Make Believe Mailer #109: Izumi "Mimi" Kobayashi

Bubble days, anime and lots of money flying around!

Photo via Kobayashi’s official site, credit to Bohan Zhang

Izumi “Mimi” Kobayashi is a living testament to how dynamic music communities can be. Over the course of her 40-plus-year career, the Chiba-born artist has been tied to “city pop,” anime, jazz and reggae among may other styles. Emerging in the late ‘70s, Kobayashi’s first major project — Izumi Kobayashi & Flying Mimi Band — dabbled in a mixture of funk and disco that would become the basis for dance-pop of the decade ahead, all while adding splashes of global sound to the mix. It wasn’t pure Bubble-era bliss lurking within the project’s DNA though — the group came up together, developing musical tastes as a team, with three members of the Flying Mimi Band eventually going on to form the “fourth world” project Mariah, including Yasuaki Shimizu.

Kobayashi herself would go on to release solo albums such as Coconuts High and Natsu Nuts Natsu, which merged then-ascendent dance-pop and techno-pop with elements of Latin and Carribbean music, hinting at a curiosisty in the world outside Japan she has had since being an elementary school student. At the same time, she was a prolific and in-demand session keyboardist and composer, while also writing hit songs serving as themes for the popular anime series Urusei Yatsura. Yet at the same time, she was anxious to get out of the Japanese music industry and explore foreign communities, relocating to London midway through the ‘80s. She worked with Depeche Mode as a mixing assistant on Violator while also helping remix songs from it, and played on Swing Out Sister’s “Breakout,” among other activites.

Kobayashi sports the sort of incredible career that can be approached from all kinds of angles. For me, my chance to talk with her came through Japanese reggae. Specifically, the compilation Tokyo Riddim, released by the label Time Capsule in London. Bandcamp Daily hired me to write about it, and the fine folks at Time Capsule put me in touch with Kobayashi, whose “Lazy Love” appears as one of the tracks. The final piece features a bit of her story…but only a sliver of our chat, which branched out to cover all kinds of topics that wouldn’t fit in the story, but absolutely deserve space to be seen.

For just over an hour and 20 minutes, Kobayashi told me about her memories of ‘80s Tokyo…and all the directions her life took, whether in her home country or abroad. She was gracious, informative and — most importantly — funny as hell the whole time. Kobayashi’s stories and connections also remind that, while Japanese music tends to be sequestered into very specific lanes by foreign media (“city pop,” “Shibuya-kei,” “Japanese ambient”), they are actually all in conversation with one another, with artists like her connecting with like-minded creators to play around with ideas, whether they end up on obscure dance-pop albums or as era-defining anime themes.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

MAKE BELIEVE MELODIES: Since we’re here to chat about Tokyo Riddim, I wanted to know when was the first time you encountered reggae music?

IZUMI “MIMI” KOBAYASHI: When I was a teenager, because it was quite big in Japan by that point. I think Japanese people loved it by then. When I speak with Jamaican guys here in London, they tell me how Japan is seen as one of the countries most in love with reggae. That was like from the ‘70s…yeah, that’s when I first started listening to it.

Do you remember the first artist you heard?

Bob Marley [laughs]. I’m not so deeply into reggae music to be honest. I’m just a fan, and it was just so prevalent in Japan in the 1970s. I also loved “black music¹” and Latin too, so reggae came very naturally to me.

I was living in Roppongi…

Oh, nice!

Yeah [laughs]. At that time we were living through the Bubble economy, so we had money [laughs]. The musician’s fee was so high! It was amazing…I was in my early 20s, still basically a student, and at that time I earned like 10K a month.

Whoa!

I didn’t have to work so hard, because the fee was so good. Like for a concert. I would get the equivalent of 300 or 400 pounds for performing. Plus, I charged for the equipment. So one day would be like 500 or 600 pounds. One day.

Then, when you write music for advertisements, it was like 5000 [laughs].

This is like…the ultimate Bubble image for me.

The Bubble, yeah! For advertising, you’d go to the studio and then just do like two hours. The day before, I’d write something on my piano, and think up a little arrangement in my head, then go to the studio, meet up with studio musicians…two hours, done. And then, here’s 5000 pounds. Much different than British advertising organizations. Here, you get royalties from advertising. In Japan, everything was a buy-out.

So the musicians in these spaces they loved reggae, so reggae was always around me too. I think I became more involved with reggae when I arrived in the U.K. There’s a large population of Jamaican people here. When I arrived here in 1984, or 1985, I was invited by Warner Brother U.K. I worked on the Swing Out Sister’s first and second singles, and Depeche Mode…I mean, as a session musician, a keyboard player. So I did a little bit of studio work.

