Kiyoshi Matsuo on How Music Expanded His Views: Interview

Billboard Japan’s Girls in Music initiative started in 2022 to have fun artists, producers and executives who’ve made important contributions to music and impressed different ladies by way of their work. The WIM interview sequence has highlighted feminine gamers within the Japanese leisure business, with the primary 30 conversations launched in ebook type as a Billboard Japan Presents assortment by author Rio Hirai.

Because the mission strives to make clear the established order of the Japanese leisure business and to discover methods the working setting may be improved for girls and everybody concerned, it welcomes views from individuals of numerous backgrounds. For the newest installment, Hirai interviewed Kiyoshi Matsuo, an award-winning music producer who started his profession as a music author from his college days and switched to producing within the late Nineteen Nineties.

A distinguished determine within the business as one of many driving forces behind the R&B and soul music actions in J-pop, Matsuo has contributed to quite a few hits together with these by MISIA, Hikaru Utada, SPEED, and extra. Additionally identified for his opinions on politics and different matters usually averted by the bulk within the enterprise, the outspoken music producer and author shared his views on a number of the points he sees within the Japanese leisure business whereas opening up concerning the journey of how he fashioned his present stance on the matters he feels strongly about.

You converse out on numerous social points inside and out of doors the leisure business whereas working as a music producer. When did you first develop into conscious of such points? 

Till the late Nineteen Nineties, I used to work primarily as a author and journalist introducing Western music to Japan. I’d spend a 3rd of the yr within the U.S. and U.Ok. doing interviews after which carry the fabric I collected again to Japan to put in writing articles. I used to include nearly all of what I lined in my writing, nevertheless it was exhausting to search out media that will carry articles with political and social content material.

Once I was doing these interviews, probably the most thrilling discussions I had with artists have been about politics and social matters. For instance, even once I made the appointment to speak a few new album, if the U.S. presidential election was developing, the subject of dialog can be all concerning the election. The music I used to be fascinated with — R&B and soul — is the music of African People. For them, the matter of who would develop into the chief of the nation was crucial, they usually most likely at all times felt the connection between politics and society and their very own lives.

Not having the ability to write about what these artists felt was essential again in my very own nation was irritating, however I steadily grew to become busy with my profession as a producer and stepped again from doing interviews. Ever since then till now, I’ve felt at numerous occasions that one thing was improper with society, and now that I’m at this age, it’s like I lastly really feel it’s about time I mentioned one thing about it.

You hail from the southern island of Kyushu, which is likely one of the areas in Japan that’s mentioned to have a large gender imbalance. Why did you develop into enthusiastic about gender hole points though you have been born and raised as a privileged, wholesome male in such an setting?

Vessels just like the household you have been born in or the corporate you’re employed for aren’t the one issues that nurture an individual’s spirituality. Whatever the setting you have been raised in, I’m positive you encounter many individuals who carry you consciousness even after you attain maturity.

In my case, I obtained into soul music by way of jazz, which my father preferred, after which encountered hip-hop, thought-about to be the latest music on the time, and have become enthusiastic about African-American music typically. Ultimately it grew to become my job, and as I engaged in dialogue with individuals from numerous walks of life, I started to be taught and take into consideration the historical past and ideas in individuals’s backgrounds. I’m a Japanese man dwelling in Japan, married with kids, and typically individuals say I’m dwelling the life, however by way of music, I’ve at all times tried to think about the views of the oppressed and people being managed.

I see, so your perspective on society modified by way of music.

In my case, sure. However Japan at the moment won’t be too completely different from these days once I couldn’t write about artists’ political beliefs as a journalist. Author and philosophy scholar Ataru Sasaki tweeted on X the opposite day about how “after repeated calls to ‘not carry politics into music,’ we’ve introduced the worst type of politics into music.” Cases the place Japanese acts come below fireplace for creating music movies utilizing historic figures that instigated invasions and massacres are exactly the results of having eradicated social views from music. I’m an optimist at coronary heart, however I believe the notion to “not carry politics into music” might be linked to the nation’s lack of worldwide competitiveness.

From the late Nineteen Nineties you shifted your focus to producing music, and it feels just like the artists you helped launch their careers — SPEED, MISIA, Hikaru Utada, and so on. — sang about themselves as self-reliant people, which was a transparent departure from the pattern of the “idol” singers that had been the mainstream as much as that time.

Songs by idol singers on the time have been mass merchandise aimed to develop into mega-hits, in order that they mirrored the most important frequent denominator of the general public’s desire. So it might be mentioned that these songs have been closely tinged with the considering round gender roles in Japan on the time.

Then again, if the feminine R&B singers I helped as a part of the crew had one factor in frequent, you might say all of them appeared to be strolling on their very own two ft. R&B itself is after all a style that’s been round for a very long time, and within the late Nineteen Nineties when it was first gaining momentum in Japan, the highest 10 songs on the U.S. pop charts have been nearly totally dominated by R&B. Japanese artists have been additionally trying up Janet Jackson, Lauryn Hill, and TLC of their heyday. And people new J-pop artists weren’t being made to sing songs that different individuals wrote, and that most likely led to that sense of being self-reliant.

I ponder if one of many the explanation why the gender imbalance within the Japanese leisure business continues to exist is that the general public doesn’t appear to be very enthusiastic about mature feminine artists, that means it’s a matter of capability and literacy on the aspect of shoppers.

Individuals who develop up watching Japanese idol singers of their adolescent years, being taught that “that is how women are purported to be,” most definitely aren’t going to start out listening to mature feminine artists after they outgrow these idols. I really feel that these days, individuals want songs which are straightforward to grasp fairly than these with a mature perspective. I like lyrics written by Rokusuke Ei (“Ue wo muite aruko,” aka “Sukiyaki” and so on.) and Michio Yamagami (“Tsubasa wo kudasai” and so on.), they usually usually depict profound feelings that make you are feeling such as you’re watching a film in a three-minute tune. Generally I wish to strive that type of method, however don’t get the type of response I’m hoping for once I do, maybe as a result of individuals aren’t on the lookout for views with depth and delicates gradation in new songs.

There’s additionally the long-standing actuality of administration positions within the Japanese music and leisure business being dominated by males. What do you assume is important for girls to thrive within the enterprise?

I believe it’d be higher to institutionalize a system to ensure a sure share of girls, just like the French Parité Legislation (that mandates the equal inclusion of women and men on lists of candidates). Once I was interviewing artists within the U.S. within the ‘80s and ‘90s, I typically heard from African People of their 30s and 40s that they have been the primary amongst their family to be admitted to school by way of affirmative motion, though they got here from households that had been pressured into slave labor way back. They advised me passionately that their mission was to put in writing songs about what they’d seen as somebody dwelling in such an period. Affirmative motion means taking constructive steps to eradicate discrimination, and in Japan the place the gender hole index is so low, I believe that’s mandatory.

Sure. Like the best way music opened your eyes to the distortions of society, it may be a really efficient method in altering individuals’s minds. That’s why the construction of the business that produces it should change.

Throughout the pandemic, we frequently heard the phrase “fuyou fukyuu” (pointless and non-urgent). It’s true that music and leisure may be thought-about pointless and non-urgent. But when politics and economics are the most important arteries, music provides flexibility to individuals, like capillaries. A society that lacks flexibility and openness is cramped and suffocating, don’t you assume?

—This interview by Rio Hirai (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan