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Relay Column: Who Am I Dancing as?: About a (Very) Particular Aspect of Popular Music & Fashion (Ken Kato)
PROFILE
Ken Kato
Born in 1993. Graduated from Waseda University, Faculty of Education, and currently enrolled in the Doctoral Program at Osaka University's Graduate School of Letters. He is a special research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (DC2). His specialty is popular music research. His papers include "渋谷に召還される〈渋谷系〉—ポピュラー音楽におけるローカリティの構築と変容—" ("Popular Music Studies" 24 (1), 2020) and his books include "〈再発見〉はどこから来たか？：海外シティポップ・ファンダムのルーツと現在地" (co-authored with Moritz Sommet, in Yuji Shibasaki's "シティポップとは何か," Kawade Shobo, 2022, pages 254-281).
Functional Clothes
I study popular music. Normally, I listen to a wide range of genres such as rock, hip hop, and jazz. I write papers on City pop and Shibuya-kei music, and I talk about K-POP and Kenshi Yonezu in my lectures (Incidentally, my supervisor is an expert on Brazilian Bahian drums, enka, and disco).Whenever I go to the field for fieldwork, I am constantly worried about my unreliable wardrobe. Without bringing up words like rapport, fashion serves as a basic code of conduct for acceptance into a community.
However, to start with a personal story, the first time I experienced the power of fashion was not in music, but rather in the realm of "religion." Born and raised in a small Jodo Shinshu temple in Aichi Prefecture, I underwent the "Tokudo" ceremony to become a monk when I was a grade schooler, at the age of 11.
In the height of the summer vacation, it was a big trip to Kyoto with my relatives, where the Higashi Hongan-ji Temple is located. Ignoring my family who were thrilled about the sightseeing trip and my grandparents who were choked up with emotion, all I could do upon seeing my closely shaved head, which even intimidated high school baseball players, was pray to the gods and Buddha (maybe?) that my hair would grow back before the end of the summer vacation.
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