After 20 years in the DJ game, DJ Krush is widely acclaimed as the king of Japanese hip-hop, and, as a much sought after turntabilist, his impeccable skills have impressed crowds all over world.
But his music is actually genre-defying and vastly experimental. He fuses hip-hop, old techno, house, rock and reggae, and he is particularly fond of jazz, saying that the "freedom that occurs in a (jazz) session is fascinating and exhilarating."
The story of DJ Krush started humbly — at a Tokyo cinema. There the then-teenage Hideaki Ishi become enamored with hip-hop after watching old-skool godfather Grandmaster Flash in the 1983 film "Wild Style," with its gritty street aesthetic, fraught with subway shots, break dancing and freestyle MCing, and it was this love affair that saved him from a chimpira (street thug) lifestyle.