ENGLISH TRANSLATION] MIYAVI x VOGUE_JP (2020) "10 years after corona, what will the future be? Talking to MIYAVI about the shape of Hope"

 

When I can’t look people in the eyes, I get nervous, so I need the power from the message of music. 

-- Are there things about you that have changed because of the Corona pandemic?
A virus that we can’t even look in the eyes has changed the world so dramatically in just half a year.  So there are a lot of things within the industry that are revolutionizing and adapting so we can continue heading toward the future.  
But at the same time, as musicians we are just trying to believe in the power of music.  Because we can’t look at the virus itself,  it’s scary.  But we also cannot look at music.  In order to conquer that fear and anxiety, I strongly feel we need the power of the message of music.

So, we need to keep staying up to date with the news and listen to the safety messages in the safety of our own homes.

 -- The stay at home orders were very hard to cope with, weren’t they.
As a creator, I just thought about what I am able to create right now. I thought a lot about what could I do from my own home to share with the world and realized I could use social media to spread performances.  That was the birth of the family concerts I was doing and the virtual lives I am doing now.  In April of this year, I released my new album “Holy Nights” but the directors of the music video and a lot of the editing teams were based in LA so I used Zoom to communicate from a distance with my creative team. It was a new experience.

 

-- While the world was completely changed by the Corona pandemic, how did you change your efforts to respond to those changes? 

Well,  in August I had a collaboration with TeamLab Planets Tokyo to evolve my virtual live experience with “Miyavi Virtual LIVE - Level 3.0”.  The TeamLab Planets team put a lot of effort into making this more than just a regular live, it was an art production that we succeeded in making together. Of course there were challenges but I think we did create something worth leaving behind.  But, having done these virtual lives, virtual is just virtual with it’s own good parts but, as an entertainer myself, the realness of a live is what I excel at doing is the conclusion I have reached.

-- What exactly is the point that you can’t surpass? 

For example, the surplus of news.  In the case of a real live concert, I think about the temperature at the concert all on the way there. I think about what I’m gonna eat or drink while listening to music.  Who did people come with?  What do they talk about with that person?  All of those things swirl together and form what I remember from the day of that concert.  There is none of that in the case of a virtual live because the fans all receive it just on their device that they are also using to watch the news which can be overwhelming.

But from now on, the coexistence of real and virtual lives are going to be indispensable to us.  There are still a lot of things I am looking for but I am making an effort to connect with the fans however I can.  Hardware and software all need to be updated.  We will continue to make mistakes while we try new new platforms but we will take any hints to find the right way.

 

When you feel surprised, embrace people full of hope.

 

-- After filming the movie Unbroken in 2014, you met Angelina Jolie and embraced working with refugees.  Now, you are the first friendship ambassador from Japan to the UNHCR.  After starting to work with that organization, were there any parts in yourself you feel have changed? 

I definitely feel like I got more recognition outside of music.  When I first went to Lebanon as an ambassador, I had worried thoughts like “this is going to be hard” and “what if there is a terrorist attack since we are going to an area with a lot of disputed territories”.  But when I got there and started playing the guitar in front of the ordinary children, it stopped being something I’d never experienced when the children’s faces light up with excitement.  In that moment, all of my anxieties and fears just flew away.  “They are all embracing this moment’s feelings, feeling the hope and the future” is what I felt from them.  At the same time, I also thought “The power to move people with music, even here, is amazing.  If I can, I’m going to use that power with all of my strength.”

-- The feeling of hope can give people the motivation to keep living, right. 

Refugee support happens in two phases - Urgent and Continuation development.  The Urgent phase is when they need lifeline utilities.  The Continuation phase is when the feeling of “I am alive” becomes priority.  I spoke to the marathon runner Yonas Kinde, who is also a refugee, once a while ago and he said something I will never forget:  “Earning enough money to afford to eat is great and all but even then, if you don’t have someone to talk to, that’s still enough to make one cry”

-- What does the feeling “to live” mean to you?

