Credits:

Zero [Hz]

Description:

For many years, Takuro Okada has been asking a quiet question.”As a Japanese musician, how can I respect African-American music without simply borrowing from it?”–This quest has shaped his new album, “Konoma.Okada, a Tokyo-based guitarist/producer/bandleader, has lived with this struggle since childhood. While growing up drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records, he was confronted with the weight of history etched in them and pondered his own origins as a Japanese born and raised in Japan and his connection to these musical genres.He was introduced to “Afro-mingei” at an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates.Gates connected the aesthetics of black art with the Japanese mingei movement, showing that both cultures are rooted in the spirit of “resistance.Just as the phrase “Black is Beautiful” symbolized resistance to racism, the Mingei movement was born to preserve the beauty of the everyday that was di