Meet Seiji Oda, the Californian artist fusing hyphy with Japanese city pop

Seiji Oda answers my FaceTime call sat cross-legged on the floor, his phone facing the ceiling and his neck craning over the camera, filling the screen. It’s a sort of quirky playfulness that I immediately recognise from his music videos. He’s currently visiting his younger brother and fellow rapper lil ricefield in Tokyo, Japan – a fitting place to launch his new EP The Last Summer, which casts his distinctly dynamic rap style over Japanese city pop instrumentation.

Such unlikely crossovers are practically modus operandi for Seiji, whose music is a flamboyant love child of the Bay Area cultural melting pot in which he grew up. The region is particularly notable for its homegrown ‘hyphy’ culture – a style of rap music popularised by artists like E40 and Mac Dre in the early 2000s and characterised by whimsical delivery and eccentric dance moves. The movement has a huge influence on hip hop to this day, widely credited with popularising phrases like “go dumb” or “ghost ride the whip”, and was formative in Seiji’s approach to rap.

Back in 2019, Seiji and lil ricefield were suddenly catapulted to viral notoriety with single “Trapanese”, a tongue-in-cheek play on their Asian heritage full of mischievous one-liners like “these suckers wanna test but I’m Asian so I pass” over the intentionally cheesy “Kung-Fu Fighting” sample. In the years since, Seiji has been gradually refining this sonic encounter between the Bay Area and the East. Previous album lofi // HYPHY blends the two with references to the lofi hip hop genre pioneered by Japanese beatmaker Nujabes and cemented Seiji as one of the forerunners of the Bay Area rap scene.

Recent EP The Last Summer is the latest in this evolution, transporting the upbeat yet nostalgic Japanese city pop scene of the 1970s into the modern era with funky basslines and, of course, a sprinkling of hyphy culture throughout.

Below, Dazed speaks to Seiji about the influences behind his release, growing up in the Bay Area, and why he’s learning not to be cool.

How did you start making music?

Seiji Oda: My interest in music probably came from my dad, who is also a musician. He was an opera singer and does a lot of different kinds of music. We both practice capoeira, which has a style of music that’s part of what that they do. I think growing up with him and being in a musical household piqued my interest from a young age.

The Bay has such a rich history of rap music and I feel like you’re reinventing it for the new generation. Do you feel like that’s the case?

Seiji Oda: Yeah, definitely. The Bay has always been a hub of cultural innovation with lots of different things but especially with music. I think my role in it now is just learning from the way that Bay music has been doing shit out the trunk, independent and super prolific. You know, I couldn’t even count how many albums E40 has put out, like four at the same time and shit, and I’m like, ‘OK, I may not do that, but what does that look like in the new scope of music right now?’ For me, it’s that I’m gonna make this song and I’m gonna repost it this many times until finally someone picks it up. We never really had an industry structure in the Bay, people kind of had to figure it out on their own. I was thinking how can we get our music out into not just our own community, but outside the Bay, too?

The Bay is quite a culturally mixed area, too. How would you describe your exposure to that growing up?

Seiji Oda: Yeah, I feel like there are so many places in the world that are melting pots like that, like New York or LA. But my experiences in those places is that things are very separate. In Oakland, everyone calls it the town, right? It really has that feeling of a small town where everyone is moving between each other and it just feels very familial. Everyone from jump is like, ‘I can share this with you’, in whatever culture you might have. We are super different, but we can still come and find a common ground. That’s why I feel like the Bay is so special.

“I think that a lot of people have really cool music and that those people are naturally cool. But I think, for me, I had to accept that I’m not naturally cool. So I just let it be weird and silly because that’s who I am“ – Seiji Oda

I feel like dynamism is really present in your music. Tracks like ‘GASBREAKDIP’ are super free and flamboyant, where do you think that comes from?

Seiji Oda: Flamboyant is the perfect word. Me and the homies always look to Lil B as someone who’s very much himself, even when it kind of doesn’t really make sense. It’s silly. But also, on the other side, I have a lot of siblings, and we all just grew up kind of being very silly with each other. I try to bring that energy into the music, and not just try to be cool. I think that a lot of people have really cool music and that those people are naturally cool. But I think, for me, I had to accept that I’m not naturally cool. So I just let it be weird and silly because that’s who I am.

On the other side of the influences, how were you first exposed to city pop? 

Seiji Oda: My dad is Japanese but he didn’t really listen to much Japanese music. I would say city pop really was just my YouTube algorithm. What initially got me excited about it was that there’s so much in common with Bay music. Tempo wise, and the funk influence, too. Bay music is super influenced by funk. When I listened to it I was like, ‘Oh, this feels familiar, and it's a culture that I want to get in touch with.’ My dad is first generation [American], so, me as a half-Japanese kid, I didn’t really feel a connection to Japanese culture. This EP was kind of like me trying to get back in touch with the culture, but also something that I already recognised.

Is this EP the prophesised city pop EP that you were talking about years ago?

Seiji Oda: For sure, it’s been planned for a minute. It’s been kind of a rolling thing where I’ve done city pop playlists and city pop events too, but now, with the ‘~ a gentle gigg...’ song popping off, I finally feel like I can have a platform to be like, ‘Alright, here’s the shit that I really fuck with.’ It was perfect timing because now I’m in Japan, and so we can kind of do some stuff out here, shoot a lot of videos in the birthplace of city pop.

So, I’m not sure if you’ll hate this but I first discovered you through ‘Trapanese’ with lil ricefield, which was obviously a big hit back in 2019. What was your experience of going viral?

Seiji Oda: It was really interesting because that was his third song he ever made. For me, because I had been doing music for a long time, it was something I’d always wanted. For him, it was like, ‘I didn’t want this, but cool, I guess?’ Then we did the Genius interview and stuff, and I think that there was a period of time where we both hated that song because every time somebody would talk to us they mention ‘Trapanese’. I think now I’ve come to accept it. It’s like a joke song, it’s part of that silliness that I talked about earlier. Now, because of ‘~ a gentle gigg...’, and other, newer music, a lot of people are rediscovering me. They’re like, ‘Oh, I discovered you from ‘Trapanese’, but I actually like this better’, which is cool, because we get to grow with people.

Taking it right down to the present, you said you’re going to do some music stuff out in Japan?

Seiji Oda: Yeah, we'll be shooting some videos and making music out here. I wanted to do an event, too, so we’ll see if I can make that happen.

Seiji Oda’s The Last Summer is out now.