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Billboard‘s International Power Players list recognizes leaders who are driving the success of the music business in countries outside the United States. Among the leaders selected from various countries in the music industry, Amazon Music’s Keisuke Oishi was chosen for the first time in 2024. To commemorate this, Billboard Japan interviewed Oishi about his focus since being appointed to his current position in January 2023.
First off, could you tell us a little about your career?

Keisuke Oishi: The two key words in my career have been “IT” and “media.” Through the synergy of these two areas, I’ve been taking on the challenges of providing various innovations to customers.

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I joined Sony Corporation after graduating from university. At Sony, I worked in areas like supply chain management, finance, business administration, and business strategy for the PC/IT businesses. Then in 2014, I moved to Amazon, where I’ve been involved in the media business ever since. At Amazon, first I was responsible for the launching of digital video games in the retail division. In 2017, I was appointed head of the software business unit on top of video games. And two years later, I went on to be concurrently responsible for the packaged music business unit, so I’ve been involved in music since around 2019. Then, in January 2023, I was appointed Director and General Manager of Amazon Music Japan.

So you haven’t been in the music industry for your whole career.

Oishi: That’s right. But music has always been a very important part of my life, so it was a role I wanted to challenge one day. Amazon, on the other hand, is a company that places importance on what innovations can be made using technology while always keeping the customer first. That approach was the same before I got involved in music, and it remains the same today.

What have you been working on since January 2023?

Oishi: In my current position, I have three key tasks that I hope to contribute to the music industry, the artists, and our customers. The first is to expand the base of music listeners in Japan, and the second is to help customers enjoy music in new ways. Streaming services are for listening to music, but Amazon Music and Amazon have many points of contact that connect customers and artists. The third, and I think this is a challenge the entire Japanese music industry is facing, is to provide support for Japanese and other Asian artists as they expand their reach around the world.

There are various types of Amazon Music memberships, and you’ve made multiple improvements for those.

Oishi: We are always focused on creating the best experience for all Amazon Music customers. The level of streaming music penetration is still very low in Japan compared to the US and EU countries. But, looking at it another way that means it still has a lot of potential. According to LUMINATE’s data, music streaming has the highest levels of usage among Gen Z and Millennials. That means there’s room for growth among older generations. This is a challenge that the entire industry is facing. These are people who were once really into music, but due to work and lifestyle changes, they’ve disengaged. That’s true for my own generation, so I’ve been thinking about how we can make music a part of these people’s lives again. Our services aren’t limited to music streaming, but also CD and DVD purchasing and video streaming. We have a lot of different touch points like those, so we’re in an ideal position to deal with the challenge.

Secondly, I want to help customers enjoy music in new ways. Amazon is a collection of many different services, and since last year, we’ve been actively working to support artists when they come out with new releases. For instance, when a physical release is decided on, we set up a special sub-site and bolster our promotional efforts. When the interest of listeners shifts to streaming, we reinforce our promotion and marketing efforts in ways that are only possible with digital technology, like creating playlists that include interviews. We use that approach for roughly two or three months, building up connections between artists and customers. That’s something I think we’re uniquely positioned to do. This is one of the areas we’ve really enhanced over the past year.

Japan is one of the countries where both streaming and physical sales are growing, so it’s a great fit for Amazon.

Oishi: Exactly. Another example of that are our promotional campaigns which visualize the support fans provide to artists as they listen and share music and follow artists using our app. Users collect stamps using a stamp card-like feature, and when they collect all stamps, they can receive rewards. This feature was designed and developed by a team in Japan, but now it’s also being applied in other countries, in a few different ways.

And the live streaming of Fuji Rock Festival ’24, in July, was a combination of all three of the tasks I mentioned earlier.

It was streamed on Prime Video and Twitch, which generated a lot of buzz.

Oishi: I think the best way to enjoy a music festival is in person. However, there are a lot of people who can’t go, for one reason or another. I’d imagine there are also people who went in the past but can’t go now. To reach out to people like that, we streamed Fuji Rock Festival ’24 live on Prime Video and Twitch.

In addition to the live streaming of the event, we also created all kinds of touch points with customers, using every kind of approach—offline, online, digital, physical. For example, we ran an advertising campaign using Amazon Lockers and we sold original t-shirts. We tried to connect customers to music and artists through the Fuji Rock Festival in all kinds of ways.

Also, this year, we streamed Fuji Rock Festival ’24 worldwide. Every day, we think about how we can share wonderful Japanese artists with the rest of the world. One way we came up with for doing that is to stream the festival live, so that it could be viewed by music fans around the globe.

In addition to Japanese attendees, there were many people from other Asian countries at Fuji Rock. Which countries were people streaming it from?

