Yellow Album, Brown Targets

My love for Japan never really died—it just went dormant, hibernating while I got distracted by other things. Now it’s back, and conveniently so is Blumio, a rapper from Düsseldorf with Japanese roots who just landed "Hey Mr. Nazi" in MTV Urban’s rotation. The timing feels almost pointed.

The video is genuinely funny and genuinely sharp—a 24-year-old half-Japanese kid dismantling racism with wordplay so dense you have to watch it twice, weaving in love, Japanese culture, and a confession that he showers daily because it helps with the ladies. That last bit lands as both joke and thesis: here is a man comfortable enough in his own skin to be ridiculous about it. The fascists must hate that most of all.

His Yellow Album came out in June on his own label, Japsensoul, and I keep coming back to it. The whole Blumio package—clever rhymes, a certain warmth, weaponized cheerfulness deployed against exactly the people who deserve to be made fun of—lands well. Disarming joy as political strategy. I respect it. And right now, with my Japanese textbooks stacked on the desk and a language course about to start, it feels like the right soundtrack anyway.