Masato Hayashi Interview: From Blasta to Iconic, and Hip-Hop as “a Conversation on the Street”

This is the full English translation of HIPHOPCs’ Japanese interview, first published on November 6, 2026. Ages, relative dates and plans in the conversation refer to that original context; the Osaka show discussed near the end was scheduled for November 8, 2026. The introductory and closing reflections are by Lucie. Read the Japanese original.

• Starting again: how family life and work led him toward more introspective lyrics.
• Behind RAPSTAR: his mixed feelings about applying, and the beat he chose at camp.
• Iconic and his view of music: a record of life after the show, and hip-hop as “a conversation on the street.”
• Performing and listening: learning to trust the audience enough to hand a song over to them.

A phoenix is not a creature that has never known death.

Sensing that its life is coming to an end, it builds a fire and throws itself into the flames without hesitation. Its body burns away.

A pile of ashes remains. But that emptiness does not last: the ashes stir, and the creature emerges, reborn. Again it lives out its life, builds a fire and enters it. Through that cycle, it watches time go by.

The phoenix knows death as well as life. It brings one existence to a close, then leaves that death behind. There is something proud in that mixture of resolve and sheer persistence.

By now, Masato Hayashi seems to have acquired the nickname “the phoenix.”

Watch: “Ain’t No Love” — RAPSTAR 2025 final

ABEMA HIPHOP’s official video of “Ain’t No Love” at the RAPSTAR 2025 final.

Masato Hayashi finished runner-up on RAPSTAR 2025.

The trail behind him has been anything but straight. It breaks off, takes wide detours and resumes in unexpected places.

Those changes of direction, packed into a life that is still far from over, feel intensely human. Perhaps that is why people find themselves in his music—and why, when he stands before them, they sing his songs back at full volume.

For this interview, we met Hayashi after the September release of Iconic and the Tokyo date of his solo show, “暴走東京.”

We spoke at length about the path from Blasta to Masato Hayashi, RAPSTAR, contemporary sounds, the album and his solo shows.

HIPHOPCs director YTG/Sam joined us, as he often does. It became our longest interview to date.

Interview and original text: Lucie. Interview participant: YTG/Sam. The conversation below is with Masato Hayashi.

Growing up in Hachioji

Lucie: How’s your throat today?

Masato: It’s fine today. [Laughs]

Lucie: That’s a relief. Let’s start with a quick introduction!

Masato: I’m Masato Hayashi. Good to be here.

Lucie: Good to have you! What kind of childhood did you have?

Masato: I was pretty wild, I suppose… Maybe a kid with a little too much energy.

Lucie: I heard you used to take every dish out of the cupboard…

Masato: Yeah, yeah. [Laughs] I found a photo of that the other day. My mom sent it to me, and I was getting all emotional looking at it on my own. Where did I put it…?

Sam: Wait, you emptied the whole cupboard?

Masato: Yeah. I was the kind of kid who’d take every single dish out. What was I trying to do? I’d also move all the hands on the clocks and mess them up.

I don’t even know what made me want to do it. [Laughs]

Sam: That’s so strange. [Laughs]

Masato: I was really close to my grandma, too, and I’d wonder, “What does Grandma actually do all day?”

So on a day off, I’d stick to her and watch what she did from morning to night.

Lucie: So you were a boy who followed his curiosity wherever it took him.

Hachioji’s size, and four days on Mount Takao

Lucie: You’re from Hachioji. I’d love to hear what it’s like from you.

Masato: It’s a fairly ordinary suburban place…

But Hachioji is huge. It’s on the borders of Kanagawa, Saitama and Yamanashi, with no sea. How do I put it…? It almost feels like a country of its own.

Editor’s note: Hachioji’s prefectural border is with Sagamihara in Kanagawa; it does not directly border Saitama or Yamanashi. The remark above conveys Hayashi’s sense of the area’s scale. See Hachioji City’s geographical overview.

Sam: I think I get that feeling about Hachioji.

Whenever I say, “I’m from Oji,” people go, “Oh, Hachioji!” [Laughs]

Masato: It happens the other way round, too.

I say Hachioji and people think I mean Oji. They’ll say, “So you’re from one of Tokyo’s 23 wards,” and we end up talking at cross-purposes. [Laughs]

Sam: Seriously? To us, Hachioji always seemed better known than Oji. [Laughs]

Lucie: So that’s a familiar mix-up. [Laughs]

Personally, I associate it with Mount Takao, so I picture somewhere quite high up.

Masato: I once lived on Mount Takao for about four days.

Lucie: You lived there? What do you mean?

Masato: There was this program where you did waterfall training, seated meditation and walks around the mountain. At night, you’d get your own food, then lay out futons in the temple and sleep in a row with about 50 people.

I got possessed while I was there. Apparently, in the middle of the night I was running down the corridor, yelling, like I was sleepwalking. I don’t remember any of it, but the kid sleeping opposite asked me, “What happened to you last night?”

