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

Shihori, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

This is a good question! I started my professional career as a studio singer in 2002 while gigging around in Japan, but it wasn’t easy to make a living with music.
After I had failed to get into major record labels a few times, in 2005, I randomly decided to work at a regular company as an office lady for the first time in my life, to learn how the regular world for other people was.
That was what I never thought I would have chosen because I’d only pursued to be an artist since I was 7.

As an artistic and autistic young woman, I knew almost nothing about common sense in the regular world outside of music.
I felt like I needed that experience to break through my career.
I was 25 years old at that time and I had no skills or knowledge about office work and I was super frightened for my very first experience.
But I was sure that my strengths were honesty, high energy, and purity and I gave my best to make everybody smile every day even though I made so many mistakes.
After 7 months of my OL days, the company highly evaluated my work and begged me to stay even after they fired all the other office ladies.

I discovered how money flows in this society.
You use your talent to contribute to the world, your contributions are valued and compensated as your salary.
Wow! Almost everything in this human society is made of somebody’s contribution and we are surrounded by full of appreciation.
And you can live with that appreciation (= money) for the next upcoming month.

Money was APPECIATION!! And that was how money circulates in this world!!

I had a feeling that I could apply this discovery to my music career as well.
I kindly declined the offer from the company and quit the job.

I’ve been a full-time musician for 18 years since then.

I write music for J-pop artists, make and sing for anime shows and video games, and perform at events.

Since I moved to the United States in 2018 with nothing, I repeated the same thing,
It was very tough for the first several years, but I had enough savings and royalties to survive, and I am making it finally now.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My goal has been clear for many years.

I want to make this world better with my music and
I want to create music that people will love even after my death.

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

“You need to be yourself no matter what others tell you to do”.

It’s always difficult to balance hearing others’ opinions and believing in yourself.
I was extremely stubborn when I was young, but I started learning to try what adults advised me to do.
Some producers from the record labels told me many different things to make me shine.
Some were useful but some were totally out of my character.
I felt humiliated to eliminate my uniqueness and strength but I tried my best all the time.
I kind of wanted to believe I could succeed if I followed them.

As a result, after several years, I realized that nothing worked well, I lost myself and my confidence.
It took me very long years to get them back.

They changed my way of singing, but my voice became boring, unattractive, and shallow.
I got my real voice after I came to the U.S. and it’s powerful now. And interestingly, it sounds very similar to what it used to.

They told me that my music was too difficult, complicated and mature for my age at that time, so I needed to make my music easier and simpler so that everybody could sing karaoke.
But several years later, my songs (as a songwriter) became popular because of their difficulty and beauty of complication.
Complicated musicality became a huge trend in J-pop since that time and it’s continued now.
Many people enjoy singing overly difficult songs at karaoke, difficulty is not a problem at all now.

I lost my 20s like this.
Of course, I learned so much from all those experiences, I regretted that I followed them and wasted many years lying to myself to become “somebody else.”
Imagined if I just pursued my originality straightly, the trend would have followed me.

You shouldn’t try to become anybody else other than yourself.

Just keep becoming a better version of yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shihoriartist.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shihori94
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shihorine
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/shihori94 (Jp) https://www.twitter.com/shihoriNY (En)
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shihorinyla3586