Japanese rapper Miho Hatori deals with stereotypes everyday — but she’s not gonna take it anymore.

“Some people think we are just cute, and we are sick of it,” says the Cibo Matto frontwoman. “Somehow there is that kind of images, stereotypes, which is Japanese girls … cute, nice, smiles, quiet.”

New York hipsters Cibo Matto (“crazy food” in Italian) serve up a gourmet dish of funky beats, freaky samples and ’70s funk, garnished in ESL food poetry. At least that’s the Cibo Matto we knew on their 1996 genre-establishing debut “Viva La Woman.”

That album went on to be named one of Spin magazine’s 90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s.

Songs like “Know Your Chicken,” “Beef Jerky” and “White Pepper Ice Cream” left fans and critics hungry for more.

Now it’s 1999, and Cibo Matto has left the food poetry behind with “Stereotype A,” an ambitious record that covers everything from video games and Obi Won Kenobi to cruising through New York City on mountain bikes.

It’s Tuesday morning and Hatori punctually calls from her Lower East Side apartment at 10:30 sharp. She is calm, soft spoken and polite but at the same time speaks confidently, destroying the stereotype that Japanese women are reserved and nonconfrontational.

Nearly whispering over the phone in less than perfect English, she sprinkles her language with expressions like “kind of” and “basically,” struggling to communicate her thoughts as best as she can.

“I think I have less vocabulary than American rappers,” she says.

Arriving in New York City in 1992, Hatori has since widened her English language skills, but fans have enjoyed the unique word choices and rhymes she writes, which are simplistic in nature.

Growing up in the suburbs of Tokyo, Hatori worked in a record store and as a club DJ before meeting up with keyboardist/mixer Yuka Honda in 1994 to form Cibo Matto.

“Everything’s been pretty quick for this band,” she says. “We were just making sounds and also having fun. We didn’t think about signing with record company.”

But they went for it, and with the release of “Viva La Woman,” Cibo Matto was pigeonholed into a certain category.

People thought “‘Oh … Cibo Matto, they’re very funny, sing about food.’ But we are not sing about food at all,” she explains. “What we want to do here is sharing our music and we’ve got to try more harder to break the walls to make music here.

“From the first album I think we got a lot of attention from press and reached the music elite,” she says. With “Stereotype A,” Hatori aims to reach beyond her usual fan base. “We want to share music with your mom, you know?”

Bringing in new styles of music is part of Cibo Matto’s new plan of action.

“We don’t need to be in the system basically. There’s no reason to do just one sound,” she says.

Led Zeppelin is one band that has been on Hatori’s mind lately.

“They have amazingly a lot of genre in one album. They’re kind of heavy rock music but during the song they change it to Latin beat,” she says.

“Can you hold this?,” Hatori asks, as her call waiting beeps. Twenty-three seconds later, she clicks back over and apologizes for the interruption, continuing right where she left off without thinking twice.

“It was so free in the ’70s, what’s up with that?”she says.

On “Stereotype A,” Hatori and Honda are joined by a couple of new musicians, most notably Sean Lennon, who lends a hand on bass, drums, guitar and vocals.

“I know that he’s maybe a big deal for everybody but he is human being,” Hatori says of Lennon. “He has always a lot of passion for music — it’s pretty amazing.”

Additionally, Timo Ellis recently joined the band playing drums, bass, acoustic guitar and percussion. Both Lennon and Ellis will take the stage at Monday’s Cibo Matto show.

On “Sci-Fi Wasabi,” the first single from “Stereotype A,” Hatori drops pop culture references like they’re going out of style, a sign that after seven years living in New York City, she’s assimilating nicely.

“At the time we were into video games, you know Nintendo and Super Mario,” Hatori says, mentioning “1080,” a snowboarding game she excitedly says is “really amazing.”

“The song is about cruising New York City by bicycle, but at the same time searching for The Force in life,” Hatori continues. “We just mixed in some video game feeling also.”

“Wasabi” finds Hatori sending a shout out to herself, as she raps “I’m Miho Hatori, straight out of purgatory.”

Pouring out of Japan, New York City and purgatory, Hatori and her band will head to the Midwest on the current leg of a national tour.

“Last time we were [in the Midwest], we were into Frisbee and there’s so many land to play Frisbee over there,” she says cheerfully. “Everywhere, the parking lots are so huge.”

Monday’s M-Shop performance will be Cibo Matto’s first in Iowa.

What are Hatori’s perceptions of Iowa?

She pauses to think about it.

“Potatoes?,” Hatori says, with a giggle.

It’s Idaho that grows potatoes — we grow corn.

“Oh really,” she says curiously. “Are there some special corn colleges there?”

Stereotypes never die.