ABSTRACT
In a manner similar to how Paul Gilroy (1993) looked at the “Black Atlantic,” where Africans and Americans interacted to create a hybrid culture we often identify as “African American” culture, so has emerged what I dub a “Pop Pacific” as a space of transnational cultural construction of “Japanese popular music.” This hybridized popular music culture largely took root from the mid-1920s with Japanese American jazz musicians performing in Japan; in the postwar period, the presence of music on American military bases in Japan and the growing interplay between television and Japanese music corporations accelerated and mediated this transnational flow. By the turn of the new millennium, the internet allowed for near instantaneous access to information and provided easier means for fan interactions, helping to expand the global market. A study of the “Pop Pacific” reveals the hidden transnational and hybrid aspects of Japanese popular music. This chapter shows through the US–Japan music connection that much of Japanese popular music was part of a larger global web of world music, and, this being the case, labels of national origin like “Japanese” or “American” hide the true nature of transnational web of popular music.