A little while later…I think my son was two years old, so that would be 1990 or 1991, I was involved with the Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra. Are you familiar with that?

I am not! Please tell me more about it.

You know there’s the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I think they are half joking and being a bit cynical with the name. It’s all black musicians, with the majority from Jamaica. I was the only Japanese person. There were 12 to 15 members. There were two violins, cellos, violas and occasionally we would have a saxophone player. They signed with Chris Blackwell’s Island Records. So we went to Jamaica three times, sponsored by Channel 4 to make a documentary. I wasn’t involved with the first album, I started from the second album.

We did a Bob Marley tribute album and…oh, that was a beautiful story! Chris, the Island Records’ boss, allowed us to listen to the original multi-tape of Bob Marley. [pause] Can you imagine??? Oh my god. It was so good, his musicians were so good…everyone knows that of course, but when you can listen to it separated, like only bass and only keyboards…the rhythm was so good! I was shocked, like I was shaking I was so shocked [laughs]. It was really, really, really good.

It’s amazing. When you listen to Bob Marley’s stuff, it can be easygoing and laid back and blah blah blah. Weed, and that kind of stuff. When you listen to it seriously, they are really good musicians. Amazing. That was a really shocking…in a good way…experience with reggae music.

You mentioned that it was when you moved to the U.K. that you really had the chance to immerse yourself in reggae and all these other sounds. But before that, you did record “Lazy Love,” which appeared on Coconuts High and this compilation, and is basically a self-cover of your “Crazy Love.” Why did you want to do that song in a reggae style?

The record company said to me…well, I was treated in a very special way by the record companies back then. Because…I’m sorry to say this, but the surrounding musicians, they couldn’t control me. I knew exactly what I wanted. If they made a mistake I would become very kowai (scary) [laughs]. “You did a mistake at this point, and that point, blah blah blah!” So they were scared of me. Anyway, the record company said to me “hey Mimi, you can do whatever you want…”

[laughing] Just go for it!

Here’s your budget. Do whatever you want. That’s really lucky, isn’t it? That would never happen today. At that time, though, they didn’t care really. The record company had big hits from people like Yosui Inoue, that was like millions upon millions sold, a real hit. They had to spend money against tax anyway. [laughs] I’m the one, I’m the one they spend money on.

That’s how they got their taxes in order, with Coconuts High.

[laughs] Yeah, yeah. I got like 70k for one album.

Wow, OK…

Yeah! I said to the record company, I want to go to LA to record the album. They said “OK, no problem! Stay there for a month, and do whatever you want to do.” So I went to LA for one month. And I just went out to nightclubs. I found a really nice band called Babylon Warriors. I thought, “I want to record with these guys.”

So I went backstage and asked them “can you record for my album?” And they were shocked. Who is this little Japanese woman? Because that was a tough club, and my manager was so upset. “What are you doing Mimi!? You don’t go backstage at this kind of club!” I just went back there…

You didn’t even negotiate, you just walked back there?

Yeah, pretty much. That was so funny, the story of that song. They are a band, a pure band. They don’t do sessions. They are really nice people, so when I went into the studio, they came right before me and had already rehearsed. You couldn’t see their faces though because it was smoky…so smoky. You know what I mean? [laughs] A nice flavor smoky…

[laughs] Well put.

They didn’t need a score sheet, or even a chord sheet. When I went there, they said “Mimi, just wait a sec, we need to do a warm up.” That took a few hours, just getting into a groove.

I wrote the chord names in big black marker on a big piece of paper. Like, one chord on one piece of paper. I put it on a board in the studio. With a stick, I just pointed at what I wanted them to play.

You sound like a teacher.

[laughs} Yeah, like a teacher. They were looking at the chords, and getting into it. They were very laid back. I like that way of recording. In Japan…well, the reason I left Japan is because everything is like a factory. They do quick recording, quick session work, and make money. I didn’t really like it. I almost zoned out completely mentally. I’m a pure music lover. It was against everything I love about music. But when I went to LA — especially working with this band — it was the opposite. The groove was really important. That was the recording! When you hear the intro of “Lazy Love,” when you count with the intro, the drum fill is a very special one. The other members said hey, we can count you in. I remember him saying “don’t worry man.” [laughs]. He said when the hi-hat closed, that’s when you start. So everyone was just watching him [laughs]. When you listen to the song, you can pinpoint where he wanted us to start. It was so funny.

I liked reggae at that time, but wasn’t super deep into it. It was just a sound base for me. To be honest, Tokyo Riddim is a bit reggae, but not really reggae.

