Make Believe Mailer #149: Yo, Life

New Ones From Peterparker69, lilbesh ramko And Peanuts-kun

At its core, Peterparker69 exudes pure J-pop earnestness. The pair of rapper Jeter and producer Y ohtrixpointnever try to blanket it under a layer of silliness — the project’s name, self-deprecating merch, silly videos, the fact one of them adopted a moniker riffing on Daniel Lopatin —  but the music itself is all youthful yearning and wavy feelings. Sure, you could fixate on them doing dances in a mall over a fizzy beat, but a line like “I wanna get out of the lowlife” cuts through any percieved irony.

The duo’s first full-length album yo, thrives on wedding vulnerability with ever-shifting sounds. Peterparker69’s actual sound rarely sits still. Synth melodies bend and mutate frequently while samples of horses clomping ahead, children’s voices and digi screeches appear on top. The vocals get pitched up and down from verse to verse, sometimes skittering over themselves and other times warping so much as to become alien.

At times on yo, this approach to heavily manipulted can bee like they are more interested in using the voice as another instrument in its sonic wooze, or even that they are trying to deflect from being too upfront emotionally by approaching unintelligibility. But then, a line comes across so clearly and with such direct force to erase those thoughts — about memories of spending time in an airport, about love and friendship, about the euphoria music provides.

“Personally, I don't care if the lyrics are understandable when you listen to them, but I think the important thing is that they have meaning,” Jeter said in a recent interview with fnmnl. “If they don't have any meaning, then there's no need to write lyrics.”

yo, is a hallmark release in the story of Japanese underground music in the 2020s. While hints of this community started popping up before it, the pandemic truly set it in motion. A generation of young artists were suddenly ripped away from whatever live ecosystems they would have come of age in, plopped into apartments with only a computer to entertain them. That, though, allowed them to absorb a new era of internet sounds. Rap, rave and especially the digi-expression of “hyperpop” connected with many, inspiring them to find their own angle on it. Someone like 4s4ki certainly borrowed from the visual side of the style, but found different expressions lurking in the sound.

When live performances could happen again, you ended up with headspinning lineups like this July 2022 Tokio Shaman event at the now-closed Shibuya club Contact. More traditional rappers shared the bill with DJs spinning trance and feedback-soaked rock acts. Others who bubbled up on SoundCloud mixed a little of everything together, threaded with diary-clear lyrics about navigating the world. I attended this show, and there was something special seeing two-years-worth of homebound creativity spilling out IRL.

Of course Peterparker69 were one of the central performers. The pair possibly crystalizes this mix best, as they aren’t too online. Jeter and Y ohtrixpointnever initially performed as part of the rap group WATER DAWGS, a collective featuring a slightly more traditional approach to hip-hop albeit filtered through the kaleidoscopic beats of Y. You can see the two in this “Otaku In Tha Hood” home tour YouTube, and note how…they aren’t swagless per se, but certainly introspective compared to everyone else present.

Since forming the project, they’ve avoided feeling too tied to one thing. Hip-hop is still central, but an experimental approach to electronic sound that’s part Warp and part netlabel shapes it too, as does a general curiosity in how sounds can bend to their worldview. And of course, J-pop has lurked in the corners of everything they’ve done, though it’s the debut’s centerpiece “Hey phone” making this hammer-to-head obvious both by what’s the closest to a traditional pop song structure they’ve ever create to the presence of Yojiro Noda — guitarist and vocalist of long-running rock outfit and adolescence-capturing band RADWIMPS — offering up a fittingly ennui-soaked verse.

“I’ve been a fan of RADWIMPS since I was in middle school,” Y ohtrixpointnever told fnmnl, and that makes sense to explaining yo, and the emotionally earnest heart at the center of this era of underground Japanese music.

To step away from the emotional stuff…yo, is a 2025 highlight just in how the duo approach sound. Here’s a set of songs featuring guest apperances from Japan-based electronic tinkerer Tennyson, UK rap-dance hybrids Rosier and Tom Huna, mysterious producers Two Shell and the guy who added the teenage juice to the soundtrack of Your Name. The pair’s own voices fold over themselves on the skittering “music” and ripple on the half-speed emo fever dream “new year, still here.” And as they mention in interveiw, there’s times where the singing blurs in with the music to become one, bordering on the vibey.

But oh no, because the moments words do break through in either intensity or meaning make it impossible to simply zone out to Peterparker69. “Magic Powers” hits on club euphoria in its darting beats, while the rush of vocals constituting a chorus on “Monkey See” is catharsis…a feeling delivered even if you don’t look up what the lyrics actually are and discover its all about expelling regret. The clearer lines across yo, meanwhile, add a longing and sweetness to everything, untangling from the trippier vocal spin around them. “Baby, I just want to see you.” “I’ve been feeling good.” “Before you go, iiteyo¹ bye bye.”

I don’t think any attempt at lifting the sound of 2020s “internet music” and grafting it onto a new mainstream artist has worked artistically ever since label people learned what the “hyperpop playlist” was. For years, it was a sonic coat of paint for album-only tracks like SEVENTEEN’s “GAM3 BO1,” busted out mostly as a way to reduce the cheesiness of references to the modern web (“8-bit coins, I was chasing / Now there are Bitcoins / I’ll be mining until 2077”).

