I was asking my wife rhetorically really because of the theme music on many of the modern ones I have been watching. Now she brought up a good point which is that maybe its part of the localization. Do primarily to my eyes getting worse I now watched them dubbed (although dubbs are much better now than in the 90’s). Now previously I don’t think they really changed the music but now im not 100% sure. Anyone actually watch the japanese broadcasts and know if they localize to that degree? If not does anyone know if hip hop became popular in japan or korea or such?
Hip hop has influenced Japanese culture to some degree. Samurai Champloo (released in 2004) is the most hip hop influenced anime I can think of, with Shing02 (born in 1975) being the Japanese rapper I’m most familiar with.
Street Fighter 3 3rd Strike (1999) had a hip hop influenced style.
Whether or not rap is “more popular” now can probably be answered by doing some research. https://www.billboard.com/charts/japan-hot-100/