PROFILE
Born in Kyoto, Japan to a Japanese father and Jamaican mother, he studied Interactive Arts at the University of the Arts London from 2012 and joined "Jazzy Sport" shortly after returning from the U.K. in 2017 . In 2019, he released his first album, "Andless", which garnered a great deal of attention both within and outside of the industry. Since then, he has been actively working on a TV commercial for "Lipovitan D", participating in a Netflix campaign, and producing an EP work, "Elephant In My Room". In June of this year, he released his second album, "WHITE CUBE," and is currently on a one-man tour that includes a release party.
PROFILE
Track maker and MPC player. He has been making music since he was in college and produced his first album "Pushin'" in 2016, which was a long seller; in 2018, he produced his second album "Eutopia" with guest artists from Japan and abroad, and in 2020, he released his latest work, a mini In 2020, they released their latest mini album, "Contrast," and had a successful solo performance with a band set. And this year, he produced the theme song for the Kansai Television drama series "Soyota Toako and Her Three Ex-husbands," which became a big hit. In September, she is scheduled to give a much-anticipated solo performance.
Daichi's rap was really cool, so I was more interested in making a song with him. (STUTS)
You two have performed together on a variety of songs, but when did you first meet?
Daichi Yamamoto: I think it was around 2017 when I came back to Kyoto after finishing my studies in London . I was with Mr. J (JJJ, a rapper/beatmaker also known as a member of Fla$hbacks), with whom I was working on a song at the time, and he asked me, "Can I invite an artist named STUTS-kun?" and he introduced me to him.
STUTS: Yes, I remember J-kun called me and said, "I'm with Daichi right now, would you like to come? I remember he called me and asked me to come. I had been listening to Daichi's music on YouTube, etc., so I knew him in one way or another, but that was the first time I met him.
Daichi Yamamoto: Actually, it was only the second time for me to meet Mr. J. But when I think back, even my encounter with STUTS, Mr. J. had an influence on me at many milestones. And even though I was just a nameless student at the time, I sent a one-sided beat to Mr. J., and he responded, and we ended up writing a song together.
STUTS: J-kun and I have been friends the same age since I moved to Tokyo in 2008. So when the three of us met, we had a lot to talk about.
Did that lead to the first song you performed together, "Breeze"?
STUTS: When Daichi came to my house later that day, he listened to some of my archived tracks, and we talked about the possibility of working together.
Daichi Yamamoto: All of the songs were good, but I took some of them home with me. I would listen to them and rap on the ones I thought were particularly good and send them back to STUTS, and that's how the production process began in earnest. I was also in the middle of working on my first album, "Andless," so I remember that I got a lot of good inspiration from him.
What was your impression of each other at that time?
Daichi Yamamoto: Until then, I had an image of him as a gentle person, but when we started working together, I felt that he was a man who clearly expressed his opinions about music and never made any compromises. Before we had any such exchanges, he asked me if it was okay to express my opinions about my raps and so on. He asked me if it was okay for me to express my opinions about my raps and so on. Naturally, I responded, "By all means, please do so," and I was impressed by his consideration.
STUTS: Breeze" was the first time we had worked together on a song, and we had a lot of back-and-forth as we worked on it. It was not for the album, but simply because Daichi's rapping was so cool that I wanted to make a song with him. I knew him from ")" (an early song Daichi Yamamoto released on SoundCloud around 2016, before his debut), and I found his rapping as well as his chorus and other vocals very appealing, which is a type of rapper I had never seen before. I thought he was a very nice type of rapper, which I had never seen before.
Two years later, Daichi also made a guest appearance on the song "Mirrors" on STUTS's mini-album "Contrast. Were there any differences from the previous album in terms of production?
STUTS: This song was a completely remote production. After all, we didn't get a chance to meet together until the final recording.
Daichi Yamamoto: I remember the first time I had a meeting with everyone using LINE video calls.
STUTS: Yes, it was. Actually, when the beat for this song was created, Daichi was the first person that came to mind. I wasn't sure whether to include a female vocalist for the hook, or to ask another rapper to join in and make it a rap song. After much deliberation, we decided to have Zhen-san rap on the song, and from there, the three of us discussed various ideas as we created the song. However, we decided to include a female vocalist, and asked Sumin to sing on the song.
