Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lui Oto. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lui, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I’ve got this new project coming up called blue that I’ve been working on. Putting a lot of raw emotion and pain into it while still trying to maintain the proper sound ya know. This is like my magnum opus of emotional music for me in my career.

Lui, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Luioto is a combination of two words “Lui” and “oto”. Lui being a nick name I got as a kid, and oto meaning sound in Japanese.

I’ve been doing music since I was about 4 years old I think. I just remember coming home from pre-k and writing a song about how I felt that day. As time moved on I just never stopped and always found music to be fascinating.

I’m currently working with a group called Emenza I founded with two of my close friends, one of which actually being related to me.

We mostly do work for ourselves such as our short film 22 seconds on YouTube and multiple music videos alike, but every now and then we work for clients in order to build a standing and long term relationship with them in the future, it’s not always about the money ya know.

A lot of what I do is based off the idea of “Doing the right thing” and “being humble” which sometimes makes it hard to fully embrace my alter ego, because he’s not humble at all.

I look at lui as separate from Manavin which is who I was born as. Lui takes the risk. He’s not afraid to say or do anything ya know. It sometimes makes me feel like a super hero, especially when I’m performing on stage.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Where I come from loosing is simply not an option. When you grow up with nothing, anything is everything to you. The idea of not providing for my family and taking care of future generations to come just doesn’t sit well with me. I feel like I owe everybody around me a better life. Like if I just keep going with this musical path that I’m on, on day I could make that dream come true.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Speak your truth even if no one listens. I used to fear hurting people with my thoughts. I sometimes would avoid song topics just because I knew certain people were listening. I felt so blocked up after a while I eventually just had to take a break from music entirely just to find myself again. Learning how to properly communicate has to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. It made everything from writing songs, to speaking with peers better. It just took me caring more about how I felt, verses how others would react in order for me to see.

Contact Info:

• Other: https://linktr.ee/luioto

Image Credits
All images shown come from @beardenezra himself