What are the Intertextualities present in Nujabes's music?

[Image]. Retrieved from https://wall.alphacoders.com/by_sub_category.php?id=214403&name=Nujabes+Wallpapers

Define Intertextuality:

Intertextuality as described by John Hartley’s text at a “semiotic level as use of a given sign in other textual contexts” (Hartley, 2002)

What this means essentially is that media that was created in any form from another can be used to add or alter the end meaning of the artwork in order to convey a different meaning or to enhance the new meaning.

Below is a summary list of the influences in my mind map and why I chose them;

Nujabes: Nujabes was a Hip hop/Jazz producer and produced many tracks during his career for anime and other rap artists in the Hip hop/Jazz scene. I was introduced to his music while watching an anime called "Samurai Champloo" and have been inspired to produce music similar to his hip hop style ever since. The nature of hip hop is one of experimenting and creating new or enhanced meaning in a song by sampling in creatively music from another song and mixing or scratching beats to create a unique sound.

Studio Ghibli: Hayao Miyazaki was the creator of the studio which produced many great Japanese anime titles such as Naiisca Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. I am however heavily influenced by the music inside the anime which was produced exclusively by Joe Hisaishi.

Final Fantasy 7 in game music by, Nobuo Uematsu: The sound score was entirely composed by Nobuo Uematsu and I would sometimes go to certain areas in the map in game just to listen to some soothing tunes or ones that relaxes you like Costa del Sol, or Cosmo canyon.

Stardew Valley: A 2D farming role playing game that had many different cultural and engaging story elements within the game. This game was hugely inspiring for me personally since during its release around late 2016 I was still working in another company and gaming was an outlet for me to wind-down. After playing SDV, whole idea of changing life direction appealed to me since I was not satisfied with the job I had before and ultimately lead me to change career paths in early 2018 to pursue music production.

From all the above main sources of influence they all have one thing in common that I feel is that for one I am drawn to the music of each anime or game. They all are unique in the way they are able to use external texts or samples of sound to create their own unique sound.

My focus for Intertextuality is Nujabes (Jun Seba)

Info graphic of Nujabes timeline (Wang, 2012)

From the early days of Hip hop where the music genre was created as a rebellion against the 70's disco scene. The style would then shift throughout the world especially in parts of Japan and have influenced an artist call Jun Seba (Nujabes is his name spelled backwards).

As can be seen in the info graphic above Nujabes was influeced by jazz and hip hop artists and this is evident in his album tracks like "trancedence" ("Samurai Champloo - Transcendence", 2009) and "Mystline" from his album Departure ("Nujabes - Mystline", 2009). He was also able to mix and produce backing tracks for hip hop artists and one particular song that showcases his style is "Lady brown" with Cise Starr ("Nujabes - Lady Brown", 2018) and "Think Different" by Substantial. ("Nujabes - Think Different Ft. Substantial w/ Lyrics", 2005)

After writing this blog article I began to understand Nujabes more as a creator since he was influenced by the artwork around him at the time. He grew up during the 70's which was the disco era and witnessed the birth of Hip Hop from New York. Having listened to these types of beats he too was inspired by the Jazz musicians of his time such as Jose Feliciano - Affirmation (Feliciano, 1975) which lead to Nujabes sampling the guitar riffs and making - "Counting stars" ("Nujabes - Counting Stars; REST IN PEACE", 2007) which feature the same guitar riffs with his own backing beats.

I believe by looking back now at Nujabes as an artist he was a master of finding really good art and modifying it to work with his sound. Since I was influenced by him I learnt that indirectly I too was influenced by his sources who were Jazz musicians and original hip hop artists. The use of jazz instrumentals gave his sound a smooth chilled vibe which worked equally well with rappers and hip hop artists who can lay down a line like shing02 in Luv(sic) Part 2. ("Jun Seba aka Nujabes, Rest In Peace.", 2009) My perspective on Nujabes has not changed and I still feel that his music style is still more appealing now that I have researched where his style comes from and how he uses other texts and sources to create his sound. This is something that I aspire to be able to produce in the near future.

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Sources:

[Image]. Retrieved from https://wall.alphacoders.com/by_sub_category.php?id=214403&name=Nujabes+Wallpapers

Hartley, J. (2002). The key concepts (3rd ed., p. Page 126, Intertextuality). USA: Routledge.

Wang, J. (2012). A History of Nujabes | Visual.ly. Retrieved from https://visual.ly/community/infographic/history/history-nujabes

Samurai Champloo - Transcendence. (2009) [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbaVxNDtVW8

Nujabes - Mystline. (2009) [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5oNM2SnjIM

Nujabes - Lady Brown. (2009) [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9QHak8h1AQ

Nujabes - Think Different Ft. Substantial w/ Lyrics. (2005) [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJjrHffPPo8

Feliciano, J. (1975) [VIDEO]. Affirmation - Jose Feliciano Original 1975 (also by Nujabes Counting Stars cover by George Benson). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpWl1tG3dtg

Nujabes - Counting Stars; REST IN PEACE. (2007) [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O0kuoiAm2A

Jun Seba aka Nujabes, Rest In Peace. (2009) [VIDEO]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKW4EA3wluI