Lucie: That’s… scary.

Masato: Yeah. It scared me. [Laughs]

Lucie: Maybe your open, unguarded nature makes it easier for something to possess you.

What did you like as a child? How did you spend your time?

Masato: What was I into…? Beyblade, things like that.

Lucie: Nice. Probably the generation before Metal Fight, right?

Masato: Probably before that. What’s Metal Fight? I don’t even know what that is.

Lucie: They made them out of metal. Now they have metal and plastic parts, and they can burst apart.

Masato: Sounds like things have gotten pretty wild.

The family home, and the pull of the wild side

Lucie: Growing up, you didn’t feel especially deprived in elementary school… Is that right?

Masato: Yeah… How old would I have been?

Around the time I started elementary school, other kids would be taking lessons, and I’d be told, “Could you do without for a bit?” I gradually realized we didn’t have much money, but it wasn’t clear to me yet.

By fourth or fifth grade, though, I understood: “Oh, we don’t have money.” The house I grew up in became derelict. It’s gone now. I should have a photo of that, too…

Nobody had lived there for about two years, and there was trash scattered everywhere.

The living room had looked enormous when I was little, but I remember thinking, “Was it always this small?” They demolished it a few years ago.

Lucie: Losing the home that held all those memories… So you entered middle school while becoming aware of your family’s financial situation.

And you gradually started heading toward the wild side. I’m curious about what was going on in your head—what drew you that way?

Masato: Well… I think this is the ultimate answer: girls. Definitely girls.

Lucie: Right! You said you chose a middle school because a girl you liked was going there. [Laughs]

Masato: Yeah. [Laughs] Without girls, I don’t think we’d bother dressing up, or feel the need to act tough. Girls are absolutely what drives men.

Back then, the bad boys got the girls, so maybe that’s how I ended up that way. When you grow up, you realize it isn’t really like that.

Lucie: Still, “girls are the motivation” does feel like a truth about men.

King Giddra’s “公開処刑” and a way into hip-hop

Lucie: Then you got into hip-hop. What really set that off?

Masato: What was it again…?

I had a lot of nerdy friends, and they put me on to loads of music. I’d been listening to quite a bit of rock.

Sam: What kind of rock?

Masato: SUM 41, Metallica… I think I listened to all sorts. They introduced me to funk as well. How did I end up getting into hip-hop?

I think one of my friends played me King Giddra’s “公開処刑.”

Listen: King Giddra — “公開処刑” (Spotify)

Listen to King Giddra’s “公開処刑” on Apple Music.

I knew the name, but when I first heard it, I thought, “There’s a genre where you can just say whatever you want?” It was the freedom of the culture, more than the sound, that hit me.

Sam: When we were in middle school, the B-boy look was just starting to take off.

The older guys were that first generation, weren’t they? We were maybe the second or third. Everybody had the hip-hop clothes and the durags.

Masato: You get into it through the look, don’t you? For me, it was the culture before the music.

Lucie: I wondered whether having a friend who made beats was also a big part of what drew you in.

Masato: Yeah, イワマ. [Laughs] I wonder what he’s doing now…

Lucie: So his name was イワマ. What kind of beats was he making?

Masato: Back then, something like hardcore, I think? He said, “I can make hip-hop too,” and when I heard what he’d made, I was like, “That’s good!” I feel like I could still find those recordings somewhere.

I didn’t know anything about how music was made, so finding out that someone was making it at home was exciting.

Sam: Back then, even having somewhere you could record was unusual. Someone around you having a setup like that was pretty rare.

Masato: Now, if someone has a recording booth at home, you might think they’re a creative sort of person, or that it’s stylish. Back then, you’d think they were a real introvert… a nerd.

Sam: Exactly. [Laughs] DJs were in that category, too.

Masato: A nerd… No, a proper otaku. A hardcore otaku.

Lucie: That really shows how much the times—and people’s values—have changed. [Laughs] What years are we talking about?

Masato: The 2000s… Around the time of Densha Otoko…

Sam: Probably 2003, ’04, ’05, around there.

Lucie: Even when I was in elementary school, if you read light novels, people treated them like porn. Nerds still had no standing at all… Things really have changed.

Masato: They really have.

What made me realize how much things had changed was when I was inside. We’d vote on which film we wanted to watch. A while back, I think action films would have been popular. But now it’s anime.

Lucie: Even in a place like that? What did you watch?

Masato: What was it called? The one where they fight in a virtual world…

Lucie: SAO, maybe?

Masato: That’s it. [Laughs]

Lucie: So, pretty recent anime. [Laughs]

You said “公開処刑” had a big impact on you, and a friend had introduced you to it.

Masato: It was still the era of song ringtones. There were unofficial message-board sites where you could get songs for free—what you’d call illegal download sites now. A friend showed me one.

