Interview with Kazz Noguchi & Hamada Maria
The evolution of "Paradox Live" from hiphop
--Please share what the two of you are responsible for as it pertains to music production for Paradox Live.
Kazz: It's changed a little from the first season going into Road to Legend and then Battle of Unity, but at the the very start, Hamada-san contacted me and asked our creative team to handle the music production. If I recall, she basically said "do whatever you want" and "just make it cool!". [laughs]
Hamada: That's right. [laughs] I work with Sumzap on the general creative aspects like the worldview and the characters for the entire project. For music production, I determine the theme and the concept for each song, as well as the battle theme for each CD. We handle the overall production for each of the teams, including art direction, music style, and activity planning. Compared to how Paradox Live started in 2019, we have more staff now, but I don't think the way that we work together for music-related matters has changed very much.
--Was it decided from the start that the concept would be four teams doing battle onstage using hiphop?
Kazz: During our very first meeting, Hamada-san said that four teams would be competing, and a lot of the initial discussion was about how those teams were going to be divided up. Things like "should they be divvied up by region, or by genre?" hadn't been decided yet. BAE were the first team, and the face of the project, so we discussed really making them approachable and vibrant to make sure they made a good first impression. So we talked about giving them the appeal of dance pop and K-pop that was really catching fire in the western music scene at the time, so they'd be the kind of thing that a wide variety of people could easily enjoy.
Hamada: From the start, I said that I wanted to do authentic hiphop with each of the four teams, and that each character had a trauma. Then we debated about whether K-pop counted as a genre. [laughs]
Kazz: Yes, we did. [laughs] So when I was shown the BAE characters, I thought that they had a very international feel, so I found myself thinking, "I bet we can use a lot of English with them", so I put that forward as a challenge I'd like to take on. In fact, I even told MICRO-san, who is in charge of writing their lyrics, that it would be okay if their lyrics were mostly in English.
Hamada: I remember that! Kazz-san asked me if BAE's songs might be in English, and I happily answered, "yes, of course they could be in English!". After that, they were able to strike a good balance between English and Japanese.
Kazz: For TCW and Akan Yatsura, we considered dividing each team's style up into east coast hiphop and west coast hiphop. But we thought it might be a little hard to convey the east vs west coast dichotemy through the music alone and without any extra explanation for people who aren't really familiar with hiphop already. So rather than focusing on "East coast", per se, we suggested that TCW emphasize the nuances of jazz hip hop. And on the other hand, for Akan Yatsura and their west coast elements, we proposed incorporating cheerful, open-minded elements like reggaeton and Chicano rap, which have spread from the west coast all the way down Latin America.
Hamada: That was the part I struggled with the most. Kazz-san helped me to figure out how to express the ideas I had in my head just through the lyrics and music. Without strong roots, it can very easily become inauthentic, so we made very sure to try and make connections, and then refine those connections, so that the characters maintained the appeal and ease-of-understanding of anime characters and animusic while still conveying the many joys of hiphop.
Kazz: This was pretty early on-- about a year and a half, two years, before the first CD was released.
Hamada: Rather than just focusing on "what songs are going to be trendy right now?", I tried to think about what kind of musical feel is popular, and there's a lot of complex factors to that-- what the BPM is, what the instrumentation is like, and the way the rap itself is delivered. I had an image of the characters, the artists, and the sounds in my mind, and I studied hiphop a lot to refine those images.
Kazz: I'll be honest, at the time, I thought that 2D content and hiphop didn't belong in the same world as each other at all, so I was kind of confused at the start. Nowadays, hiphop has become a huge and important part of the entertainment maket, but it started out in the Bronx in New York in the late 1970s by young Black and Latino people; it was a piece of shared urban culture that came to be as a way of expressing their reactions to social problems, like discrimination, poverty, and urban decay. As a musical genre, hiphop is really more of a collection of aspects of an entire culture-- you've got DJing, MCing (or rapping), breaking (or breakdancing), and graffiti that are all a part of it. Behind all of that is a really clear history and social structure, and the ideas, spirit, and lifestyles that have their roots in it are really deeply interconnected. This is why it's so sensitive to new trends, and why arguments about "this is hiphop, but that's not hiphop" are so common. In a sense, it's a very delicate, profound culture. But half a century has passed since the birth of hiphop, now, and I think it's matured into an open-minded culture that can accept a variety of values within it. It's completely nonsense to think that you're going to be the one pushing boundaries, but even so, when you're making music using the medium of hiphop, it's very important to keep its cultural background and context in mind. It's essential to have an attitude of understanding and respect and to make an effort to communicate what you want to communicate carefully.
