The duo of rapper R-Shitei and turntablist DJ Matsunaga, Creepy Nuts have cemented their status as Japan‘s premier hip-hop act through the global smash “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born,” the breakout hit “Otonoke,” and a landmark headlining show at Tokyo Dome. Now, they’ve taken that momentum Stateside with Creepy Nuts North America Tour 2026, their first-ever run across the continent.

The tour launched April 10 with a headline closing slot on the Gobi Stage at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2026 in Indio, California, followed by solo shows in New York City on the 13th and Chicago on the 15th. They returned to the Coachella desert on the 17th before crossing the border for a headlining concert in Mexico City on the 19th — five performances in ten days, covering roughly 10,000 kilometers. This report centers on the New York stop.

Closing Coachella’s Gobi Stage, and with an unprecedented set featuring Japanese-language rap, was itself a landmark achievement. The performance generated buzz well beyond the grounds including livestreams, and earned the duo a glowing shoutout in Billboard’s “Best Moments From Coachella 2026 Day 1” under the headline “Creepy Nuts ‘Rap Really F-king Good’ at First North American Show.”

Riding that wave across the continent, the pair arrived at their New York venue, the Hammerstein Ballroom at Manhattan Center, on the 13th to a room already chanting their name. As DJ Matsunaga set the turntables spinning, R-Shitei’s shout of, “NEW YORK, Are you ready!?” signaled the start, and the show opened with “Biriken.”

The choice of “Biriken,” a reliable opener in their sets back home, effectively put their hard-won formula for igniting a crowd on display for a North American audience. The choice also carried a deeper resonance, in that the song’s lyrics trace how Billiken, a character born in America, sailed to Japan and took root there as a deity. In that sense, performing it in New York was a kind of homecoming for the figure itself. And the parallel is hard to miss: hip-hop, born in New York, traveled to Japan and grew into Japanese-language rap, and now Creepy Nuts — heirs to that lineage — were bringing it back to the source. The song, then, stood as a quiet symbol of cross-cultural continuity and the intersecting arcs of musical history.

From there, the crowd jumped in unison through “Yofukashino Uta,” and “Daten” — kicking off with its trademark call-and-response — kept the momentum climbing, DJ Matsunaga laying scratch-work into the pre-chorus as well as the breakdowns while R-Shitei’s tight delivery drove the energy higher.

R-Shitei worked the audience with a characteristic mix of Japanese and English, saying, “What’s up NY! We are Creepy Nuts! I’m on fire! I’m R-Shitei, he is DJ Matsunaga,” in the latter before someone in the crowd audibly called out, “Matsunaga-san.” Catching it immediately, he continued in his native tongue: “I heard that. Is Japanese OK? We’re Creepy Nuts, we came from Japan, nice to meet you all!” When a voice from the floor shouted “Saiko!” (“Excellent”), he fired back, “New York saiko!” Then, referring to a cue card, he delivered in English, “Yesterday at a pizzeria, someone said, ‘Are you samurai?’ I said, ‘No samurai, no ninja, no Shohei Ohtani’” and launched directly into “japanese.” Watching a song that essentially satirizes the cultural gap between Japan and the West getting a New York crowd going was its own kind of irony.

Songs tied intimately to R-Shitei’s personal narrative like “LEGION” and “Chxxai” also pulled enormous responses, with the former in particular drawing dancing fans into its trap-influenced downbeat. During “doppelgänger,” DJ Matsunaga’s hard-edged production and R-Shitei’s dense, rapid syllables combined into a driving, pulse-heavy dance groove that sent sections of the crowd into a mosh-like frenzy. It tracked with Billboard’s Coachella write-up that noted echoes of The Prodigy, Skrillex, and Korn in the performance, underscoring a fresh revelation that here, the crowd engaged with Creepy Nuts as high-energy dance music, a context that doesn’t exist for them back home. DJ Matsunaga’s turntable showcase made the same point — sharp, confident scratch work over beats that tilted explicitly toward high-energy dance music, a selection that suggested real stylistic affinity rather than happy accident. And when “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” hit, the room exploded, the crowd singing every word back in near-perfect unison and phones raised everywhere. It was a vivid, wordless testament to just how far that song had traveled.

“So hot! So amazing!” R-Shitei called out in English between songs. “DJ Matsunaga, his technique is so good. My English not good, but my rapping is so f**king good!” He then switched to Japanese and continued, “We’re doing our first American tour. The New York crowd is going absolutely wild and it’s terrific (saiko)! Everyone is so fired up. SO GOOD.” He drew the audience tighter around him as he went on to address them in his breathless mix of English and Japanese, “I want to keep having a great time with you all from here. Let’s enjoy together, let’s excite together. Let’s dance together.”

The set’s second half opened with “dawn.” DJ Matsunaga wove melodic passages through his turntable work over a four-on-the-floor beat as R-Shitei eased into a more relaxed flow, keeping the crowd swaying contentedly. That led into a run of three thematically connected tracks exploring creation as a through-line: “Emmanuelle,” sung in R-Shitei’s characteristic mix of low-register rap and high tones; “Mirage,” an oriental-flavored track featuring a mumble-rap approach; and “Nemure,” distinguished by a clarity of delivery. Then came “Katsute Tensai Datta Oretachie – To Us Former Prodegies” and “Nidone.” Heard in a setting far from Japan, these two songs landed with a striking universality. The themes felt human in the broadest sense, and it was obvious the audience understood the song’s meanings through the arms swaying wide during the former and hands clapping through the latter.

At Coachella Weekend 2 and in Mexico City, the duo debuted a new track called “Fright.” The unfamiliar material drew ears in close at first, the room listening more than moving, but as the song developed, hands began to rise and the crowd converged. It was a reminder that Creepy Nuts can pull an audience forward on performance alone, regardless of theme or language.

“It’s so crazy time! Saiko!” R-Shitei said. “I’ll switch to Japanese now. If you don’t understand, listen with your soul. Creepy Nuts have spent years relentlessly refining our rap, our DJ craft, and our music in Japan. And we’re really happy to be able to headline in New York after all the things we’ve gone through.”

Switching back to English, he continued, “Next time, we want to take it to the next level.” He went on to say, “In English, ‘room for growth.’ In Japanese, we say: ‘NOBISHIRO!’” and the duo closed the main set with the popular number. He then noted that while they didn’t usually do encores, tonight they would do “okawari” — a second helping — and “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” rang out one more time, the crowd roaring back every syllable until the show came to an end.

Crowds that wouldn’t stop cheering in every city across the tour were the most honest measure of what this tour had been. And there’s more to come: the duo has been announced as part of The Weeknd’s global stadium run After Hours Til Dawn Tour, joining the Asian leg beginning Sep. 19 at Belluna Dome in Saitama, Japan. With that, Creepy Nuts will be opening yet another chapter in their global expansion. Where all of this takes their music, and how they bring it to a global stage is something worth watching very closely.

—This article by Takagi “JET” Shin-ichiro first appeared on Billboard Japan

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