You’d hear 50 Cent’s “Candy Shop” and Nelly’s “Dilemma” on there, and then “公開処刑” would come on too. I was like, “Oh, this one’s in Japanese.”

It made me wonder what this genre was. I knew RIP SLYME and KREVA already, but this had a different flavor. It felt fresh.

Lucie: Something more underground than the mainstream. And the fact that it was a diss track must have been surprising from a Japanese perspective…

That song was really going straight at KJ from Dragon Ash.

Masato: But I didn’t know any of that background at the time.

Sam: Right! It didn’t register as a diss. When we first heard it, I think we just thought, “That’s a great song.” [Laughs]

Masato: Exactly. [Laughs] We had no idea.

Lucie: Diss culture wasn’t widely understood yet, either. That makes sense.

Why beef escalates

Lucie: Oh, right—what would you do if someone started beef with you?

Masato: What would I do? [Laughs] That’s the ultimate dilemma.

Sam: This is just my impression, but I feel like you wouldn’t engage. [Laughs] And if you did, it would be, “You won’t leave it alone, so fine, I’ll respond.”

Masato: I wouldn’t really want to. [Laughs] It depends on the beef, too—whether it’s real or entertainment.

Sam: If it were really serious, it wouldn’t become a song in the first place.

Masato: There are all sorts of situations, so you can’t generalize… But I think it’s people’s friends who make beef escalate.

The person involved is saying, “It’s fine, leave it,” but their friends go, “They’re disrespecting us. We’re going.” A rapper is like an idol or a symbol to their friends, so from their point of view, someone is picking a fight with what represents them.

The structure is the same as a war. Like a tiny war.

Sam: Exactly.

Masato: Even if someone’s genuinely pissed off, it might only need one or two exchanges to be over. But everybody around them gets worked up. I think that’s a big part of it.

But beef is also part of hip-hop culture… It’s difficult. If you refuse to respond to any beef at all,

you start asking yourself things like, “Am I really a rapper, then?” It makes you think about all sorts of things.

So beef is something you have to think carefully about.

Lucie: A long time ago, on NEET Tokyo, you were asked something like, “If two countries went to war, how would you want Japan to respond?” And you answered, “Attack or defend”…

Masato: I don’t want to watch that anymore. [Laughs] My thinking has changed in all sorts of ways. It’s completely different now.

The other day, I happened to be on TikTok and that interview came up. I swiped past it thinking, “Shut up.” [Laughs]

The Blasta years: mix CDs and his first raps

Lucie: Let’s get into your career. We’re starting around 2008, right?

You first performed as Blasta, and you were with GALLOW RECORDS, run by jun-gmc… Were you signed to them?

Masato: It was more like a provisional thing. He was the person who said, “Let’s put out a mixtape.”

Lucie: So it was provisional.

You also played an event called CONNECTION quite a few times. Looking up your old tracks, I found a remix of “White & Purp”…

Watch: Blasta — “White & Purp” remix

You were on bills with people you listened to, like ONI (鬼) and KNZZ, and appeared on a GALLOW RECORDS mixtape. You were pretty active.

How were you approaching hip-hop at that point?

Masato: Southern rap was starting to get big. T.I., the beginnings of that trap sound… It was around that time.

Sam: That period… Around when Migos started emerging, too.

Masato: Yeah. When I started going to clubs, DJ Khaled was putting out hugely popular mixtapes with AKON, T-Pain, Ty Dolla Sign, all those people. It was around when Lil Wayne released Tha Carter III.

Lucie: The one with baby Wayne on the cover. I used to listen on DatPiff, too.

Masato: I listened to loads on DatPiff. [Laughs]

Back then, I’d download from DatPiff or illegal sites, copy things onto CD-Rs and make mixes for myself: “***mix,” “hype mix,” “New York mix,” stuff like that.

The people around me were turning 18 and getting cars. There weren’t subscription services back then, so they started wanting my CDs: “I want to play this on a date,” or, “I want to listen with my friends.”

I started selling them for about 300 yen each… I was doing things like that all the time.

Lucie: There’s something about that old mixtape culture. It sounds fun…

Sam: Mix CDs used to sell for about 1,000 yen each. Three hundred is generous. [Laughs]

Lucie: How did you start rapping?

Masato: There was this intimidating guy called ウメハラ, two years above me at the next middle school over. I knew his name, but we’d never met.

One night, just as I was going to bed, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was him. Out of nowhere, he said, “I heard you like rap. Want to be my DJ?” I didn’t even know the difference between a DJ and a rapper, but I said yes, and we arranged to meet.

I went to his house, and he had this really old-school piece of equipment, an MTR—a multitrack recorder. There was a tissue, maybe to catch spit, tied around an SM58 microphone with a rubber band. Looking back, I wonder whether that did anything. [Laughs]

Sam: It probably made the sound worse. [Laughs]

Masato: Right? [Laughs] I watched him record a rap and said, “I want to record too.” He said, “No, Masato, you’re the DJ. You don’t need to record.” I was like, “What do you mean?”

