Seiji Oda Is Reshaping Bay Area Rap With Lo-Fi, Minimalist Hyphy

Seiji Oda is adept at remixing the energy around him. Over the past few years, the Oakland-raised artist — who is of Japanese, Irish and Panamanian heritage — has been at the forefront of pushing a new kind of Bay Area sound, a saucy combination of Northern California rap, Japanese City Pop and free-flowing jazz. He’s dubbed it “lofi // HYPHY.”

On social media, he’s gone viral for popping his collar while sitting on a tree branch, dancing in a Japanese garden or going stupid beneath a waterfall — all while his raps casually slap in the background. In each clip, he summons the holy spirit of a mid-aughts hyphy ghost while somehow remaining as chill as Lofi Girl studying at a desk.

His music is a bottled-up version of big Bay Area energy, taking the form of a peaceful bonsai tree. There isn’t really a category to describe Seiji Oda’s vibe, either. Hyphy heart whispering? Gentle gigging? Serene smeezing? Acoustic turfing? Going dumb in acapella? Therapeutic thizzing?

“Growing up, I was listening to Bay music,” he says. “Mac Dre, that type of shit. But when I got into making music, it was the more melodic stuff like jazz. That kind of sparked my interest in melding that with Bay music.”

Seiji Oda’s latest track, “a gentle gigg,” delivers exactly that: a cool minimalism and tranquility distilled into lo-fi hyphy. The Jake Chapman-produced single — which has already accumulated thousands of views, and been shared by SZA, G-Eazy and SiR — evokes E-40’s “Tell Me When To Go” while floating over a soundscape of gentle bells and flutes, stripped-down drums and a hint of mobb music bass.

Like much of Seiji Oda’s output, the track blends the Bay’s famously uptempo street ethos alongside elements of nature and gratitude. His lyrics underscore the Bay’s contrasting discrepancies, too: “I got friends who went to Berklee School of Music / I got friends who let that glock spill on you for talking stupid / I got homies that’s hella hyphy born after the hyphy movement / I got OGs who teach peace and started revolutions.”

It’s audio proof that Seiji Oda has been quietly nurturing his aura, and he supplies it in abundance — a playerish kind of positivity inspired by anime, international travel, vintage clothing, retro Japanese vocals, Oakland sideshows and much more. Now, others seem to be catching on.

“I feel like the reason I make art is to give people an oasis in the world,” he says. “I really want to create a soundscape; that’s the goal. I’m always positive, and very simply myself. I’m not trying to be anything other than that.”

“The industry tries to lump Asian artists into one vague genre, [but] we’re not all gonna fit on the Jasmine or Tapioca playlist,” he continues. “I wanna show the young life we can do anything, not just what people expect of us.”

He’s certainly on his way to doing that, and is currently establishing himself as one of the region’s most promising, original talents. As he sagely reminds us on his latest track: “We all got game, so each one teach one / we all different.”