Oishi: People viewed it in the US, Europe, and Latin America. Amazon Music has been streaming music festivals around the world, like Vive Latino in Mexico and Primavera Sound in Spain. Of those, Fuji Rock Festival ’24, which was live streamed on Prime Video and Twitch, was the most watched three-day music festival ever streamed live by Amazon Music.

That’s wonderful to hear. Are there plans to stream any other Japanese festivals?

Oishi: We also live streamed DEAD POP FESTiVAL 2024, YON FES, and Kyoto Daisakusen in August.

Last year, we enhanced our support for artist-led festivals and began streaming watch party-like events where viewers watch shows along with artists from Amazon Music Studio in Tokyo. Twitch supports comment sharing functionality, so artists can communicate and interact with fans. It’s very exciting. I believe that, over time, these connections between artists and fans will foster greater awareness of Amazon Music.

Speaking of sharing Japanese music with the rest of the world, Billboard Japan launched the “Global Japan Songs Excl. Japan” chart, which ranks Japanese songs being listened to worldwide excluding Japan. Being able to visualize what music is listened to is, I think, extremely important for Japanese artists making inroads overseas.

Oishi: I think the hit charts are really important for exposing people to new music. When I was a kid, I grew up checking the U.S. Billboard charts. I’d watch Billboard TOP40 on TV, and I even sent in postcards when I was little (laughs). When I was in junior high, I memorized around twenty years of annual charts. I’ve forgotten a lot since then, but I was a Billboard superfan, and Billboard charts were my window into foreign music. Now, overseas audiences may be discovering Japanese music through the charts, or through on-demand streaming, or through live streaming. I’m confident that if all of us in the music industry create these opportunities, we can provide greater opportunities for people to discover Japanese music.

—This interview by Seiji Isozaki and Naoko Takashima first appeared on Billboard Japan

Comedian Yuriyan Retriever chatted with writer Rio Hirai for Billboard Japan’s Women in Music interview series featuring female players in the Japanese entertainment industry. The WIM initiative in Japan launched in 2022 to celebrate artists, producers and executives who have made significant contributions to music and inspired other women through their work.
A household name in her home country, Yuriyan is preparing to make a splash in the U.S. beginning this fall. Not only has the 33-year-old entertainer won numerous awards in the highly competitive and male-dominated world of comedy in Japan, she also acts (a lead role in the upcoming Netflix series The Queen of Villains) and raps — she took the Mojave Stage with Awich at this year’s Coachella as one of the guest rappers on “Bad Bi*** Bigaku” — and is set to direct a movie as well. The one-of-a-kind artist who has carved out a unique position for herself in Japanese entertainment shared her thoughts on the driving force behind her past and future activities.

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You’ve said that you first aspired to be a comedian when you were in second grade, and entered NSC Yoshimoto Sogo Geino Gakuin — a training school run by comedy business giant Yoshimoto Kogyo — in 2011. I imagine there were much fewer female comedians back then compared to today. Did you experience any gender-related obstacles in becoming a comedian?

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I’d always thought comedians were cool growing up, so I probably didn’t have much of a sense of diving into a male-dominated world back then. But it turned out, there were 500 people in my year at NSC in Osaka alone, and only about 40 were women. Men and women were in separate classes for the first month, but after that we took classes together.

It was after graduating that I became aware I was a female performer. There are open auditions in the form of match-ups to become a regular act in theaters, and I used to think that male comedians with screaming female fans supporting them got more votes. Looking back now, it’s simply a matter of whether you’re funny or not, but there were times when I didn’t get any votes at all, so I started thinking that way. I remember complaining to Nagisa (formerly of comedy duo Amako Inter), who’s been in the business longer than me, “Men get more votes, don’t they?” and she replied, “In the end, you win if you’re funny, so let’s keep doing our best.” I got fired up after that. I began to think that there are things I can do because I’m me.

You’ve achieved spectacular results since then, winning the 47th NHK Kamigata Manzai Contest (2017), the NTV Female Comedian No. 1 Contest THE W (2017), and the coveted R-1 Grand Prix 2021. Some artists we’ve spoken to in this series say they feel uncomfortable being labeled “female” (female rapper, female singer-songwriter, etc.). How do you feel about being categorized as a female comedian?

Right now I feel lucky to be in this position. When you’re the only woman in a group of men, you stand out. But if that becomes less of a thing, maybe people will stop adding “female” to our profession.

Compared to when you started your career, there are many more female comedians today. What do you think is necessary for women to thrive in the (Japanese) entertainment industry?