Then he said, “The DJ just plays the music behind me while I rap.” I told him, “Then I don’t want to do it,” which left him a bit stuck. [Laughs]

Eventually, we decided, “We’ll find a DJ later. Let’s just do it as a pair.” That’s how it started.

Lucie: Wow. So that was the beginning!

Masato: Neither of us had any beats. Then I remembered イワマ: “Hang on, wasn’t he making something?”

Lucie: The same イワマ you mentioned earlier!

Masato: I think it had been a year or two since we’d finished middle school. I got in touch, and he said, “I’m still making music.” So we went to his house, and the first song we made was over a beat he gave us.

The title of our first song was so painfully teenage… We called it “腐敗業界”—“Corrupt Industry.” [Laughs]

Lucie: You can feel the King Giddra influence. [Laughs]

Masato: We did that as a duo for a year or two. At a club in Shibuya that’s gone now, older rappers would tell us, “You guys are good,” and we played loads of shows.

Looking back, it was a really underground club, but there were a lot of strong live performers. That’s where I honed my performance skills.

Lucie: Right. You carried on as Blasta for about three years, then stepped away from rap for a while—a seven-year gap.

Masato: Yeah. I moved from Hachioji to Shimotakaido when I was 19. Around then, I’d be doing it, then not doing it… It gradually faded out.

KOOGI invited me to make a track with KNZZ and FEBB. We tried, but it didn’t work out, and I thought, “Okay, I’m done.”

Meeting Rykey again during the years away

Lucie: During those seven years away from hip-hop, you met Rykey again.

Masato: I was 22. So that’s 12 years ago now.

If I remember right… Rykey had got out, and around then he went back to Kenya… I think? He lived there for about a year, but ran out of money and couldn’t get back.

At the time, people around him were starting to make money, and they were like, “We’ll pay for you. Come back.” So he came back… I think? I only heard that secondhand, so I don’t really know the details.

I think we met again in Golden Gai after that. But he wasn’t rapping at all, and I’d just quit too. I think neither of us knew what we wanted to do.

You want to be someone special, but you don’t know how… We spent about two years like that.

Lucie: Two people feeling that emptiness, wandering without a destination… There’s so much in that image.

With Rykey, he seems like someone who acts on impulse, and I think that can lead to misunderstandings on social media. At Battle Summit, when he battled Ozworld and said, “I’m lonely,” I thought, “Maybe this is the heart of who he is.”

Watch: the Rykey and Ozworld battle discussed above

What is Rykey like from your perspective?

Masato: With Rykey, I don’t really judge him one way or the other… It’s a strange feeling. When it comes to rap, he’s my mentor.

Sam: Maybe there’s something compelling about him that you can’t quite explain.

Masato: People do tell me I’m a bit like him. I think, “Am I?”

But there are things I understand. Maybe love and hate are always coexisting in him? If I’m wrong… sorry. [Laughs] It’s like he’s always responding to whatever happens in front of him with both “yes” and “no.”

Lucie: That feels very human.

Starting again as Pablo Blasta, and “Tokyo Young OG”

Lucie: Back to your story. At 27, you started again as Pablo Blasta.

Early releases like “Tokyo Young OG” brought you attention. But Rykey is part of this story, too. [Laughs]

Masato: Yeah. You can’t tell the story of my rap career without him.

I think I was 24 or 25 when Rykey put out Pretty Jones. Around when I started making music for fun again, he was starting his second album, AMON KATONA.

At the same time, I started going to Studio Ghost with KNZZ and the others. That place was like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball. It was a place of training for me.

I couldn’t take it and bailed. I thought I might not be able to rap anymore. But I got bored, wrote a rap and found that I still enjoyed it. That became “Tokyo Young OG.”

Watch: “Tokyo Young OG”

My friends told me I should release it. DJs helped spread it. That led to us shooting a video… That’s how it happened.

Lucie: I see. Your name became much more widely known around then.

You put out three albums as Pablo Blasta. They had strong features and the quality was there. But music still wasn’t enough to live on?

Masato: No. It wasn’t the era of subscription services yet.

Now you have things like TuneCore splits, and you receive your percentage. Back then, it came down to how many CDs you sold. Even if you put out an album, all you kept was the money from those sales. Once the stock was gone, that was it.

Lucie: So that physical-release model was a big part of it.

Masato: And music is difficult in Japan, isn’t it? I feel like the music itself doesn’t come first.

When I look at overseas Instagram accounts, the sound seems to come first, and the artist’s personality is something people accept alongside it. In Japan, it feels more like, “I like this kind of person, so maybe I’ll listen to their music.” The reverse. I think people who made it in the CD-only era were incredible.