Recently though it’s become more prominent. It’s the foundation of KATSEYE’s “Gnarly,” easily the most commerciallyl successful application of this aesthetic but one creatively hollow, the definition of “oh that’s interesting.” It’s mangled worse on J-pop group f5ve’s SEQUNECE 01, a full-length release arriving after two highlights built on clever interpretations of the country’s pop history. Unfortunately, the folks behind it either took the wrong lessons from those tracks or got way too lost in the meme sauce, because the new songs lean too much into irony and semi-ironic Aughts nostalgia, drawing from the same inspirations as “hyperpop” but coming up with numbers existing only to say “look, we know who Kesha is” and “Bow Chika Wow Wow².”

Despite existing for like eight years now, these songs offer a totally wrong reading of what “hyperpop” and all digital-native music of this period. It’s just loud and weird and in-your-face and stupid, but in a good way! It’s all jokes and winking at electric car brands, chips and their youth. It’s offering a very TikTok-damaged view of what internet art is.

I don’t think that meshes with my image of what has really defined “internet music” of the last, say, five years coming out of anywhere, including Japan. It’s more emotionally raw and sonically curious than “brain rot goes brrrrrr.” It’s extremely collaborative, and, mirroring the history of Japanese netlabels, one as focused on brigning together people in the real world as they are online. Those same kids who spent the pandemic absobring all this came out of it ready to create a fresh ecosystem in Tokyo, with new parties and venues to play with.

Alongside Peterparker69’s first album, central whirlwind lilbesh ramko — also present on that Tokio Shaman lineup from 2022 — recently released the Seikatsu*1 EP. Moreso than the other duo mentioned, ramko represents something closer to what many would stereotypically tag as “hyperpop.” He often features a blown-out sound, he’s prone to screaming and shouting, and he’s transformed familiar video game melodies into emotional release. Yet his latest reminds of the depth he brings to music. It’s at times more spacious, almost digital pastoral in how he uses synths to conjure up an Animal-Crossing-worthy space on the intro and quieter stretches of these songs.

Which don’t always last long. ramko’s screaming spikes through many of the songs on Seikatsu. Yet it’s all about balance, and the triumph of this EP is how ramko turns jagged electronic notes and bass freakouts something that can serve as a backdrop for contemplation. “Inside” clatters forward, but ramko himself focuses on small details of life (including a recurring interest with liquids going cold…here a cafe ole, elsewhere miso soup) to wrestle with his own emotioanl tension. The sonic mood is practically light on “2020Dialogues,” but the strolling melody hides meditations on leaving the city behind. Closer “Homesic” skips ahead and features the least digital distortion — you can hear the piano clearly! — but that’s just more room for ramko to stare down the titular emotion. And it makes the vocal explosion midway hit all the harder.

Seikatsu and yo, underline just how much this corner of Japanese art has grown in recent years, both on a musical and emotional level, something many bigger interpretations miss completely. Yet shifting the view slightly towards representatives of larger online trends show how reducing “internet artists” to punchlines misses the point…even when talking about a peanut-shaped virtual YouTuber.

To actually match the albums above, I should direct you to VTuber Peanuts-kun’s 2024 full-length BloodBagBrainBomb, which is closer in sound (down to lilbesh ramko guesting on a song) while still dipping into a wide variety of ideas, including straight-up rap and 2step-pop. Yet Peanuts-kun just released Telekurabu II, a set big on hip-hop features with wildcard appearances from fellow VTuber Makaino Ririmu (on “Slow Motion,” above, produced by tofubeats and emerging as the “viral” one) and Lilas Ikuta of YOASOBI (on “TIME TO LUV” which I think is my favorite song here).

Yet the focus is on names from across the Japanese rap spectrum, running from Elle Teresa to Daoko to Punpee. It can be extremely silly — a song called “Destroy My Pants” which is exactly what you think it is — but also at times quite straightforward. Such so that I personally prefer the more manic BloodBagBrainBomb, but appreciate the variety Peanuts-kun offers.

Telekurabu II arrives amidst a deluge of thinkpieces on how culture and the internet intersect, specifically how baffling trends born online feel now. Labubu! Dubai Chocolate! Matcha everything! Everyone says there’s no monoculture, but they sure do write about the exact same things. Anyway, I’m not here to add to the logjam though Substack could reward me for that, but rather it’s this sense of the web being so bizarre in 2025 that makes me appreciate the latest from Peanuts-kun and the other two artists involved even more.

That’s becuase…despite being quite rooted in the online, and one being a virtual YouTuber, the way they intersect with the “real world” seems totally normal. Yeah, sure, let’s get Japanese MCs to collaborate with a big yellow legume, sounds good. The RADWIMPS guy should jump on a shifty song complete with video featuring the main act murdering a bunch of people. Hey Sanrio, lilbesh ramko is the right person to make a song for the ever moody Kuromi. There’s no reason to get too twisted up about these, and instead appreciate them as highlights of 2025.

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Check out the Best Of 2025 Spotify Playlist here!

1. "say bye bye,” hitting on a whole other path to go down both on this album and from the greater community of artists in how they mix English and Japanese (and more!) together in inventive ways.

2. This set also suffers from brat-itis and misreads Charli XCX’s album too…but hey, that’s a different post.