Pop diva Koda Kumi recently gave an interview with ‘GET-core’, where she discussed her new album “Dejavu”, as well as her upcoming live shows in Kyushu.
Check it out below!
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GC: The title of your album released this month is “Dejavu”. Why did you choose that title?
KK: I decided upon the name because the album is full of original songs that have a familiar feel to them. The phrase is in French, and a friend told me that for her, ‘deja vu is when even though there’s been pain in the past, there still exists pain that must be overcome’. So after playing back the album, the name seemed to fit.
GC: How was the album created overall?
KK: When I looked objectively at ‘Koda Kumi’, I think there are two sides to that personality. There’s the private “Ku-chan”, and there’s also the artist ‘Koda Kumi’. This album features both sides of me.
GC: So it’s “Koda Kumi”-ish…?
KK: I’m like ‘Fujiko’ from ‘Lupin the 3rd’! Koda Kumi has this image of having wealth and fame, as well as being strong. Compared to the more private “Ku-chan”, it’s as different as a lion and a rabbit.
GC: The promotional video for your “Pop Diva” single featured strong women battling men.
KK: The promotion video is the same as a movie; it pulls its strength from the song quality. For the video, the image of strong women fighting was a bit exaggerated, but I think women nowadays are very strong. With all the vegetarian men increasing these days, I think the rate of meat-eating women is rising too, and they’re saying “I can do it too, you guys! (laughs)”. There are women in the world who never shed tears, but there are also times where they must overcome trials, and I hope this expresses what they experience.
GC: You have a lot of songs where you sing about love. Are you singing from personal experience?
KK: When writing lyrics, there are many instances of writing about personal experiences. Sometimes when writing lyrics, I interview my female friends because my experiences aren’t the best. When I listen to other people’s experiences of love, I learn how to express many different loves as well.
GC: You seem to have an image as “The Goddess of Love”…
KK: Hahahaha, I’ve got a predisposition to love, it seems. When you don’t love, you feel emptiness. Even when I write those kinds of lyrics, I feel down a bit.
GC: This year, you’ll be going on a hall tour that will take you through Kyushu, including planned stops in Fukuoka, Oita, and Nagasaki. What kind of performance do you want to give?
KK: Since this is my first hall tour in 5 years, I thought, “What could be done with a hall performance up to this point?“, and based my plans off of this idea. I especially hope to impress the audience with ballads for this tour.