Sam: Seriously, people in that CD-only era weren’t making money.

Lucie: You can feel how much things have changed.

Looking back at Native PB, 888 and Synapse

Lucie: On the sound of your Pablo Blasta records: rather than laying your inner self bare, I hear someone struggling to get closer to an ideal. There’s a youthfulness to them.

How do you look back on Native PB, 888 and Synapse?

Masato: With Native PB, I really just made what I wanted to make. With 888, my name had started getting out there, and I was like, “Shit, I need to make an album.” [Laughs]

Native PB — Apple Music · Native PB — Spotify · 888 — Apple Music · 888 — Spotify

Lucie: So that’s how it happened. [Laughs]

Masato: There are songs I like, but I was rushing a bit. I was young. I was approaching the record with this feeling that I had to make one.

Sam: Do you not feel that rush anymore?

Masato: It’s not completely gone… Maybe I’ve grown up. [Laughs]

I think I’ve reached a point where I can say, “I’ll make what I want to express.” I want to keep working until I’m satisfied.

But we live in society, and you need money to do what you want. So part of me does think about making songs that will sell.

Ultimately, though, I want to do something like Kanye West—something orchestral.

Sam: When I saw you at NEVERLAND the other day, I thought, “He’s not a rapper. He’s a musician.” In my own way of looking at it, there’s a wall between rappers and musicians. There’s a real difference between people who cross it and people who don’t.

You’re a musician, Masato, not a rapper. I think you’re presenting your own body of work.

Masato: Really?

I’ve been struggling with that lately. “I call myself a rapper, so do I have to rap?” Honestly, I want to stop calling myself a rapper. Can I just be a musician? [Laughs]

Sam: You are a musician. Seriously. Interviews end up feeling like counseling, don’t they? [Laughs]

Masato: This is absolutely counseling. My counseling session. [Laughs]

Lucie: How do you look back on the sound of those records?

To my ears, Native PB leaned toward boom bap, 888 toward soul and R&B, and Synapse toward cloud rap.

Masato: I’m a bit of a chameleon like that.

I was around Rykey when I made the first one, so it took on that flavor. With the second, I hadn’t settled on a direction, but I’d grown up listening to quite a lot of R&B.

The third was probably because I made it with my friend haqu.

Pablo Blasta goes on hold: family, work and another name

Lucie: So you were transforming with each period, changing as you went.

But you put your activity as Pablo Blasta on hold in 2019.

Masato: Yeah.

I was living in Shikahama and not working. Then we had a child. I’d never held a regular job, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to live.

My wife said, “Let’s try living in a housing complex.” We entered the housing lottery and got a place. But there was about a year before we could move in, so we lived in Hachioji for that stretch.

For about four months, it was me, my wife and the baby in an apartment with a four-and-a-half-tatami room and a separate kitchen. I did painting work, making a little over 10,000 yen a day. I was making Synapse at the same time.

Synapse — Apple Music · Synapse — Spotify

I made it thinking, “If I put this out and it sells, I’ll have made it.” But it didn’t sell at all.

Lucie: Cloud rap really hadn’t taken hold in Japan at that point, had it?

Masato: Right. I think the supply and demand didn’t line up.

I wasn’t looking at the listeners. I made what I wanted to make and put it out like, “This is cutting-edge, right?” It didn’t sell at all. And I had a child. I needed money.

Then Dengaryu’s “ゆれる” and “夢の続き” happened to come on. They were the complete opposite of the music I was making at the time.

Watch: EVISBEATS — “ゆれる” feat. Dengaryu (田我流) · Watch: EVISBEATS — “夢の続き” feat. Dengaryu (田我流)

I heard them and started crying. I thought, “I’m broken inside.”

Lucie: Reality…

Masato: Yeah… My ex-wife’s mother was telling me, “You have a child. Stop talking about rap and get a proper job.” I thought I couldn’t do it anymore.

So I bought a small van and delivered for Amazon for about two years. I worked for myself, set my own schedule and picked up jobs through an app.

Delivery was in a kind of boom then. Maybe because all the companies were competing so hard, we could make about 18,000 yen a day even without delivering much. That’s how I managed to get by. I really was lucky.

Lucie: I see. But during those two years of working, you did make a small return—as Yomi.

It was a completely different name. When I hear “Yomi,” I think of the land of the dead. Was there a reason you chose it?

Masato: Yeah, Yomi as in the land of the dead. I’d killed off Pablo Blasta, and this was the space between that and becoming someone new. That’s why I called it Yomi.

Lucie: So that was it! You released two or three singles, right?

Listening to them, I felt you were gradually becoming Masato Hayashi—like the chrysalis was starting to split. [Laughs] Was something changing in your head around then?

Timeless — Apple Music · Timeless — Spotify · Fallin — Apple Music · Fallin — Spotify

Masato: I was struggling so much…

I was doing things without knowing anything. I could have just taken a quick artist photo somewhere nearby, but instead I went deep into the mountains of Okutama.