It’s a Japanese interpretation of reggae.

It’s easy listening. But there’s so many artists doing it now. Do you know the artist Natsu Summer? I’ve known her for a few years now, maybe five or six years — by the way, she is very pretty [laughs] — she came to one of my concerts in Tokyo, she was a fan of mine, and we became friends. She does a very fresh take on “Japanese reggae,” very relaxed. When you live in London and you start playing with Jamaican guys…it is a big difference.

Reggae is just a part of it, but your music — whether solo or as part of Flying Mimi Band before that — I feel it is very globally curious. You explore a lot of sounds from Latin America, the Caribbean, and just all over. Why are you drawn to such an eclectic set of sounds?

First off, thank you so much for listening to my albums [laughs]. I appreciate it. The first album I bought was Getz / Gilberto, featuring vocals from Astrud Gilberto. Brazilian music. My mother said, “what a strange girl.” I was like ten years old. Nobody around me was listening to this music, but I just bought it. That was my first album.

Why did you buy it?

I don’t know…I just liked it! I have Latin blood inside my body. Have you ever heard “Lum No Love Song?”

Yes, yes.

That’s Latin versus techno music. Everything I do naturally veers that way. I need to find out what’s going on in my family tree. My hair is very, very curly, not straight. I was very sad when I was a child because of that, nobody else in my class had hair like that. And my skin was slightly darker…just slightly. Something to do with my ancestors who had an affair with somebody [laughs].

When I was a little older, I started listening to jazz. I got really heavy into it, like Coltrane and artists like that. Not so many young kids were digging that kind of music…but I found a few people. When I started out as a professional musician with a band, the band I was in was called ASOKA, which was like an amateur version of what would become the Flying Mimi Band. Before we signed, we were kind of just gigging around. The musicians were so good, I was so lucky to meet those guys. The drummer was named Yuichi Togashiki, who would play with the jazz saxophonis Sadao Watanabe, and the guitarist was Takayuki Hijikata. He was a top studio musican. The bass player…he disappeared somewhere, I don’t know². The saxophone player was also getting pretty famous…he was named Yasuaki Shimizu.

Of course, he’s gotten a ton of love in recent years outside of Japan.

I was kind of growing up with these musicians as a teenager. I got so much influence from them. We listened to many, many different kinds of records together. I learned from that. You know how teenagers absorb things so quickly? That’s where all of my influence comes from, with help from those guys. We had lots of import records in Tokyo, and I think we were one of the first groups to get access to those records. We made a special deal with local record shops. We’d pay a little extra every month and tell them to keep things for us [laughs]. We’d run to the store, get these early releases and then listen over and over again.

That was our background before we made my first album, with Flying Mimi Band…what a silly name, I really don’t like it. [laughs]

Why did you guys settle on that?

I don’t know..I was 17 or 18, very young. I didn’t think anything. We had a very focused manager with us, named Yukitaka Mashimo. He directed me about what kind of image I should have. You know, it was common in Japanese music back then, the manager — really more like a producer — decides on the direction, image, fashion, things like that. I didn’t care really. It was just about the music. Later on, I feel really ashamed about the name [laughs]. It’s so silly.

This guy Mashimo was really good, though. He went on to produce X JAPAN.

Oh, yeah?

And several other artists. Whatever he produced, those artists got really well known. He was very positive, and made artists happy. It was really nice. He organized the first album. To be honest, I was signed with Sony for my first single. Do you know Momoe Yamaguchi?

Yeah, of course!

I was in the same section as Momoe Yamaguchi. Which was pure pop genre. Like, an all-around talent³. When I went to a radio promotion or TV promotion, there were always lots of those talent — very pretty girls. I was wearing t-shirts that were made for boys, meanwhile [laughs]. I didn’t buy clothes…I just took them from my band members! Mashimo realized that this world was not suited for Mimi, it wasn’t my style. So they took all the recordings from Sony and I moved labels.

Earlier, you mentioned how you are a person who isn’t shy about telling someone they are doing something wrong. You are upfront in your feelings. Was there a moment where you embraced that mindset? When did you become more assertive?

When I was 18, I didn’t know anything about the industry. I just graduated high school [laughs]. I was like a countryside girl, I didn’t know a thing. Managers or other business types would bring me to clubs in Aoyama, and I was like “wow, so this is the city life!” [laughs] I didn’t know anything.

Then you start doing lots of studio work, you do session work with other artists, or go on concert tours…and you learn what is what. And you figure out what Japanese musicians’ attitudes are like. That’s how I figured out, eventually, that Japan wasn’t the place for me to focus on my activities.