For humans, the feeling of “I am useful” is needed or we feel like our souls are dying.  When doing sports or listening to music or just any action involved in participating with art and culture people feel “ah, I am alive”.  Culture and Art have an amazing effect on people.  Once, when I was at Kakuma Campin Turkana, Kenya, they were holding a festival.  Around 2 or 3 thousand children from that area gathered, dancing and playing music.  It was wonderful, watching them perform in a way integral to their culture with such vigor.  Everyone was behaving like themselves, not trying to be anyone else, and being honest to their souls.  In Japan, I feel the topic of refugees is a heavy one, and people are only shown pictures of refugees who are showing sad expressions.  I want to show them the smiling faces I see in the refugee camps.  “We make happy faces too” I think would surprise them.

-- The way you look at these camps and see the way they are all shining and arrange music around that, and film music vidoes like your video for “The Others” at camps, showing such diverse cultural expressions is inspirational.

One of the themes in the song “The Others” is “we are all different”.  For example, even among the Japanese people, the food we eat for breakfast are different, our favorite colors are different.  The roads we are all following are different.  Even so, we all still create a perfect medley of life together.  I just arranged that to express it in real music.  That music video was actually filmed by Angie (Angelina Jolie), she did the directing herself so it is something that holds a lot of memories for me.  

Refugees support needs to become “rock” in society today.

 

MIYAVI’s personal symbols of hope. On the left is a light blue UNHCR hat and on the right is the medal MIYAVI

 received from children in Colombia.

-- Today, MIYAVI, you’ve brought some items that make you feel memories of hope. Could you tell us what those memories are? 

First is the medal I received in 2019 in Colombia following my appointment as Goodwill ambassador to the UNHCR.  I gave a soccer ball to the kids there as a present and we played soccer together.  I was the one who wanted to give the kids a medal but somehow they ended up giving me one (LOL).  Whenever I look at this medal, I vividly remember playing soccer with these kids.  It affirms the importance of sports and music for me.

 -- Your other item of hope is a light blue UNHCR hat. 

In the past, I did not think that a hat like this was rock.  But now, I just think that supporting refugees is super rock.  I think the term role model is a bit pretentious but if young kids see me wearing this hat and see the messaging and start to believe in it, I started to think this hat that says I support Refugees as being cool.  I thought that there might be a way to change the world, even just by a little bit.  

 Without literacy, the fashion industry cannot survive in 10 years.

  

As a global campaign model of Gucci, Miyavi is seen here wearing a pink suit.

-- You are the first global campaign model for Gucci from Japan so you are also active in the fashion industry.  From the point of view of the fashion world, what do you think is an important goal for the world and society to aim for? 

I think the consumption and sustainability in fashion have completely reversed in the recent past.  We start to working closely with the environment, from now on, we need to focus more on literacy in order to consider success as an option, or else we won’t exist in 10 years.  From inside the trends, I strongly feel the movement to present new things by questioning the fashion industry itself.  For example, the collection I participated in recently “Gucci Off the Grid Collection” the creative director was Alessandro Michele and the rest of the Gucci team really give off a feeling of wanting to create sustainability.  I think that there is a great meaning with a mainstream brand like Gucci shifting the rudder like this.

-- There needs to be a change in the consciousness of designers, huh.

Not just the designers but the people who make the material, the people who buy it, the people who promote it, the society as a whole needs to change our way of consumption and think about how we buy.  I feel like I’m repeating myself again but culture is a tough force of change.  Because we live in the world we have now, I think there is a special way that only fashion can show a message of hope.

-- Lastly, how do you think society as a whole is going to move forward, do you think?

We may have to come back and think about “was the way we were all acting on a global scale the right way in the first place?”  In 10 years, we may look back and think that “wow we really needed corona” in order for us to make the changes we need to think about the future properly.

-- You don’t look at coronavirus pessimistically, you look at it as a chance to make our own future.  I think that is important.

Well if we all hold a big enough hope, we can make even small actions happen.  These actions can be sorting your trash, choosing to use recycled and reusable products,  so even small things are good, I think.  I can’t save the world like the Avengers.  But I can help spread the message, so I will continue my work hoping to share the hope that our world can be changed.  And I will always carry that hope with me.