--Do you ever feel like the content doesn't mesh with that?
Kazz: No; in fact, I think quite the opposite. Hiphop has always accepted diverse values and been influenced by all manner of regional differences -- from the era, the lifestyles of the people, and the cultures that those people give rise to -- and so it's developed in many different ways all around the world. I think this flexibility, this omnivorousness, is the essence of hiphop, and part of the reason for its universal appeal. The setting of Paradox Live is different from anywhere in reality, in terms of locale and time period. So, I think that means it's a chance to create music that's different from real-life hiphop. As such, what we need to do is not just follow the template of "this is what hiphop is" that already exists in reality, but rather, create something new called "Paradox Live". Having the opportunity to pursue something original that can only be born from its own specific worldview and era-- that's the core principle and driving reason behind my involvement with the project to this day.
Hamada: We wanted Paradox Live to be its own evolution of hiphop, rather than just a two-dimensional project that barely scratches the surface of real hiphop.
Kazz: The characters all have different backgrounds, and I wanted to bring a sense of realism to the music they created by being so deeply influenced and immersed in hiphop. I think it's amazing how the characters, hiphop, and the music itself all work together to create the series' world view. But I guess I'm speaking from the outside looking in. [laughs]
Hamada: No, you're a part of it, too?! [laughs]
Rather than providing songs, we make the songs together
--As this is a media mix project focused on hiphop, are there any particular things to point out about how the music is created?
Kazz: When I'm working on the pop songs that I usually work on, the vocal melody comes first, then the lyrics, and then the actual instrumental arrangement. It's pretty typical nowadays for the writer to have the melody, arrangement, and sometimes even some tentative lyrics at the demo stage, but for Paradox Live, we deliberately follow the traditional hiphop production process. First comes the track, and then the rap is made to match the track. So, the sound of the song is decided first. We don't have a set process for track production; rather, the composers make a variety of demos that match each team's style, and we share them with the staff, discuss them, and make a decision. This hasn't changed at all since the first season.
Hamada: It's a very different way of making music than you usually see in animusic tie-ins, or the typical way of providing songs for artists. To me, it feels more like they're working together with me to make the song.
Kazz: Unlike most 2D projects, in Paradox Live, the music is made very closely in parallel with the story and the characters, so the music plays a large role in the overall direction of the series, but I try not to worry too much about that in the moment when working on creating. I leave it up to Hamada-san to judge whether things are in line with the characters and the story that it's going to accompany. I'm pretty used to it now, but at the start, I needed Hamada-san by my side constantly while recording, constantly checking in like, "is this vocal performance okay for this character?" and "is the tension in this part okay?". [laughs]
Hamada: Yes, that was definitely true. And it was down to very minute details, like, "this character's English pronunciation should be worse". [laughs]
Kazz: Yes, we also got requests like "please make sure that the pronunciation isn't too fluent". Usually, you want to make sure that everyone is pronouncing everything right and it all sounds very cool. Normally, that's the kind of judgment call we'd make without thinking about it; but Hamada-san's attention to detail was on another level, and she paid a lot of attention to stuff like that, so we were able to create music that everyone was happy with.
--So what was that about the rougher English pronunciation just now?
Hamada: That was about Akan Yatsura. They're not the type who would have studied English hard, so their English pronunciation should be kind of bad. [laughs] But on the other hand, the members of BAE have their pronunciation polished up to the point where there's not even a 1mm margin for error.
--It seems like you're very particular about the music. Is there anything extra that you have to do for Paradox Live, compared to the other music that you work on?
Hamada: One of the things we keep in mind is that we're trying to create "real artists", so we have to get very particular about that. For example, rather than thinking of BAE as "the group that makes trendy-type songs", we think of them as "artists who incorporate the latest trends and a cutting-edge image to express themselves". Rather than a one-trick pony, we try to conceptualize them as "artists who write their own lyrics and compose their own music", so they can sing up-tempo songs, ballads, more aggressive songs, and darker songs. I think that real artists have range like that. So I'll talk to Kazz and we'll adjust the range, and talk about what kinds of songs the characters might do now or what they wouldn't do.