Lucie: Oh! The photo on TuneCore. You had green hair and were standing somewhere really dark. So that’s the story behind it.

Becoming Masato Hayashi: how everyday life changed the lyrics

Lucie: After all that struggling, you finally reached your final form. You returned as Masato Hayashi in 2021.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I think I first found you when “やるしかねえ,” from your first album Issue, came up in one of RayVlog’s videos about artists to watch.

Watch: “やるしかねえ”

Masato: Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Lucie: Suddenly I heard, “What’s normal? I don’t know.” I thought, “There’s someone making this kind of straight-up, honest rap.” It really stayed with me.

Masato: Did you make the connection then? Did you think, “This is Pablo Blasta”?

Lucie: No. I got into hip-hop in high school, so I found Masato Hayashi without knowing Pablo Blasta first.

Masato: So the chronology was reversed for you! That’s interesting. [Laughs]

Lucie: Exactly!

And the process of returning as Masato Hayashi started with you making things in your spare time, right?

Masato: Yeah. I started making music in the spare time after my child had gone to sleep.

I’d go to work at six in the morning, get home around eight at night, eat, watch a comedy show and go to bed. That was my life. On Sundays, I’d take my child to the park. That life was happy enough.

But I started feeling that something was missing—some stimulation. Still, my wife’s mother had told me she wanted me to live a proper life, so I’d laid out a path for myself according to those values.

I started making music again, hiding my face, thinking, “Putting a few songs on SoundCloud as a hobby should be okay.”

Lucie: A place to let things out.

Sam: You just wanted to keep making music.

Masato: Exactly. That’s really it.

Lucie: So it truly began as something you did for enjoyment. But the change in the lyrics is striking.

As Pablo Blasta, I felt you were describing a glittering nightlife. As Masato Hayashi, that energy suddenly turned inward. The lyrics became much more introspective.

Masato: Yeah… That’s absolutely right. Before, I had money, I was doing bad things, going out to parties with friends… Then my life changed completely, and I stopped going out.

Once you’re working an ordinary job and looking after a child, the money you can spend each month gets really limited. You can’t go out, and even if you do, you can’t treat the younger guys. So I started staying home.

Maybe that’s why the lyrics turned inward.

Lucie: That sounds like a huge part of it.

And the beats changed, too, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. I felt your choice of sounds had shifted. You used quite a lot of type beats, didn’t you?

Masato: I did. I’d been away from the industry so long that I didn’t have connections with beatmakers anymore. Type beats were pretty much my only option.

Lucie: So it came from having limited options.

Then you put out at least one project every year, and the featured artists were fresh.

Issue — Apple Music · Issue — Spotify

Miyachi, NEED A FLEX, Nia Varan… From younger artists to established talents. Personally, I thought it was really good.

1 — Apple Music · 1 — Spotify

But I also felt you weren’t getting the recognition you deserved. How do you look back on it?

Masato: Ultimately… I don’t think I understood supply and demand.

I think about 80 percent of the listeners who make it possible for musicians to earn money aren’t really music lovers as such. A lot of them are listening as an extension of being fans of a particular person. So maybe simply releasing music doesn’t translate into numbers.

What was missing from me back then…? Maybe I wasn’t doing anything beyond the music. Honestly, I thought none of that mattered. But making music costs money.

And someone like me can’t really do an ordinary job. Doing bad things is too risky, and I have a child. Thinking it all through, I ended up concluding that I had to make money from music.

Lucie: That’s difficult… It gets into national attitudes and all sorts of things.

You must have been wrestling with a lot. One thing that intrigued me was the cover art. From the EP through your second album, I think all the covers showed you.

Then MELANISM suddenly had a black cat. Was it your cat?

MELANISM — Apple Music · MELANISM — Spotify

Masato: It wasn’t that deep. [Laughs] I thought my friend’s cat was cute.

People say black cats are bad luck, right? They’ve decided the cat is unlucky, and when they see one, they tell it to go away.

Lucie: Like BUMP OF CHICKEN’s “K.” [Laughs]

Masato: Exactly. At the time, I thought, “That’s a bit like me.” And, quite simply, my friend’s cat was cute. [Laughs]

Sam: But if the first two covers showed you and the third looked outward, I think that says you’d moved from being completely occupied with yourself to finally being able to see what was around you.

Masato: This really has become a counseling session. [Laughs]

Applying to RAPSTAR 2025: a chance to give up

Lucie: You’ve said applying to RAPSTAR was another attempt to find a way forward.

How did you feel when that email arrived saying you’d passed the first round?

