Extending Her Reach
By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
RAFU STAFF WRITER
Saturday, July 19, 2008

Ai Uemura, a formidable musical force in Japan, hopes to import some star power to her birthplace–the U.S.A.

Photos by MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS/Rafu Shimpo
Ai Uemura greets fans during her show at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center on June 22. The reigning queen of R&B in Japan made her U.S. debut in January and is looking to return.

“I like Japan, but I have to come back
here regularly, maybe just to get some
of the air,” Ai said.

Toward the end of the show, her feet were killing her. The shoes looked good, but she couldn’t wait to get out of them.

“They said, ‘You can take your shoes off. This is family stuff!’ So I did,” said Ai Carina Uemura, after her benefit concert June 22 at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center.

“Yeah, I was more relaxed,” Ai said in the dressing room as she prepared for the post-concert reception. “I have my mom and family here, so everybody made me feel comfortable. Also, these shoes hurt!”

It only makes sense for Ai to feel at home in Los Angeles–she was born here. Though she spent the bulk of her childhood in Japan, where she now lives most of the time and is known simply by her first name, she attended high school in L.A. It was then that a chance visit to the First A.M.E. Church in South L.A. to hear some gospel music inspired her to become a singer. Ai attended the renowned Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where her love of R&B and hip-hop guided her studies.

That, most likely, is the key to Ai’s surprising success in Japan and why her jump to the U.S. market–one that has been cold to Asian pop stars with few exceptions–doesn’t seem terribly farfetched.

For decades, the typical female “idol” in Japan has been a hyper-sanitized, teenage doe-eyed nubile, who often (if not usually) is somewhat lacking when its comes to performing. Of course, there have been several exceptions, notably Hikaru Utada and others. But the fuel that drives the music machine there is groups such as Morning Musume, which are manufactured using perhaps a couple dozen young girls–some pre-teen–and marketing their carefully crafted image to other young girls and even (eek!) middle-aged men.

That’s not Ai. What separates her from practically any other would-be diva in Japan is simple: she’s got cred.

Over the last 15 to 20 years, American R&B has exploded in popularity in Japan, and the local music industry has been more than happy to churn out their homespun versions of Mariah Carey or Alicia Keys. But it never felt the same, never seemed to be “keeping it real.” Hip-hop and R&B can’t be faked and impostors are spotted as soon as they hit the airwaves.

Having lived and trained in Los Angeles, Ai’s sensibilities about music are not adopted–they’re firsthand experiences she gained in a place where the genres she performs originate.

Her acumen for dance and vocal instantly apparent, she earned a place in a choir to sing at a Mary J. Blige concert when she was 17. Shortly thereafter, she bested nearly 1,000 dancers to land a gig in a Janet Jackson video.

By then, the word was out. As a member of the local all-Asian girl group SX4, she was offered a solo contract from BMG Japan, to move there and begin a career. Her initial success led Universal’s Japanese R&B, soul and hip-hop arm, Def Jam Japan, to bring her into their stable and begin a full-scale campaign of recording, live performances and public appearances.

Now 26, Ai has nine albums and 16 singles to her credit. Perhaps her best-known hit, “Story,” sold more than 300,000 copies in Japan and has been downloaded from the internet a whopping 3.5 million times. She is a regular feature on Japanese television and her concerts sell out nationwide. She doesn’t think of herself as radically different from most Japanese female singers, rather, she cites possibly changing and maturing tastes of the audience.

“Maybe they’re kind of starting to like something that’s not so pre-made,” she said. “Gradually, people in Japan are listening to more varied music. I don’t think I’m too different, but I’m not really an “idol.” Idols have to be perfectly groomed, can’t have a boyfriend and things like that.”

She is further distinguished in Japan’s saturated market by the fact that she writes most of own material, with much of her work showing a consciousness missing from much of J-pop. Her song, “Important Things” is an ode to many who influenced her early in life, including her grandfather, Masami Endo, who served America in World War II as a member of the famed 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

“He was very quiet, but very sweet to me,” she remembered. “The only time he was loud was when he and Grandma were shouting at each other. He used to love the singer Hibari Misora. He listened to her all the time, so maybe that had an influence on me.”

Speaking more comfortably in Japanese, Ai’s pan-Pacifi c upbringing gives her a wide base from which to write. Many of the topics she touches upon, however, are universal, as she noted in her song, “I’ll Remember You.”

“I think as most of us get older and gain experience, we make friends, lose friends, people move away or pass away. There are lots of things that keep us busy, but sometimes when we slow down for a moment, we think of things we value most,” she said.

She added that she sometimes has to watch what she says, because she knows so many people are listening.

“If I write, for example, ‘I’ll do anything for you,’ someone I’ve never known and never met may come up later and ask for some huge favor. I’ll have to explain that it’s just a song.”

The Redondo Beach performance was a benefit for the Go For Broke National Education Center, the organization dedicated to teaching the lessons of the 100th/442nd, where Ai’s aunt, Ellen Endo, is an executive. Barbara Uemura, Ai’s mother, is an author and lecturer who splits her time between Glendale and Japan. Being surrounded by kin and in a familiar environment kept the anxiety in check, something that wasn’t necessarily so at her U.S. debut last January, at the El Rey Theater.

“I was nervous. That was my first time in L.A. so I didn’t want to be bad here, where I used to live,” she said.

With breaking into the U.S. market always somewhere in her mind, she said the bumps and bruises along the way in Japan have helped strengthen her resolve. Several people in the music industry were cold to her at first–many in R&B are constantly wary of posers.

“When I was touring at first, I met all kinds of people,” she recalled. “I was the first Japanese girl to join the Def Jam Tour in Japan and people were a little suspicious of me and a little mean. But I think that made me stronger. If no one had said anything to me, maybe I wouldn’t be doing as well or putting so much effort into what I do. Maybe being put down at first has kept me from being more stuck up.”

With her first two steps on the American scene taken, Ai is now contemplating the next move. No plans for a stateside CD release have been made public, but make no mistake, coming home is a steadfast goal.

“Oh yes, definitely,” she said firmly. “That’s something I’m working toward. There’s a lot of music here and a lot of different tastes. I would like people in the U.S. to know not only who I am, but what I have to say. There are not many singers from Asia who have been successful here. Despite that, America is a wonderful place for music, the place. I’ve always said that my ultimate goal is to win a Grammy Award. Maybe by doing that, I could really attract a lot of fans here.”

Immediately following the Redondo show, Ai was headed back to Japan to continue working on a song for a feature film. The day before Redondo, she had an appearance on a TV show, followed by a concert in Tokyo, then she boarded a plane for L.A. The grueling schedule aside, she said she is always happy to return to SoCal.

“Soo da ne! I like Japan, but I have to come back here regularly, maybe just to get some of the air,” she said.

“When I was small, I got used to both places, so now, I still need both from time to time.”