Kazz: We started out the first season with a lot of stuff we didn't know yet, so we had to work together to figure a lot of this out.
Hamada: I told him that TCW has a calm, dandy image, with a very New York style known as jazzy hip hop, but that didn't mean they were limited to songs that use double bass and piano. I asked him to consider the wide variety of aggressive songs that teams like that can play when they battle with hiphop. Even the calmer teams want to be on the offensive when they're in a battle. So when someone says, "I want them to attack with a faster tempo", we'll think of suggestions "well, even if it isn't fast, if we do it this way or that way, it will be an attack that suits TCW". We think of them as real artists, so we try not to limit their direction to just one type of song. Like, "what does this group think of the battle theme 'DESIRE'...?" is the kind of thing that I want to convey through the music. I don't give instructions like "next, I want the song to be like so and so song by so and so artist", right?
Kazz: No, never.
Hamada: The genre that cozmez play is really popular these days, and there's people who play that kind of music all around the world; but even if they're in similar genres, we've already established who cozmez are, so we don't want them to sound like someone else.
Kazz: As creators, we try to be aware of each team's sense of musicality. But, we provide a wide range of tracks without narrowing our focus down too hard, and we share them with and listen to them with the rest of the staff. I think this really works well for shaping the image of the artists.
Hamada: Also, with Paradox Live, I try not to make too many decisions when ordering the music. I'll have a concept, a theme, and the emotions that the artists are feeling in mind, but I only have a rough idea of what the track should be, like "exciting" or "sad". I want Kazz and the rest of the writing team to create whatever they want to create, and it really feels like we create the music together.
The writers in charge of each team are members of their teams
--When you think of the characters as "real artists", how does that affect the music?
Kazz: Using TCW as an example, we try to think about what kind of music they would make if they wanted to go on the offensive. Although we're conscious about broadening the scope of each team, we don't want to make any radical changes. I think everyone has their own sense of musicality as an artist.
Hamada: When an artist writes their own songs, they all develop their own unique style. The songs that are provided to me and the songs that I write for myself are totally different, so I think that would be the case with character songs, too. Since the artist's core concepts are already decided, the general process is something like, "this is the battle theme for the next song, this is who it will be by, this is what the characters think of the theme, and this is what kind of song I think would be good". I think the easiest example here is probably "LOVE" from the first season. When you hear the word "LOVE", everyone is going to have different opinions-- warmth, disgust, or regret. So, TCW feel that warmth and regret, and cozmez feel disgust towards something that was never shown to them. It's a little odd to have to make orders by telling the writers what the characters feel, like I have to do with this series. [laughs] But because the cores are so solid, even if the emotions in a song vary depending on the artist, it still turns out very convincing, and so they're able to create something very unique and original. Akan Yatsura play a lot of party-type songs, but they also have songs that show off the darker side of the underworld they live in. Kazz always asks things like "is this a departure from Akan Yatsura's style?" or "would they sing this kind of song?", and it's a huge help!
Kazz: This year is the sixth anniversary. As the years have gone by, we -- not only me, but the songwriters as well -- have definitely built a shared sense of "this team would do this type of song, but not that type of song". I was really hoping for that, so that's why all of the teams have consistent songwriters. [laughs]
Hamada: When you're dealing with character songs, it's really rare for each team to have a consistent lyricist. I think you generally have writers who just write for the entire work as a whole. So, the writers in charge of each team are really a part of their teams.
Kazz: I agree. We've gotten to the point where we don't really have to give them much input when ordering lyrics. We'll talk to some extent about what's going on with that team in the story at that point in time and the sense of tension that we're looking for, but we don't have to explain anything about the team or the characters... frankly, I really think they may know the characters better than I do.
--Please share what made you think, "I'll ask so and so artist to write for so and so team".
Hamada: Kazz-san said, "maybe we should have one person write the lyrics for each group". So, we decided that it would be much more authentic if we had actual rappers to do the job, so we adjusted and decided on the characters' artistic talents and what it was that we wanted to express, accounting for not only the genre of music but also their personalities. So, what I asked for was that I wanted people who could fully immerse themselves in the feelings of the characters.