Masato: Honestly? “What a pain.” [Laughs]

Everyone: [Laughs]

Masato: I was happy, of course! But I was 33 at that point. It was less, “Yes, let’s do this!” and more, “So the next year is going to be a year of fighting…”

Sam: You wouldn’t be able to let your guard down. [Laughs]

Masato: Exactly. I was happy, but also thinking, “This is going to be exhausting.” All these feelings were mixed together. [Laughs]

Strangely enough, part of me had applied so I could give up. Like, “If I fail this, I’ll finally be able to call it.” It was this weird feeling of wanting to get through and wanting to fail.

Sam: I see… “What a pain.” I like that. [Laughs]

Lucie: It’s great. Seriously.

Then you rapped over Nosh’s beat—the song we now know as “Ain’t No Love.” With that one, I think everyone felt, “That’s the right choice.”

“Ain’t No Love” — Apple Music · “Ain’t No Love” — Spotify

It lets the voice sit right out front, and it’s melodic. It suited you so well that it almost felt made for you. Wait—you chose Nosh from the start, right? You must have.

Masato: Yeah. [Laughs]

Lucie: I knew it! It was such an obvious match.

But Chaki Zulu’s Hood Stage beat was jerk. That sound has become prominent in the underground recently…

It wasn’t the kind of beat I’d heard you on before, so I wondered whether it was difficult to ride. How did you make that track?

Masato: Honestly, I wasn’t thinking about anything. [Laughs]

I’d drifted away from hip-hop around then. I didn’t know what contemporary hip-hop sounded like. I was listening to techno and things. I didn’t even know that beat was jerk.

I could just see the grid, and I spat over it. It probably wasn’t the style you’d normally use on jerk, was it?

I just spat. Looking back now, I think there were other ways I could have approached it.

Lucie: But having the nerve to go, “Okay, okay, okay, okay,” right there—that was incredible. You sounded ready to fight.

Choosing a RAPSTAR beat: “Maybe something faster would be better”

Lucie: Then there was ineedmorebux’s beat at Camp Stage.

Watch: Masato Hayashi — “HIROYUKI” (official music video)

It was a rage beat with distortion, but not so much that it broke up completely. Any more grit and you’d expect an Opium rapper on it. Both the melody and the 808s were pretty forceful…

Masato: You’re asking why I picked it?

Lucie: Exactly!

Masato: What I’d originally pictured for the final was something that slowly gets to you. A grand beat, and a song that would make people cry.

Lucie: That would narrow it down to D3adstock or Foux, wouldn’t it?

Masato: Right?

But… the day before camp, I got anxious and went back to my ex-wife’s place. I held her and our child close, and we all fell asleep together.

Then, on the morning of camp, we were talking about what kind of beats might be there, and she said,

“Maybe something with a faster tempo would be better.”

Lucie: Wait… Hold on. Wow.

Masato: I don’t know why she said it, but she did.

When I got to camp, I was ranked first and got to choose a beat before anyone else. That was unexpected, too. By that point, you could more or less tell who would join you if you picked a particular beat.

So if I chose ineedmorebux, obviously Pxrge Trxxxper was going to come. [Laughs]

Lucie: Absolutely. There was no question. [Laughs]

Masato: Right? [Laughs] So at first, I’d been thinking D3adstock or Foux.

But we had to make the track in 24 hours, with one hour to record. With a slower beat, I’d be thinking, “I should put a melody in here.”

And once I started working on a melody, I wouldn’t be able to compromise. I thought I might get lost in it. Then her words popped into my head: “Maybe something faster would be better.”

Lucie: Wow… [Moved]

Masato: Yeah. [Laughs] I’d ruled it out at first because it wasn’t my sound. But then I thought, “Just go for it.”

Sam: It takes real courage to make that choice.

Masato: My ex-wife’s voice really does lead me toward the right answer when it comes down to the wire. It’s strange.

Sam: Something’s guiding you. You went back to her place out of the blue, didn’t you?

Masato: Yeah. I’d just moved into a new place, and I was telling myself, “You’re heading into battle. This isn’t the time to be cozy with your family.” I was getting myself ready to go into it alone.

But in the end, I wanted to see them.

Lucie: So there was an MVP behind the scenes… That’s incredible.

After RAPSTAR: seeing the response in front of him

Lucie: The final is great no matter how many times I watch it.

There were so many highlights across that stage. Pxrge’s entrance, like some kind of demon king, Sonsi’s mistake…

And you holding up that olive oil. We can’t leave that out. [Laughs] How did you end up using olive oil in the first place?

Masato: I never thought people would focus on the olive oil that much. [Laughs]

I drank it at camp. I normally just use it to moisten my throat when I’m recording. I didn’t actually want it on camera. It looks lame. [Laughs]

But after I drank some, they asked, “Could you do that one more time?” I was like, “What? This?” [Laughs] I didn’t think anyone would find it funny, so I was a bit reluctant.

Then I watched the episode, and the comments were going crazy: “Olive oil, olive oil, olive oil.”

