Shingo Annen (aka Shing02) is truly a man of the world and has been an influential presence in the underground rap community as an MC and producer in both Japan and the U.S. since the early 90’s. As one of the few truly multilingual rappers on the international stage, Shing02 is best known for his unique musical style, blending traditional Japanese tunes with new age hip-hop rhymes and lyrics. Currently touring for his new Japanese album “Y-Kyoku”, he is envisioning and producing new music as a member of the Kosmic Renaissance trio and is continuing to revolutionize the underground rap/ hip-hop community.
You might have caught our previous interview with him on channelAPA, so I decided to do a follow up in order to find out how Shingo’s passions, goals, and life lessons brought him to where he is today.
This video collaboration is not only just a look into his personal life, but also a dedication in memory of Tokyo based hip-hop producer and DJ Nujabes, with whom Shingo has collaborated on multiple occasions (most notably “Battlecry”, the theme song of the hip-hop influenced chanbara anime Samurai Champloo.) The mutual respect and love we both share for Nujabes was one of the key reasons for producing this video, and we wanted to continue to preserve his memory forever.