I personally find it easy to work right now. But if a woman decides to become a mom, there will be a period when she has to take time off for physical reasons. It’d be nice if there were a system where we could record a bunch of stuff beforehand to be used while we’re gone and be paid for it properly.

You also created quite a buzz when you appeared on the audition show America’s Got Talent in 2019. You’re planning on expanding into the American entertainment industry by the end of this year. When did you start planning to do so?

I began thinking concretely about working the U.S. around ten years ago, so I told my management company and started preparing for it. What initially made me want to go to the U.S. was the movie Back to the Future, which I saw for the first time when I was in elementary school. Strangely enough, I thought, “I feel like I’ll be able to meet these people when I grow up.” I watched it again when I was in junior high and fell in love with Michael J. Fox all over again, and felt an urge to want to speak English and work in the U.S. movie industry someday.

But I had a dream of becoming a comedian so I chose that career first. After I actually started working as a comedian, I’ve been given opportunities to try so many different things. I got to star in the Netflix drama series The Queen of Villains, which will be released this year, and I also got to try my hand at directing a movie. I realized that doing skits wasn’t the only job for a comedian, and came to think that I didn’t have to give up my dream of working in the U.S.

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What do you want to do in the U.S.?

I want to become a Hollywood star. I want to start with stand-up comedy and branch out to do a bunch of stuff from there, just like I did in Japan. I want to do things that I think are funny and hope people in the U.S. think so, too, but to do that I need to get into the groove of the country’s background and culture, so I’ll start from there.

You really do take on challenges in your career. Now that you’ve realized your initial dream of becoming a comedian, what are the moments when you find your job the most interesting?

Everything is interesting. Needless to say, it makes me happy when the audience laughs! I also enjoy being able to express anything about myself. You know how there are things in life that you regret or make you angry? It can be hard when you can’t do anything about them, but since I’m a comedian, I can turn things like that into comedy skits and laugh them off. I can say what I want and be what I want to be.

So whatever happens, it all helps to enrich your art.

Exactly. A comedian that I respect who’s been in the business longer than me — his name is Toki of of the duo Fujisaki Market — once told me an epic anecdote about how he woke up one morning to discover he’d lost a ton of money from a bad cryptocurrency investment. But he said it was hilarious. Being able to interpret anything as funny like that is so human and really strong. So if something upsets you, I recommend trying to make it into a joke or lyric. Or mimicking it, even if you don’t show it to anyone. It’ll make you feel a bit better.

Thanks for the nice life hack. [Laughs] It seems like the ways of thinking in the Japanese comedy industry have changed over the past ten years or so. For example, poking fun at someone’s appearance used to happen all the time, but it feels like it’s less common now.

Around the time when I first became a comedian, teasing people’s looks was still fair game. I used to weigh 110 kg (about 240 lbs) in 2019. It wasn’t for the sake of being funny — I sort of just ended up like that because of my messed up lifestyle and laziness. One day it occurred to me that even though I’d been blessed with a healthy body, I wasn’t treating it right, so I told a trainer that I wanted to change. And that trainer said, “You’ve shown off your body in a swimsuit in the U.S. and have probably done everything you can with your current body shape, so become a new you and stay the course.”

I started training and followed a restrictive diet, and succeeded in losing 40 kg (about 88 lbs) in 2021. My body became lighter and healthier and I began thinking more positively. I even started receiving sports-related job offers that would never have happened before. I was body positive before… or rather, I felt that being overweight didn’t matter, but looking back now, I see that it wasn’t my best condition. I can say that I worked hard to achieve the best condition for myself that truly feels right for me.

Were you not bothered by other people’s opinions because you were satisfied with yourself?

My fellow comedians told me, “It’s good that you’re fit,” but there were people online who were like, “Have you given up being funny?” and “You’re ugly even if you’re thinner.” That really ticked me off, so I wrote some jokes to get revenge on those people and won the R-1 (Grand Prix) contest I entered that year.

That’s awesome how you won the R-1 Grand Prix by using your annoyance towards haters as motivation.

The voices of those who still make fun of people’s looks sound louder online, but the reaction of the audience in theaters is completely different. Ten years ago, people would laugh when I said stuff like, “I’m ugly,” but now when I make self-deprecating jokes like that, I can tell that the prevailing mood is like, “This isn’t something to laugh at.” Now I’ve stopped saying negative things about the way people look, including myself, not just because people don’t laugh at such jokes, but because it sucks as a human being to do so. My feelings are also changing. Ever since I’ve been making jokes based on hateful comments, people have started saying, “Even if you put Yuriyan down, she’ll just use it to win prize money in competitions.” [Laughs]

—This interview by Rio Hiral (SOW SWEET PUBLISHING) first appeared on Billboard Japan