Seattle Star:?Empowerment has become a big talking point in Japan recently. It’s even in the name of the new national soccer league, the Women’s Empowerment League. With Japan ranked the lowest among developed countries regarding gender equality, this seems like a good time for your own empowerment project. What does empowerment mean to you, personally?

Anri Okita:?I’ll say this is a great question for me.

Yes, I often feel that the concept of gender discrimination is naturally rooted in our country. I feel that there is rampant moral harassment, which can be solved by saying things more forcefully. In Japan, there is a word “shifting the blame,” the kanji meaning of which is “shifting the blame to the wife.”

And then there is a strong tendency to make fun of women as “old women,” starting with those in their thirties.

Seattle Star:?Not just in Japan. The whole?sheng nu?“l(fā)eftover woman” nonsense is rampant in China. And the USA is far from accepting, too. We still have ads for products that promise to “Make skin over 25 look younger!”

Anri Okita:?Women also make fun of their own age by being modest about it, so I feel how deep-rooted this idea is. I hope that the idea of women being respected regardless of their career, their age, whether they are married or not, whether they have children or not, will spread like it has in other developed countries. I hope that my presence and activities will give courage and hope to many women.

Seattle Star:?I hope so, too. A lot of people know that you’re an excellent graphic artist, through your?Atelier Anri?work on?YouTube. Very few people know that you used to play the piano and the saxophone. I’ve heard you play a lot of different styles of music: pop music, EDM, jazz, showtunes, hard rock, even a couple of enka classics. When did you decide to sing professionally?

Anri Okita:?I don’t know if I can play the pianos and saxophone now as I learnt them as a child. I respect many genres of music. Of course I like R&B the best, but recently I’ve been interested in rap. It might actually not matter which genre of music, as long as the message you want to convey is conveyed, like the empowerment story I mentioned earlier.

My music dream originally started when I was 10 years old. I really wished to become a professional musician when I was about 21 years old. I vowed that I would make it happen. My best friend from high school remembered me saying that. I said, “I’ll be famous and then I’ll be a singer to make it come true.”

Seattle Star:?I’ve always known that you were interested in making a new recording after your?Gorilla?CD in 2017. You had big plans for a new album of Showa-era songs in 2019 with a new record label, but then along came COVID-19 and everything stopped. Did you feel like this was another “l(fā)ost opportunity”? How close were you to giving up on music?

Anri Okita:?Thank you for another great question. Somewhere along the line, I was starting to get used to being screwed up in my music career. AV work was an easy way to raise my profile, but it made the barriers to what I originally wanted to do even greater. It’s only natural that I would be excluded. I knew that.

But despite that, I was more reluctant to give up than anyone else, and I was always looking for a musical opportunity somewhere. I was looking for a way to become a singer abroad. And even if you think in your head?Should I just give up now??your body is in a constant state of searching.

Seattle Star:?I know you like to quote the Utada lyrics from “Time Limit”,?When people don’t get results they quit right away?(そろそろ成果が現(xiàn)れ始めなきゃやめてしまう), but yet you didn’t give up. You kept going with other things and eventually music came back to you. How did you get into BLACK DIAMOND? I understand it has something to do with your dentist?

Anri Okita:?As I continued to look for a way to be active in the music world, I found out about the project through a very kind dentist in Toranomon, who has been a doctor for generations in Japan and who knew someone involved in BLACK DIAMOND. I was shocked. The role of singer I had been aiming for for 12 years was being held in the form of an audition. Relatively quietly. There was no big publicity, but I was able to selflessly get myself into the final audition.

Seattle Star:?After the auditions, the group came together in September of last year. How soon did you start working on the songs together?

Anri Okita:?Although the lyrics were different, the audition song was already the same as the current debut song, “SUPER DUPER.” The lyrics changed several times. At first we were told that our debut would be in February. I was very, very impatient, but I felt very, very happy and elated.