YURIYAN RETRIEVER In Conversation With Producer yonkey: Inside the Creative Process of Her Debut Single

Prize-winning Japanese comedian, Netflix star and all-around entertainer YURIYAN RETRIEVER can now add major-label solo artist to her illustrious list of titles, dropping her debut single “YURIYAN TIME” on Wednesday (July 16).

The versatile funny woman, now based in the U.S., worked with sought-after music producer yonkey — producer of ATARASHII GAKKO! — on the new song, an earwormy number that naturally inspires courage after repeated listening despite its comical nature. YURIYAN, whose stage name as a singer is stylized in all caps, says that’s the core of what she aimed to convey through the track that showcases yonkey’s expertise. The 34-year-old multi-hyphenate and 28-year-old music producer opened up about the creative process of “YURIYAN TIME” in this conversation for Billboard Japan.

Tell us about your first impressions of each other.

yonkey: We met in a sort of conference room and talked about a lot of things. She said, “Could you listen to this song I wrote?” This often happens whenever I’m meeting with other musicians I produce, but they usually just play it on their iPhone. But YURIYAN was like, “I don’t have a recording, so do you mind if I do it here?” and performed it for me right there in full with just the beat. I was floored. My first impression of her was that she was more enthusiastic than any other artist.

YURIYAN: He says I was enthusiastic, but I just didn’t have the skills to make sounds or to record them, so I had to do it directly.

yonkey: I mean, usually it’s embarrassing to sing in front of someone at a distance of a table between you. But I had this gut feeling that if she could perform even under such circumstances, the project would definitely work out. It was such an electrifying moment.

YURIYAN: He asked me, “What kind of vibes do you like in a song?” I often think songs that have catchy intros are cool, so I told him, “I like songs that start off in a unique way.” And when I told him that I often put my thoughts and feelings into my comedy routines, he said… was it a scribble? A scrawl?

“Itemize them,” maybe?

YURIYAN: Yes! “An itemized list is fine, so write your thoughts down.”

Did you have an idea of what you wanted it to sound like?

yonkey: I was invited to go see YURIYAN’s comedy show once, and one of her segments had a kind of horror story feel to it. I wanted to add some scary sounds reminiscent of Japan and Japanese children’s songs. I thought I could reproduce that horror-tinged flavor that YURIYAN had written into her comedy routine by using delay on crows cawing in the intro to evoke the image of dusk.

YURIYAN: I heard from yonkey that he added that Japanese flavor to the track to suggest I was going global from Japan. You know what, though, a fortune teller once told me long ago that my guardian spirit is a crow. A yatagarasu, the three-legged crow used as the symbol of the Japanese national soccer team, is apparently watching over me. Also, my hometown is NYC… Oh, Nara Yoshino-cho, I mean. I thought maybe my guardian yatagarasu possessed yonkey and made him add those caws.

How did you two work out the lyrics?

yonkey: I only knew YURIYAN from what I’d seen in the media, so I wanted to know what she usually thinks about. She wrote about her love life and about the pent-up resentment she feels from daily life in the notebook she used to list her ideas, so I took her words and designed them into music. YURIYAN inspired the basic ideas and words of the lyrics, while I did the designing to make them sound pleasing.

YURIYAN: I sent him the list I jotted down, and he wrote lyrics about the core part of me that I hadn’t even realized I had, and it made me really happy. It was also catchy and cute on top of that, so I was impressed.

Could you elaborate on that “core part” that you didn’t realize you had?

YURIYAN: At first I wrote about feeling disappointed because my love life wasn’t working out, but when you read yonkey’s lyrics, you can see that it’s not just limited to romantic relationships. It’s about not catering to anyone and being like, I’m fine the way I am, you know? It’s basically about finding value in who you are and saying, “I’m OK with this!”

yonkey: But she also has sensitive and vulnerable sides to her, and I was really impressed by the way she’s like, “I’m the best” even though she has such traits. In the first verse, YURIYAN intentionally says she feels faint-hearted sometimes, but follows up immediately, “No I don’t, dumbass!” and flexes her strong self. I wanted to express that duality in the song.

There are plenty of other key words pulled from your list in the lyrics.

YURIYAN: Stuff about my comedy routines and personal life. And about playing the role of (professional wrestler) Dump Matsumoto in Netflix’s The Queen of Villains, and about my fitness coach Tomo Okabe, who I’ve been training with for a long time.

yonkey: All the parts that show her daily life I took from her notes. In hip-hop, it’s sometimes hard to get a message across when the lyrics only cover universal topics. I think it’s best to honestly express that person’s lifestyle, so I was confident that it would work out if she told me about such things.

And now YURIYAN has made her debut as a solo artist with the song.

yonkey: I always had the idea of making it an introduction to YURIYAN since this is her debut number. And since she’s based in the U.S., I was meticulous about the track, aiming to make music that could be included in Spotify playlists all over the world. I also wanted to make sure to include Japanese identity in the music, so I asked her to sing the song in Japanese.

I produce ATARASHII GAKKO! and I’m particular about using the Japanese language with them as well. You know how Japanese people have a hard time pronouncing English? I’ve been told by producers from other countries that they find our pronunciation to be distinctive, and I think that’s something we can use as a weapon. Translation features are available everywhere nowadays and we can understand what people are saying, so I figured Japanese was the only language that could draw out YURIYAN’s uniqueness even more. That’s another thing I focused on when I wrote this song.

YURIYAN: I talk about this as if it were normal, like, “Yeah I got to make my debut,” but I’m actually like, “Can this really be happening?” and still find it hard to believe. I really want to do what I can to make it a hit. I started TikTok a few days ago in a hurry because I want “YURIYAN TIME” to create a buzz. [Laughs] It’s a song that introduces me, and I want people to get to know me, but I think it’s also a song that will boost the energy of anyone who listens to it. So I hope people will enjoy it by replacing it with their own names, like “AKIKO TIME” or whatever. I want people from all over the world to listen to it, grown-ups and kids alike.

This interview by Atsuo Nagahori first appeared on Billboard Japan.