Kazz: So I recommended people based on the genre and the atmosphere of the characters, based on who I imagined would be the best suited to creating them. For example, I wanted BAE's lyrics to be predominantly in English, and since they also sing a lot in addition to rapping, I thought MICRO-san would be best equipped to handle them. We'd worked together on lyrics for a lot of projects in the past, so I was sure he would be willing to work closely with me on this as a collaboration as well. I knew that MICRO-san would be able to settle in and start building a foundation without trouble and solidify what BAE was, so I moved onto the other teams. I also already knew SIMON-kun, since we'd worked together before as well, so I could easily imagine what he'd be able to do. Not only does he have that classic hiphop feel and balance that TCW needs; he's also really good at coming up with very articulate word choices, which is important for Saimon, who's a linguistics professor at a university, and I knew he'd be able to balance that with a good street feel.
Hamada: When we read the line about the "shadow-facing pine" in 4 REAL, all of the staff were overjoyed. We were all like, "I've never heard of that in my life!". [laughs]
Kazz: SIMON-kun is the kind of person who loves doing stuff like that. However, we had the issue of Shiki, who seems unsuited to hiphop, and Ryu, who has a very tricky and hard-to-pin-down character, so we were like "well, what is he going to do about them?". [laughs]
Hamada: At first, we didn't have it set in stone that Shiki was going to be a poetry rapper. So I thought it was very impressive that we took him in that direction; even though he has the impression of a very timid, withdrawn, and small-animal-type rapper, I was really pleased with the results.
Kazz: It's really hard to find a rapper who's that passive and that lacking in confidence, so it's really hard to empathize with and write from the perspective of someone so completely different from yourself. And Ryu-kun's way of thinking is very unpredictable, and his flow is extremely unique, without anything to really base it on. So we really struggled with how we were going to handle those very different character types but still make them cool. But now that SIMON has such a good understanding of the two of them, we have nothing to worry about. [laughs] Meanwhile, GASHIMA-kun is in charge of cozmez, and they have a street vibe that's super different from the one that TCW has. His style is youthful and it has that kind of abrasive listlessness.
Hamada: That's really the words for it, isn't it? Abrasive listlessness. He's very good at using rough-sounding colloquial language really well.
Kazz: It's really a sense of tension that he's very good at providing. Then, I hadn't worked with the members of WAYZ before we collaborated here on Paradox Live. They were recommended to me by Avex. I had a mutual acquaintance in their scene, so I had a vague idea of their atmosphere. Since they were two members of the same group, I thought they'd lend some authenticity to the comraderie of Akan Yatsura, so I asked them to write for them. They've ended up using a lot of Japanese wordplay and, honestly, conveyed Akan Yatsura even better than I expected, so I'm really impressed.
Hamada: I prepare materials for the lyricists to help them write, like the battle theme, the plot of the drama, what I want expressed in this song, the main message, the feelings of each character, and some things that I want the characters to say. Some songs use those words as lyrics directly, but others use it more as inspiration for their own words, rather than directly using it. I feel like the members of WAYZ don't really care about my words, so much as they pick up on my feelings. [laughs]
Hamada: "They don't really care about your words"? [laughs] Anyway, for Buraikan, selecting a lyricist was a very different process from the other teams, since the timing was very different. But, since they were set up as being a legendary team, we knew from the start that the music had to have the atmosphere of a champion. I had known Shinpeita for a long time, and I knew him as a person, too. His straightforward, powerful, noble feel was very persuasive, and I knew it was the perfect fit. In the end, I think it worked out well.
--Did GASHIMA write lyrics from the start knowing that Nayuta was a phantom created by Kanata?
Hamada: I told him that from the start that Nayuta was a phantom. But, that was just one aspect of him, and I wanted him to be written as though he was a regular artist as well, since I didn't want him to be too conscious of the fact that he was just Kanata's illusion. On the other hand, their victory allowed Nayuta to make his comeback, and from then on he started to write more about Nayuta's personal thoughts and feelings towards Kanata.
Depicting each person's answers to the battle theme prompt
--Which songs from the first season were particularly memorable for you?
