This is a HUGE loss for hip hop and music in general. This is really sad news for me, since Nujabes is one of my biggest influences. His music is amazing, timeless, and will forever be classic. He's the reason why I kept watching Samurai Champloo.
I always thought of him as the Japanese Pete Rock. Whenever I think of his music, I always think of the smooth and jazzy piano that he always threw into his beats. What's so upsetting about the passing of Nujabes is how horribly underrated his music is. People always ask where real hip hop is and sometimes I tell them it's in Japan! It's crazy because a lot of his songs are fairly old and are still better than the garbage that's circulating around the airwaves here.
Nujabes wasn't just a master of hip hop. He was a musical genius. Yeah he could make some good hip hop songs, but he made so much other amazing songs. I'm envious of the few that got to work with him.
He passed away near the end of February, but his family wanted to keep this information very private, which is why we here in the states are just now finding out. I'll probably be posting a lot of Nujabes music in the coming year (yep, because that's how much music he had). Luckily, there are a handful of unreleased songs he made that Hydeout Productions is planning on releasing sometime.
R.I.P. to another fallen legend. Man...the music lives though.
