I think a few years ago, I’ve met Nujabes music on internet who died after a car crash in 2010 tragically. His lovely music enveloped me so easy that I started to listen nearly all of his productions. He was combining hip-hop beats with jazz samples. It was quite rare but for a nerd like me, listening rarest pieces of music, it was familiar. Nujabes stands in the genre with Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar. For modest options I can point J Dilla, Tribe called Quest and Mos Def.
But before that, Nujabes is a musician with the gentlest of souls.
If you make a quick search for the legend of Nujabes, you’ll meet shares and status messages with sincerity.
Although he has a limited audience, he is not very popular, however his folowers admire him. Sees him as a life-changer, hope for depressed, kind of a prophet like who is enhancing the life-bonds of the listeners.
He also created a subculture that everybody tries to make music like Nujabes. Its like he invented a new music genre.
But how, a musician can create an image like this. Especially in this age. You know, most of the popular music is connected with money, power, vanity and these kind of things.
Yeah, his music is connected to anime, hip hop culture and graffitti. He may be connected with subcultures by that way. But, I am talking about the feeling he has created.
He is a niche musician, who has a vision of the world in a nostalgic, elegant, tolerant, mature, peaceful. We all look at the same world, seeing differently some sees tragic events like war, natural disasters, poverty and these kind of things. While others see fame, popularity, success… But if you have a gentle and -this is important- powerful soul, who has a faith in himself or herself, can build this kind of art. It will grow like an ivy, between the cracks of concrete. Although, it is not hard-built, its silence, dedication, its continuity without remise feeds itself.
Maybe he didn’t become too popular, but he gave meaning to lonely gentle souls around himself. He make them hang onto life.
Most of us looking the very same direction, to a few artists at the top, to having fun, to believe something. But a few search for things for their souls, and just for a few things fall into their place. As one dervish once said: “You can not find the truth by seeking, but the only finders are the seekers.”
I hope one day, all of us will find what we search. Whether it is in the popular direction, whether it is not.
Rest in beats, Nujabes.