Kazz: The Opening Show was specifically orchestrated to make each team's individuality show, and they're very different from the battle songs. A typical rap battle is a competition of your rap skills, but in Paradox Live, a rap battle is a phantom live performance. In these battles, the idea is that the more convicing of a job you do portraying the theme, the more likely you are to win. So for the first battle, "DESIRE", cozmez have a lot that they desire to hit everyone with, but BAE come from a much more privileged position, so I felt like their desire for such things couldn't compare to cozmez's hunger. So, I told MICRO, "I think BAE would interpret 'desire' as 'ambition'" (hence AMBITIOUS). In the second battle, "JUSTICE", Akan Yatsura say that it's about a sense of justice that even criminals can't compromise on, and in the fourth battle, "FAMILY", Akan Yatsura aren't related by blood. Meawhile, cozmez are twins who are related by blood and that's how they conceptualize "family". In this way, all of the teams have to consider how they would answer the prompt of the battle theme and be conscious of winning or losing, so the music had those restrictions in place; but, Opening Show and Exhibition Show weren't battles, and so we had a tremendous amount of freedom in how we composed those songs.
Hamada: I don't want the songs to have the feel of "oh, if we release this kind of song, we'll win" or "this kind of song would be popular". I wanted it to feel like the artists were responding to each battle theme in their own way so that the outcome was truly up to the audience. If you release something good, maybe you'll win, or it might depend on the story; we can't guarantee what will cause one team to win. Personally, I think working on the songs from the third round, "PRIDE", had a lasting impression on me.
Kazz: I agree.
Hamada: The first and second rounds were the first battle songs for each team, so I just gave everyone information about the characters and the worldview of the work, some lyrics, and then I told them the theme, and everyone got to work making the song together. As the battles went on and the story became more complicated, from "PRIDE" onwards, I started giving everyone more detailed materials about how each team thought about the theme and how they'd want to convey it. I think it left a lasting impression.
Hamada: We had a lot of requests for it from the lyricists, and everyone got a lot of really solid reference materials. It's super different from writing lyrics for your own songs, so especially at the start, the writers had a bit of trouble fully getting into the characters. But the more information everyone gets, the happier they are.
--"Rap Guerrilla -Paradox Live ALL ARTISTS-" involved the lyricists for four different teams. What was the production process on that like?
Hamada: "Rap Guerrilla" is a song that everyone sings on, but we talked about how to make it so every character's individual style comes across. Paradox Live's strength is that every team has their own distinct style, rather than all performing the same way, so when I asked the team to make use of that, they arranged it so that the song feels like it changes into a completely different song mid-track.
Kazz: It started with an ALKA-LINE track as the base, and Fujimoto (Kazunori) and Hayama (Takumi) produced on top of that. The original track was entirely focused on that central hook, but as we were working on it, Fujimoto suggested that we should give each team a different style. But that ended up making it sound like four different songs, which I thought might be a little too much to ask for. [laughs] But I said, "yes, please, do that!". We didn't have any specific requests regarding the musical style of each team, but the result we got was better than anything I could have requested. Each verse has a strong personality, so it feels like listening to a medley even though it's all one song. It's very long, but it's never boring, and the overall effect really makes you go, "oh, this is Paradox Live", which I think is super impressive.
Hamada: I think that the track changing so much makes everyone feel like the main character for a while, and the main character just keeps changing over the course of the song. Once the track was put together, the lyrics came together pretty quickly, didn't they?
Kazz: They did. We divided up the lyrics and every team's lyricist only wrote their own part. It wasn't a battle, more like a self-introduction, so it all went smoothly. MICRO put together the main hook, and I think it turned out to be a great final product thanks to everyone's efforts.
The exhibition show, where they performed songs they couldn't in battles!
--In the Exhibition Show, there were colab songs with real artists. How did that come about?
Hamada: Well, in hiphop, you often perform with a lot of different people, right? I thought that was very interesting and I wanted the chance to do that someday, and we had the chance to make it happen. Having a collaboration session with other artists really expanded the scope of the music and allowed us to show off sides that the characters might not otherwise. Since the Exhibition Show CD was meant to be a break from the battle CDs, we also wanted to create colab songs that could never have happened in the battle rounds. Using TCW as an example, we asked for a stunning love song. We wanted the artists to be able to do do something that they had never done on the project before, and show off their breadth, so we got in contact with everyone.
