When we put JP The Wavy on our November cover, we knew he was special. We’d seen the videos, and we’d heard his bouncy, baritone flow – even in Japanese, it was obvious he had rhyme skills and bags of X factor. He’s been hot since his 2017 hit ‘Cho Wavy de Gomenne’ featuring SALU went viral and spawned countless TikTok clips and raked in tens of millions of YouTube views.

Since then, almost everything he touches blows up, from solo efforts like the ‘Tokyo Drift’ Freestyle he did with 88 Rising to tracks with his regular group of collaborators, like last year’s ‘Wavebody’ featuring OzWorld, LEX, and ¥ellow Bucks. They all have hilarious, expertly-styled visuals and they all bounce hard. Wavy has perfected a formula of rhyming over funky Trap beats that never gets boring – of course, part of that is his super entertaining videos, where he continues to be a master of costume change, and with a background in B-Boying, his movements are also hard to look away from.

All in all, JP The Wavy is the most interesting rapper in Japan right now and it’s not even close.