{"id":174164,"date":"2025-07-21T18:10:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T22:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/07\/21\/yuriyan-retriever-in-conversation-with-producer-yonkey-inside-the-creative-process-of-her-debut-single\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T18:10:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T22:10:25","slug":"yuriyan-retriever-in-conversation-with-producer-yonkey-inside-the-creative-process-of-her-debut-single","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/07\/21\/yuriyan-retriever-in-conversation-with-producer-yonkey-inside-the-creative-process-of-her-debut-single\/","title":{"rendered":"YURIYAN RETRIEVER In Conversation With Producer yonkey: Inside the Creative Process of Her Debut\u00a0Single"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tPrize-winning Japanese comedian, Netflix star and all-around entertainer YURIYAN RETRIEVER can now add major-label solo artist to her illustrious list of titles, dropping her debut single \u201cYURIYAN TIME\u201d on Wednesday (July 16).<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\"YURIYAN<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tYURIYAN RETRIEVER Talks Debut Solo Single & Ambition to Become a Genre of Her\u00a0Own\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tThe versatile funny woman, now based in the U.S., worked with sought-after music producer yonkey \u2014 producer of ATARASHII GAKKO! \u2014 on the new song, an earwormy number that naturally inspires courage after repeated listening despite its comical nature. YURIYAN, whose stage name as a singer is stylized in all caps, says that\u2019s the core of what she aimed to convey through the track that showcases yonkey\u2019s expertise. The 34-year-old multi-hyphenate and 28-year-old music producer opened up about the creative process of \u201cYURIYAN TIME\u201d in this conversation for Billboard Japan.<\/p>\n

\n\tTell us about your first impressions of each other.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tyonkey<\/strong>: We met in a sort of conference room and talked about a lot of things. She said, \u201cCould you listen to this song I wrote?\u201d This often happens whenever I\u2019m meeting with other musicians I produce, but they usually just play it on their iPhone. But YURIYAN was like, \u201cI don\u2019t have a recording, so do you mind if I do it here?\u201d and performed it for me right there in full with just the beat. I was floored. My first impression of her was that she was more enthusiastic than any other artist.<\/p>\n

\n\tYURIYAN<\/strong>: He says I was enthusiastic, but I just didn\u2019t have the skills to make sounds or to record them, so I had to do it directly.<\/p>\n

\n\tyonkey<\/strong>: I mean, usually it\u2019s embarrassing to sing in front of someone at a distance of a table between you. But I had this gut feeling that if she could perform even under such circumstances, the project would definitely work out. It was such an electrifying moment.<\/p>\n

\n\tYURIYAN<\/strong>: He asked me, \u201cWhat kind of vibes do you like in a song?\u201d I often think songs that have catchy intros are cool, so I told him, \u201cI like songs that start off in a unique way.\u201d And when I told him that I often put my thoughts and feelings into my comedy routines, he said\u2026 was it a scribble? A scrawl?<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cItemize them,\u201d maybe?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYURIYAN<\/strong>: Yes! \u201cAn itemized list is fine, so write your thoughts down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you have an idea of what you wanted it to sound like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tyonkey<\/strong>: I was invited to go see YURIYAN\u2019s comedy show once, and one of her segments had a kind of horror story feel to it. I wanted to add some scary sounds reminiscent of Japan and Japanese children\u2019s songs. I thought I could reproduce that horror-tinged flavor that YURIYAN had written into her comedy routine by using delay on crows cawing in the intro to evoke the image of dusk.<\/p>\n

\n\tYURIYAN<\/strong>: I heard from yonkey that he added that Japanese flavor to the track to suggest I was going global from Japan. You know what, though, a fortune teller once told me long ago that my guardian spirit is a crow. A yatagarasu, the three-legged crow used as the symbol of the Japanese national soccer team, is apparently watching over me. Also, my hometown is NYC\u2026 Oh, Nara Yoshino-cho, I mean. I thought maybe my guardian yatagarasu possessed yonkey and made him add those caws.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you two work out the lyrics?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tyonkey<\/strong>: I only knew YURIYAN from what I\u2019d seen in the media, so I wanted to know what she usually thinks about. She wrote about her love life and about the pent-up resentment she feels from daily life in the notebook she used to list her ideas, so I took her words and designed them into music. YURIYAN inspired the basic ideas and words of the lyrics, while I did the designing to make them sound pleasing.<\/p>\n

\n\tYURIYAN<\/strong>: I sent him the list I jotted down, and he wrote lyrics about the core part of me that I hadn\u2019t even realized I had, and it made me really happy. It was also catchy and cute on top of that, so I was impressed.<\/p>\n

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