-- How did the artists that you collaborated with react?
Hamada: I think everyone found it very entertaining, but the one who I remember the most is how SKY-HI (Hidaka Mitsuhiro). He said, "you guys made a good song here", and then he came back with a verse that made me think, "you really did something interesting here", and it felt like a proper collaborative session. The memory really sticks with me. I really felt like he and cozmez were working together as a trio. That's really what I was hoping to achieve with this feature project, so I was very happy about it.
Kazz: I recorded with Hidaka-kun and (Mitchell) Kazuma-kun, so they both left really lasting impressions on me. But even so, the Exhibition Show released in November 2020, so we were recording it before Paradox Live's first anniversary had even come.
Hamada: We were really working at a breakneck pace in that first year, so my memories are definitely a little fuzzy... [laughs]
Paradox Live as it currently is exists because of cozmez's win
-- The first season concluded with cozmez winning the championship, but looking back now, is there anything you feel has been left undone since the first season?
Hamada: All of the battle themes were already decided from the start, and the song or theme for each round didn't change based on who won or lost, so I think we were able to really get into the flow and create it all properly. The story progressed naturally with the flows of victories and defeats, and I think we were able to convey what we wanted to convey and portray what we wanted to portray. However, if cozmez hadn't won, Nayuta was probably going to stay an illusion, so I think it was for the best that cozmez won. When we first started hinting that Nayuta might be an illusion, we really felt a lot of pressure from the audience all going, "of course Nayuta is actually alive, right?" [laughs]
Kazz: I guess this is a pretty obvious question, but the trajectory of the story did change depending on who won or lost, right?
Hamada: Things do change. So the story we have today is because cozmez won, and that's what brings us to the way Paradox Live currently exists. At the start, we were intentionally releasing things very, very quickly, so we would make two voice dramas, and depending on who won the battle, one of the dramas would be dropped...
--How far into the future were the parallel voice dramas created?
Hamada: We recorded one CD ahead at a time. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to meet the production schedule, so we'd record one drama ahead and depending on how the battle played out, one of the dramas got dropped.
Kazz: The songs were created to match the battle theme regardless of who won or lost. It was a round robin tournament, so we knew that every team would be going against every other team once.
Hamada: The emotions fluctuate a lot with wins and losses, so we couldn't plan everything too far ahead. We were heading into the second season, but cozmez won the first season, so I did request something like, "please create an atmosphere that conveys how confident the winners are".
-- Finally, please share how you feel the characters and teams changed over the course of the first season.
Hamada: At the start, BAE were a team that didn't really care about anyone else; their lyrics were all about "I am myself", but they had enough openness to face their opponents and make lyrics that responded to the other team's music. I think they've gotten much stronger through battling by being able to observe others and fold their experiences into their own.
Kazz: BAE's story also mellowed Hajun out a bit. Considering how he used to call people sewer rats at the beginning, it's easier now to see that he's a good guy underneath it.
Hamada: But some people actually want to be called sewer rats, so he'll keep doing it. [laughs] Anne also started out showing only very surface-level things about themself and didn't reveal much of their inner self, but I think they've started opening up more as they battled together.
Kazz: As for TCW, the relationship between the members became much clearer as time went on, and -- as the events surrounding Shiki were revealed little by little throughout the first season -- it was really striking to see the familial-esque bonds between the other members grow stronger as they protected him. Shiki grew even more in the second season, and I think there are signs of that showing up throughout the first season, depending on the song.
Hamada: Everyone really likes Shiki and wants to protect him. [laughs]
Kazz: And I think cozmez grew up a lot, too. At first, it felt like they were the only two people in their world, but the differences between them grew more apparent with every song.
Hamada: I think cozmez definitely developed a lot of personality. And Akan Yatsura didn't just change, they got bigger, I think.
Kazz: They certainly grew into big, macho men. I think that as the artists go about the work they do, they're able to find out what things that everyone will respond to. I mean this in a nice way, but it feels like they ego-search a lot. [laughs] It seems like everyone is having fun, so I'm glad that this group of people were able to perform the music in Paradox Live together. I also think it was good that we had this team system so everyone could compete with each other, too.