I told you the first time that nobody could really control me was when I recognized…I had moved from Phillips to a label called Kitty Records. Around that period, I recognized that I should decide what I wanted to do. Luckily, the people around me then respected that. It’s that period. My last two albums from that period are when I learned what I should do for me.

I’m so lucky, I really appreciate the people around me — the band, the manager Mashimo — I was so lucky to have them.

Before you moved to London in the ‘80s, what was your proudest moment as an artist in Japan?

I was not a famous artist [laguhs]. I wasn’t well known. Do you know the Japanese word kingyo? A small, cute reddish fish.

A goldfish.

Yes. So, there’s shit from goldfish, right? In Japanese we say, kingyo no unchi. [laughs]. Sometimes you’ll see this beautiful fish in the water, but sometimes its poop sticks to it and trails behind it. I was the poop [laughs]. That’s because at that time you had all these famous artists at the record label, and I was just selling like 20,000 copies of my albums. Maybe 30,000. They lost money to keep me…I was just following the goldfish, the big stars, and getting advantages from them.

I enjoyed success…not like big success, but small success…as a studio musician. I did lots of sessions with musicians in Japan. I could also compose songs very quickly. For example, with Urusei Yatsura’s “Lum No Love Song,” I made that in ten minutes. People would keep asking me to write songs. So I made around 400 or 500 songs for other people in Japan, over a short period of time.

At a certain point, I felt like I had lost something. I had money, I was living in Roppongi…I wasn’t struggling whatsoever as a musician. But something was missing. The missing part was time and love. Love of music. I didn’t have time to love the music.

You didn’t have time to love it becuase it sounds like you were pumping out so much commercial work.

Yeah, yeah. I thought “I want more time to love music.” I had already wanted to get out of Japan because I knew the country’s music industry was just like “money money money money money!” Maybe not now…you can’t really make money. So I made a demo tape, and I would give it to American and European artists. A Warner Brothers UK A&R guy picked up my work with a string quartet…which was nothing like my commercial music. He said you should highlight this area of your talent more. Then he organized airplane tickets for me to come to Europe. Why not? [laughs]

At that time, after writing for Urusei Yatsura…it sold a half million copies over the first few months, and kept selling. I got more anime song offers. I wrote five anime songs altogether. More offers were coming, but I thought…no no no, I don’t want to do this. I escaped. Then I arrived in London and I got so poor. [laughs]

[laughs] Really?

In England, unless you do a world tour, you are kind of suffering to live as a musician here, because there’s so many musicians here. And they are good!

You had touched on your anime work…in the ‘80s, what was writing anime songs and themes like, that part of the industry? Today, that’s the best way to get international attention, but I imagine back in the ‘80s it was totally different.

It is. Before I wrote for Urusei Yatsura, anime songs were like…you know Astro Boy? It was like “duh duh duh dunn dunn dun dun,” something like that. Or like Sazae-san. It was composed by people with classical backgrounds. They wrote orchestral songs. It was very different than, say, “Lum No Love Song.”

When I had the order to write that anime song…I liked that series anyway. I had liked Lum-chan for a long time before. The head of Kitty Records was also a great producer — he made Yosui Inoue big, among others — because his intuition is very sharp. When you met with him, he’d be very smiley, a very laid-back guy. But I’d go to the office often — to use the photocopier and stuff [laughs] — and when he saw me he said “hey Mimi, come to my office. I think you could be successful writing anime songs because you are like an anime character.” [laughs]. I was like running around like a silly girl, loud and lively and active. He thought I would be a good fit. I said “yeah, OK.”

A few months later, he called me up and asked “do you know this manga, Urusei Yatsura?” Yeah, I really like it, from years ago. “OK, write some songs for the anime version! Bring me a demo tape.” I wrote three songs, brought them to him the next day…and all three made it.

At that time, the producer of Fuji TV liked my songs…but the rest of the staff really hated them. [laughs]. I only learned this recently! This anime producer fought with all the staff, saying that anime songs should change with the times. The previous songs were too traditional and boring. That’s what he thought. I was using sequencers and “techno” even. A little bit techno… “latin techno.” [laughs]. The producer was strong, and he won. And he pushed this music onto TV, even though Fuji TV hated it. The audience followed it though, and it was a huge success.

They still are! People around the world know those songs.

If you try something new, different from before, many people will be against it. That’s what happened here. But I didn’t know that then. After I wrote those songs, I had plenty of other things to do so I just didn’t care [laughs]. I didn’t give a shit really, I was busy.

How did you find time for your own solo music?

