Twilight Tokyo

Japan is more than karaoke nights and matchbox-sized izakayas. On a recent visit to India, Shibuya district’s nightlife ambassador Hideyuki Yukoi aka Zeebra talked us through the best and worst his country has to offer night owls.

- Prerna Makhija

When you think of drinking in Japan, there are kitschy theme bars, salarymen staying up until the wee hours only to end up napping at train stations till it’s time to clock in and decades-old, hole-in-the-wall establishments serving sake and light beer, as seen on Netflix’s popular series Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories. But it’s only been a couple of years since the Japanese government lifted some of its 25-year-old Footloose-style, no-dancing-after-midnight laws. That’s partially thanks to one of Tokyo’s oldest hip-hop advocates, Hideyuki Yukoi aka Zeebra, who, along with his group King Giddra, played an important role in the development of the underground Japanese hip-hop scene in the early Nineties. On a visit to Delhi for the third edition of the India Nightlife Convention and Awards (INCA), Yukoi discusses his role as a nightlife ambassador, the similarities between Japan and India’s nightscape and his country’s excellent vinyl revolution.