve, and sound of Afrika Bambaataa, the Beastie Boys, and the rest of hip-hop’s first wave. Not long after, Kan helped launch Major Force, Japan’s first record label devoted solely to hip-hop, placing him firmly at the center of a distinct and influential movement.
Early Major Force releases by artists like Hiroshi Fujiwara, K.U.D.O., Toshio Nakanishi, and Group of Gods saw Kan contributing his production skills alongside future underground luminaries like Yann Tomita and Haruo Chikada. From dub to techno, Kan had a hand in shaping many of these nascent sounds.
During this fertile early period, Kan also became something of an unofficial ambassador to American rappers—like A Tribe Called Quest and Chuck D—on their first visits to Japan. He introduced them to the country’s burgeoning streetwear scene, which he helped inspire alongside figures like Nigö of A Bathing Ape. That same network of connections led to his first full-length solo hip-hop album, 1991’s Fruit of the Rhythm, which featured guests like Q-Tip and Afrika Bambaataa.
A masterpiece of early J-Rap, Fruit of the Rhythm channeled the freeform spirit of Native Tongues-style hip-hop and the emerging sound of New Jack Swing, especially on tracks like “Dodapunkrock #1” and “ミート・ザ・リズム (Meet the Rhythm).”
Just a year later, Kan pushed boundaries further with Grass Roots (1992), predicting the Dust Brothers-inspired, sample-heavy alt-rap of artists like Beck with songs like “Alternative Tongues,” “Can the Can,” and “11PM.” Drawing from rock, psychedelia, country, and other strains of Western “roots music,” Kan was moving away from mainstream rap and toward something altogether stranger. By 1993’s Heavy Duty Vol.1, he was using a band-like format to explore more hard-nosed, experimental ideas.
Which brings us to the question: What inspired Kan Takagi to go where he did on Artman in 1997?
Listening to tracks like “Terra Incognito” and the lead single “アートマンのテーマ (Theme From Artman),” I hear echoes not of boom-bap or jazz-rap but of the gritty atmospherics of Massive Attack or the melodic dissonance of your favorite noise artist. Kan rarely flows over cookie-cutter hip-hop beats. On Artman, samples drawn from Southeast Asian and Japanese traditional music share space with squelchy electronic textures and bass-heavy production, resulting in a thoroughly unique listening experience.
I wish I could ask Kan how he conceptualized the transition from the gamelan-led satire of “Weird Country” to the glitchy, ultraminimalist sound collage of Ryoji Ikeda’s “Flowscan”—a track that shares its DNA with Ikeda’s 1000 Fragments. Even today, certain songs from Artman hint at rap pushing its boundaries to the furthest reaches of its structure. More accessible tracks like the David Essex-sampling “Rock On” or the alt-groove of “あんなかるいのにな (Sleeper)” carry an undercurrent of controlled weirdness that makes me pause and wonder how alien this must have sounded in Heisei-era Japan.
It’s no surprise that songs like “Dreams” and “Mutation” feel more aligned with the future-forward sounds of artists like Shabazz Palaces or Death Grips. Jungle and trip-hop were once the only genres open enough to house sounds like these—something reflected in Kan’s remixed work by Mo’ Wax’s U.N.K.L.E. and the Jungle Brothers during that same period. When other producers’ beats fall flat, Kan seems to have a hundred other sonic tools at his disposal, always ready to pivot, always ready to move past retro influences into uncharted territory. Artman is where he hits hardest for precisely that reason.
On a track like “Who Gets,” field recordings, East Asian instrumentation, and a Jew’s harp inch us closer to the “manufractured” folkism at the core of Kan’s vision for the album. Seiko Ito lends his voice to the equally hyphy “マイ・ウェイ (My Way),” another mission statement disguised as a party track: “That was the old shit. This is the new ish.”
In the end, as Kan sashays his way through the Krautrock-influenced closer “愛のテーマ (Love Theme),” he wraps the album the way he seems to have lived his entire life—with both eyes looking firmly forward—while the rest of us continue to sleep on this brilliant, boundary-shattering record.