When the record company said “this is the deadline,” I just did it by the deadline. I was like a machine. That was actually probably my mistake. I should have thought more seriously about my solo projects. I wasn’t that serious [laughs]. Like it’s a joke. But other artists, like Haruomo Hosono, were thinking more deeply about his projects and their overall concepts. You can tell — he’s an artist. I wasn’t like an artist. I wasn’t taking my solo stuff seriously. I prepared everything, arrangements and so forth, and I’d tell the musicians what to do. yeah…

Do you listen to your older music?

Actually, I don’t look at the past that much. I prefer looking at the future rather than the past, and talking about the past. But because this is part of my job, I have to talk about my past, with journalists like you! [laughs] Or if I go to a radio station, they play my old music.

I was curious in part because the whole “city pop” revival in the West is such a force, I see your music get elevated up. Like, people talking aout how Sea Flight is front-to-back bangers. I imagine it’s weird as someone who wants to look forward having to look back because of this. From people like me [laughs]

Oh, it’s a very good thing to happen for me. I’m not a young woman [laughs]. People listen to my music, or DJs sample what I’ve done, or vaporwave. Some American vaporwave artist sampled whole songs I did, and changed the speed, then released it. But he didn’t do anything. He just slowed it down, and released it. I was surprised. I forget his name…but I wonder, is that OK? [laughs] Do you know vaporwave⁴?

Oh god, I was following it from the start.

It’s not just the music, it’s a whole package yeah?

It’s an “aesthetic” as they say.

Yeah, yeah…but going off of that, you know future funk?

The sped-up version of vaporwave.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the guys, named Tanuki, he was using Urusei Yatsura for two or three seconds, the visual. And he looped it, and put in his song.

I actually know Tanuki really well. There was an event at Izu Stuido in…2016 I believe, maybe 2017. Definitely before COVID. The South Korean artist Night Tempo was asked to do a future funk meet-up, and I was invited to go to that event, in this studio, and met all of them. Night Tempo, Tanuki, a Russian guy…I’m forgetting his name⁵. Macross 82-99. We did the session, me and three other Japanese composers meeting with those future funk guys. Night Tempo organized a crowdfunding drive to make it happen — he’s so clever! He made so much money in just one week. We went to the studio and recorded together⁶.

When you’re in the studio with these future funk artists, what are you talking about when not making music? Are you asking them like, “why are you into this older music?”

We just drank a lot and joked around [laughs]. It was a nice studio out in the countryside, surrounded by hills. We didn’t talk about music that much. Night Tempo was always outside of our circuit, he was always focused on the internet and promotions and working. Me and everyone else…we were just drunk [laughs].

Before I let you go, we’ve talked a lot about the past…but I think it’s only fair to chat about the future. What are you up to now?

Patrick…oh my god, so much [laughs]. I need another two bodies to complete all the ideas I have. I’m playing with four bands right now, and I also have piano solo gigs as well. The main band right now is called The Scorpios, which is like a Sudanese, North African jazz-funk band. We did a recording at Abbey Road Studios…I’ve just come back from Manchester, and recently from Sweden. We are going to play London Jazz Festival and more shows. Gradually, we are getting more attention. We don’t play anything pop. It’s good, and the audience is really young! Like mostly in their 20s and 30s.

I play with a reggae band…and recently I started a new project, a kind of bossa nova project. I don’t play keyboard, hee hee hee hee [real laughter]. All my life I’ve played keyboard, and I kind of got bored. This project, I sing. And percussion. It’s three people. A Jamaican guy, a Dutch girl, and me. It’s like Benetton [laughs]. It’s like Manhattan Transfer, very stylish and very modern bossa nova.

Do you ever just like, take a vacation, take an afternoon off?

I don’t watch TV…I don’t watch films…I don’t meet friends that much. I focus on music. I’m quite boring [laughs].

Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies

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1. A common pre-21st century term used in Japan to refer to R&B, soul, gospel, funk and basically anything pioneered by black artists.

2. I’m pretty sure she’s referring to Morio Watanabe, who does appear to have vanished as of the 21st century? Still, what a Discogs page…a Mariah member and idol go-to!

3. Referring to a performer well versed in not just singing, but also acting, MCing and generally being a celebrity. Fun fact: Mariya Takeuchi was also originally visuallized as such an artist, and similarly moved away from it.

4. I realy want to emphasize she said all of this without me even saying “internet micro-genre” or whatever…when I’ve talked to other “city pop” artists from this period, I’m the one telling them what Tumblr and .zip files are, but Kobayashi is up on it.

5. That would be Desired.

6. I knew about this event at the time…probably via Night Tempo…and tried for a bit to crash it as a journalist, but alas it was an artists-only affair.