C. Cornell Evers was a journalist for the Dutch music magazine OOR in the 1980s and 1990s. Over the coming months, he will be sharing remarkable stories from his experiences as a music reporter and reflecting on those vibrant times.
The musical newsletters of Ryuichi Sakamoto
The Japanese composer and pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) was one of the most important artists of our time.
His successful career spanned almost half a century. Together with co-founders Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Ryuichi Sakamoto once explored the boundaries of technopop with the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Later, his classical compositions followed in the footsteps of Debussy and Ravel. As an actor, he starred in the same films for which he wrote the acclaimed and Oscar-winning music (The Last Emperor).
After the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Sakamoto became an iconic figure in the Japanese social movement against nuclear power. Beginning in 2012, he organized the annual NO NUKES music event, which featured many famous artists, including Kraftwerk, to protest nuclear power. After being diagnosed with throat cancer and returning to music, his intense experience of life crises in 2017 led to a new masterpiece: async. In early 2023, his album 12 was released, twelve intimate "meditations" for synthesizer and piano, a sound diary recorded during his final battle with cancer.
Thirty-four years ago, in March 1990, in an interview I conducted with him for the Dutch music magazine OOR, Ryuichi Sakamoto emphasized: "Let me make one thing clear, I am NOT Japanese." Here is a reprint of that interview.
The Map In The Mind Of Ryuichi Sakamoto
March 17, 1990
He once explored the boundaries of technopop with the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Later, his classical compositions followed in the footsteps of Debussy and Ravel. Today, he sends musical newsletters with names like Neo Geo and Beauty around the world. Greetings from Tokyo.
"Let me make one thing clear, I am NOT Japanese."
He is short, like a 'real' Japanese. He is polite, like a 'real' Japanese. But Ryuichi Sakamoto is not Japanese, or at least he does not think of himself as such. "I am from the island of Okinawa. Officially, it belongs to Japan, but since World War II, seventy percent of the island has been American bases. Before that, Okinawa had its own language and music, a culture that most Japanese do not understand. And the people of Okinawa still speak their own language and play their own music, so it's a shame that Okinawa is called Japanese. It is not!"
Reference work
"I have a map in my head, a cultural map," he says, after wriggling and lighting a new (how many?) filter cigarette from the pack on the table in front of him. According to Sakamoto, there is no such thing as pure culture. "Culture has always mixed with different places all over the world." Japanese folk pop, for example, sounds like Arabic music to him. "Listen carefully to the vocal intonation and vibration."
Sakamoto is more than willing to reveal the reference work that lies beneath his skull. We just have to be prepared to encounter a world very different from anything we have known as reality. "The way I see it, Bali is close to New York and next to it we find Tokyo or maybe even Hamburg."
A first musical expression found its way onto the LP Neo Geo a few years ago. On Neo Geo, Sakamoto explored the cultural heritage of China and Indonesia. The sequel to that first travel guide has now been released and is called Beauty. On Beauty, Sakamoto travels halfway around the world in less than an hour, passing through India, Pakistan, Iraq, and the Middle East before ending up in Africa. Among the guest musicians who accompany him on this cultural journey around the world are names like Youssou N'Dour, Arto Lindsay, Robert Wyatt, Brian Wilson, Shankar, Pino Palladino, Jill Jones, and Robbie Robertson, all of whom are considered outstanding in their own right. I mean: How in the world do you get them all together? No problem, at least not for Sakamoto. "When I was working on the basic tracks in the studio, I could already hear their sound in my head. I knew exactly who and what I needed. Well, then you just ask those people."
So that's how you do it. At least if your name is Sakamoto. And even for him, this method is something new. Somewhat introverted, almost shy, he used to prefer working with machines, computers that simply did what he asked without objecting, rather than with flesh-and-blood musicians. The turning point for Sakamoto came during the making of Bertolucci's film The Last Emperor, for which the composer not only wrote part of the soundtrack but also played a role. "I'll be the last to say I'm a good actor. In fact, I dislike acting. The times I've agreed, and that's been twice so far (also in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence - CCE), it was because I admired the director a lot and considered it an honor to work with him. But I could do without the acting itself. The positive aspect of working with films, however, is that it has changed me in my relationships with other people. In the past, I hardly found it worthwhile to communicate with others, even with musicians. But because of The Last Emperor and the extraordinary experience it was for me, I suddenly got tired of sitting alone in the studio. For The Last Emperor, I had to go to China, where I met a lot of students. The crew was made up of people from all over the world. In the beginning it was very difficult for me, especially the difference in character between Bertolucci - he is a real Latino - and myself caused many problems at first, but later I enjoyed working with so many different kinds of people."
The Future
It's natural to interpret the title of Sakamoto's latest album, Beauty, as an ode to beauty. And indeed, Ryuichi is very happy with the beautiful things this earth has to offer. In this case, however, beauty refers more to what was and, according to Sakamoto, will never return, than to what is still here. "I am very disappointed in humanity and what it has done to this planet. Honestly, I don't see how we can save this earth, how we can build a future here. I love the people of the world. I love nature, I love animals. I just... I feel like I have already lost it. Everything is being destroyed, and I'm not just talking about the environment, but also political and social relationships. Cultures are disappearing as we watch. So I make the music I make because I want to remember it, this earth, but also the people who live on it. They are the ones who inspire me, who fascinate me and who never cease to amaze me."
“I had already lost my national identity, because I want nothing to do with the history of Japan”
As much as Sakamoto values life and its traditions - or at least wants to preserve them in some form - he is not interested in nationalities and all that goes with them. "I think it's great to lose your identity in that sense. You get a lot out of it. I had already lost my identity, not my personal one, but my national one, because I want nothing to do with the history of Japan, with what Japan did in Korea and China and during the last world war. The mentality that the Japanese had then still exists, not among the children, but among the average Japanese citizen. I cannot tolerate that. However, the loss of my national identity is more than made up for by the many people I meet everywhere who influence me from their own culture. As a result, I am constantly changing, always on my way to something new."
For Sakamoto, the ideal world is one in which nationalities no longer exist. "I really think we can do without them. I've always hoped to live in a world without borders. It sounds like an old hippie dream, I know, but why shouldn't a person be allowed to dream?"