Meet the Japanese MCs Who Do Insane Covers of UK Grime

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

Last week, a group of Japanese MCs called Yomeiriland started to gain some sudden UK attention for one particular track they had posted to Soundcloud. Fact Magazine reported on it, Plastician dropped it during his show on Rinse FM, and grime Twitter was alive with excitement, confusion and intrigue—a bit like when Wiley started live-tweeting how much he hated Glastonbury, but better.

Yomeiriland had dropped a Japanese cover version of Novelist and Mumdance’s 2014 grime banger “Take Time.” Rather than Novelist spitting bars about various wastemen on a Lewisham estate, the track suddenly took on a completely different tone, led by the punk-tinged rap style of these unknown Japanese musicians, and resulted in a song that banged hard, appeared to adopt a different subject matter, and generally asked even more questions than it answered. Who was this band, how did they hear Nov, and what made them want to cover grime?

Japan is no stranger to grime. Japanese MCs like Pakin have already collaborated with UK artists, spitting entirely in Japanese, and a couple of years ago there was a nationwide war dub competition between the top producers and DJs from the grime and dubstep scenes with over 97 producers getting involved. But still, there was something special about Yomeiriland’s cover that drew you in. It was a whole new interpretation—a club weapon we knew so well, approached from a completely different angle.

glitched-out dub 8-bit trap beats Continues below

Hey Yomeiriland! So what made you cover a Mumdance and Novelist track?
“Don’t Get Lemon” by Mumdance feat. Spyro was the most impressive tune for me in 2014. When I was listening to it I thought, “Oh my God, this is new techno music!” and never thought it was grime or dubstep. I would have liked to rap on it, but it was too difficult. Then I heard “Take Time” by Mumdance and Novelist, and it made us try to rap on the track. If Novelist had not done it, we might have given up again. I found a mysterious sense of security and cuteness in the sounds of Mumdance’s tunes.

So does that mean you’re big grime fans?
I like grime music, but I prefer two-step, garage and jungle. I prefer grime to US hip-hop because grime artists rap about ordinary life and are dissatisfied and whining just like us, whereas hip-hop has too much boasting and macho-ness. The lyrics in our tunes are based on our day-to-day life and the fucked-ness of office work.

Is that what you’re spitting about over this Mumdance beat?
We rapped about our childhood memories, about playing computer games like Puyo Pop, Yoshi’s Island, Donkey Kong, Super Mario, Biohazard, and Street Fighter 2. In the first verse Mechummmm is talking about the ecstatic experience brought on by video game, and how immoral she felt when she played using the guide book. In the second verse, Uuuuukakaka tells a fictional story about her brother getting somnambulism and needing to go to hospital because he got a shock watching his dad playing Biohazard. She doesn’t play games but likes watching someone playing them. And in the last verse, Mieuxxx talks about her lonely hours spent trying to be Chun-Li from Street Fighter 2. She practiced Qigong Fist seriously when she was a child, and one day she fell on her buttocks and cried while practicing her Hyakuretsukyaku Slide but nobody could soothe her because both her mother and father were out at work and she was their only daughter…

It’s beautiful because, I don’t know if you already know this, but grime has a love affair with certain video games, and historically, they have always crept into songs via lyrical references or sound effects. Is grime big in Japan?
Many of my friends love grime, but they love rave, jungle, trap, techno, house, hip-hop, hardcore and punk etc, as well. The people who know grime in Japan are mostly music nerds. It’s not popular yet, but serious music lovers know it.

Do you have any more plans to include grime sounds in your music?
We never have any plans about our music until we hear tunes we like, then we come up with ideas after that. I love music from fucking big speakers with bass! Oi, you have loads of questions about grime, isn’t it? I have to go home now coz my mum prepared dinner and is waiting for me, you know?

You can follow Paul on Twitter, and you can also find our kind translator, Jun Yokoyama.