Japanese salaryman takes over stranger’s Twitch stream with epic freestyle rap

A Japanese salaryman took over a stranger’s Twitch stream to showcase his epic flow, treating viewers to an impromptu, late-night freestyle rap performance.

Twitch might not be the first place to spring to mind when someone mentions rap music, but the streaming platform’s Just Chatting category is home to some fairly impressive freestyle rap. Twitch was the host for the world’s longest freestyle rap. Plus, it’s home to the rapper-turned-streamer Harry Mack, who’s gone viral on the platform thanks to his sharp and succinct rhymes.

But the person spitting bars on Twitch isn’t always the streamer themselves. And they’re not always rhyming in English either.

A Japanese salaryman has surprised and charmed viewers after launching into an impressive freestyle rap on the sidewalk. The video was caught by Twitch-streamer, robcdee, while he was walking through Tokyo during the evening.

The random rap performance proved to be a hit with robcdee’s viewers. “Let him cook,” viewers spammed in chat as the stranger came into view rhyming. “He has some flow,” agreed another fan soon after.

While fans in the chat might have been surprised to hear a salary man spitting bars flawlessly in Japanese, the genre has been experiencing a resurgence in Japan over recent years.

Since 2022, the rap festival, Pop Yours, has seen close to 10,000 Japanese rap fans show up to support all local artists — and this year’s festival has already sold out.

Although Japanese rap, or J-rap, has been around since the 1980s, until recent years it remained a largely underground subculture. But the rise of streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch has breathed new life into the country’s rap scene.