Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - [Translation] ViVi May 2009 Interview Translation

Ayu in Hawaii

In a state of recreational relaxing, Ayu talks about her present and future.

“Certainly there are no problems,” Ayu has always showing her unmovable determination from her bottom of her heart using this sentence.

After finishing her 10th year anniversary countdown live concert tour, Ayu goes to Hawaii.

While sunbathing and enjoying the refreshing breeze, Ayu recharges and recuperates herself, for her continuity and confirmation of her “Next Level”.

[2nd Page]

The charisma will get more level ups when under the sun! Wear the white cotton dress!

On the sunny and sandy beaches, the best fashion to match the scenery would be a white dress! The cotton gives a comfortable feeling and is full of this year’s latest style. The main point would be its perfect hand-made cutting.

White cotton dress and Hawaiian carpet – Personal items.

[3rd page]

Street Style means having a hand-woven cape as a cover of your swim suit!

Simply adding a denim short pants with your swimsuit will greatly ease up your movements and activities, and Ayu’s style is to match the short pants with a hand-woven webbing, making it more street-friendly.

About the accessories, just use those rainbow-colored items that has strong Hawaiian influenced-design to shone yourself.

All fashion worn were Ayu’s personal items.

[4th page]Use the Hawaiian-feeling long T-shirt as a dress for multiple mix and matches!

This T-shirt was prepared exclusively for the Hawaii shooting. The pink long T-shirt was used as a dress for multiple mix and matches. Notice that the A of the word “Hawaii” was the Ayu sign formed using the Swarovski crystal beads.

The smiling arm band and ear ring, sandals were Ayumi’s personal items.

[5th page]

If I do not go all out on my career, it wouldn’t be me anymore.

Ayumi stands on Hawaiian soil, with a sense of changing inside her. This place is where her current 10 year old career ends and where the future lies in front of her. While recuperating at there and looking back, she had two paths to choose which desperately needed her attention.

It has been a decade of her brilliant career. Ayu was caught between the wanting of go back to all she had started and review it, or just move on to continue evolve her achievements. “If I do not go all out on my career, it wouldn’t be me anymore,” was her conclusion. As soon as she decided what she is going to do, new inspiration of her upcoming album’s songs kept popping out inside her mind.

The new album “Next Level” has several innovations in terms of music styles, performances’ presentation methods and even lyrics, which filled the entire album with a futuristic feeling.

“No matter how I write my lyrics, I would somehow thought about things about current issues. I don’t like it when everybody was talking about the worst recession ever in 100 years; they lost their sensibilities of hopes and wishes. I wanted to say that, even in times like this, there must be some hopes and dreams left in peoples’ hearts. I would felt this is my duty to remind people of such, and that’s why the cover for Next Level had also used bright colors.”

The lyrics were very gentle even though the music used were powerful and glares into people’s ears. In the feature song “Next Level”, Ayu sang the word “no problem” (daijoubu) in the song, it must have been a good motivator for anyone who wanted to move towards the realization their personal goals.

“For me, I don’t like to say “daijoubu” (no problem) all the time. Even now, this word wasn’t being said for the sake of calming me down. By saying the phrase “ We are surely going to be fine” right after the end of the 10th anniversary Concert Tour would as if spawn a kind of belief that phrase was really going to come true.

“To me, my fellow fans are like wartime buddies who have stood and fought beside me, where there were a lot of connections or link between me and them. Maybe it is up to you to believe it or not, since you can’t possibly see our hearts and minds are linked together per se, but to me, I do believe that our hearts are connected to each other. After the series of activities in last year’s 10th anniversary concert tour, I have gained a lot of energy from people around me, and I am going to show that in my next album record.”

And because of this, to Ayumi, the album of “Next Level” literally meant that, from “present”, it is the stepping stone to reach the “future”, or it as a vow, which has gathered a lot of “determination”.

“I would always make sure I am in the best condition whenever it comes to recording. I used to have a bad habit of recording my songs before totally memorizing the lyrics and melodies. I would just sing and adjust the song simply according on my mood. But this time, a lot of tracks were successfully recorded after only two attempts! Am I possessed?”

Most of the songs in this album were composed in Hawaii. I was quite pleased to discover that the sounds made by the coconut tree leaves were greatly affected by how hard does the wind blows. I felt like I have been liberated since it has been a long, long time from my last catch-up with the Mother Nature.

“I took a lot of photos in Hawaii, for my upcoming Deji Diary contents. But because of gloomy weather that day, my expressions were undeniably matching the weather. But this time’s shootings for the ViVi magazine, I had that same set of expressions even though it is a sunny day, right?”

I still managed to update my blog even when I am in Hawaii, because it is a message dedicated to my fans in Japan that, even we are an ocean apart, we are still under the same sky.

In this era which is full of uncertainties, Ayu can only focus on marching forward and shine herself into the future…

Translated by Isaac Hiew
Translated from ViVi May 2009

Please get my permission if you want to use this translation elsewhere. Thank you.