Japanese Women Rappers and the Politics of Visibility: Agency, Music Videos and Postfeminism
Chûjô, Chiharu
Japanese Women Rappers and the Politics of Visibility: Agency, Music Videos and Postfeminism - 2026.
10
This article analyses the positioning of Japanese women rappers in contemporary Japanese society, where feminism is expressed through an ambivalent postfeminist sensibility. Within a music ecosystem that prioritizes visibility (through television, platforms, brand partnerships) over the goal of legitimizing hip hop as a musical genre, the agency of women rappers is situated between a neoliberal logics (individual performance, self-branding) and forms of sisterhood. Through analysis of four music videos, we identify various gestures of agency—framing, editing, intertexts and paratexts—ranging from tactical adjustment and ambivalence to overt misalignment. Our study elucidates the politics of visibility that conditions artists’ margins of action.
Japanese Women Rappers and the Politics of Visibility: Agency, Music Videos and Postfeminism - 2026.
10
This article analyses the positioning of Japanese women rappers in contemporary Japanese society, where feminism is expressed through an ambivalent postfeminist sensibility. Within a music ecosystem that prioritizes visibility (through television, platforms, brand partnerships) over the goal of legitimizing hip hop as a musical genre, the agency of women rappers is situated between a neoliberal logics (individual performance, self-branding) and forms of sisterhood. Through analysis of four music videos, we identify various gestures of agency—framing, editing, intertexts and paratexts—ranging from tactical adjustment and ambivalence to overt misalignment. Our study elucidates the politics of visibility that conditions artists’ margins of action.
Réseaux sociaux