Sam: Other artists do that, too. It’s fairly normal in music, not just hip-hop. But listeners probably hadn’t seen it before, so it looked unusual. [Laughs]

Did anyone bring you olive oil as a gift?

Masato: A company actually sent me olive oil they’d made. [Laughs]

Lucie: That’s great!

Everything flew by, and you ended up finishing runner-up. After that, you were still Masato Hayashi, but you seemed different. I felt something had changed.

The music moved from introspection toward something more ready to throw a punch—fight music. You seemed to become the kind of man other men look up to. How do you see it?

Masato: I don’t know…

I’d been making introspective stuff for so long that I got bored. Then I did this, got bored and did something else… I think it’s just my mood.

Whatever I’m into at that moment, whatever feels best to make—that’s what I make. I’ve never had things work out when I tell myself, “You have to make this kind of thing.” I need to do what I want.

The next album might actually be more introspective. There are some harder tracks on it, too.

Lucie: Really? Going the other way? Having that range across one album would be something pretty new for Masato Hayashi.

Masato: Though the next album might not quite fit the times either. [Laughs] I don’t know.

Sam: Whatever you try now, listeners will hear it as your music.

A rapper I know once said it’s important to get listeners used to your voice. I think you’ve already passed that stage.

Lucie: Exactly. RAPSTAR did that.

Masato: So… I’m glad I went on RAPSTAR. [Laughs] Before, I was more the type to look down on it.

Quite a few people said things like, “You’re seriously going on that? What are you doing?” Then I made the final, and they completely changed their tune. [Laughs]

But there’s conviction behind what I do. Whether somebody thinks it’s lame or whatever doesn’t matter. As long as I stay true to what I believe is right, there’s no problem.

Lucie: I’ve seen people online say over and over that it was strange you weren’t getting that recognition before RAPSTAR. It was a great chance to show what you could do.

And I think the response became visible at that recent pop-up performance—people were still singing “Ain’t No Love” after you’d left.

Watch: the Shibuya pop-up performance discussed above

Masato: I was nervous about that, too. Before it started, I was saying, “Nobody’s going to come.” Then I was like, “What?”

Sam: It was in front of Shibuya Police Station, right? When I first heard, I went, “Shibuya Police Station?”

Masato: I’d already been thinking that if I did a pop-up performance in Shibuya, I’d do it in front of the police station. Then it turned out that the only place officially available for one happened to be right there.

Lucie: That must have given you confidence.

Masato: It did. I thought, “So this is where I am now.”

I’d spent so long without success that I couldn’t quite believe it. Even if people praised me online or the views went up, part of me stayed detached: “It’ll be over soon anyway.”

Seeing everyone there in person at that show let me actually feel it: “People are really into what I’m doing.”

The current scene, and what he meant by his cypher comments

Lucie: I wanted to ask about your thoughts on the scene…

Clips of your livestream comments about recent cyphers circulated online and caused some debate. How do you feel about contemporary sounds?

Watch: PEDESTAL UDG CYPHER JAPAN 2026

Masato: First of all, I love hip-hop today.

Say people in the underground and the mainstream are telling each other, “That isn’t hip-hop.” It’s like punk telling metal, “That isn’t rock.” Arguments over genre or technique like that don’t mean anything.

I have no problem with mumble. It stands on its own as a musical genre. But I also think a lot of people hide behind it, until it feels like absolutely anything goes.

Honestly, at the extreme, it doesn’t even have to be intelligible. That’s fine. But, to be blunt, anybody can do that. Like, “Want to hear my alien-language version?”

Once you try to make it properly sound like Japanese, though, the shape changes quite a lot. You think, “Maybe I should mumble it instead,” and it sounds good, but the meaning doesn’t get through. I’m still learning how to find that balance myself.

So, sure, you can mumble and make it sound the part. But if people then say, “Our way is the right way,” I’m like, “What?”

Ultimately, music communicates something. I’m not rejecting it, but if you’re using words to say something… To say, “Masato’s rap is some washed-up old man’s rap, and we’re right”—I don’t think that’s quite fair.

Sam: Mumble is probably something that people who can already rap well bring in as a further technique.

Masato: It was hard to get that across on a livestream. Not that I necessarily need to explain it.

That time, they’d said it to me first. Someone had called my rap a fossil, so I started talking like, “Okay, then let me say this.”

Information comes out in such tiny fragments now that everybody takes it differently. Even when it’s understood in a way you never intended, you can’t really undo it. It’s awful. Social media feels like it’s gone as far as it can go…

Lucie: Yeah, I properly hate it too. [Laughs]

Masato: When people say, “You don’t understand cutting-edge hip-hop,” I think, “No, that isn’t it.”

I listen to Che. I’ve listened to mumble since the early days. I listen to things other than rap, too. People should listen to what they want and make what they want.

Lucie: Rappers have become so diverse that lately I’ve been wondering what a rapper even is. I think you can look at the current scene from the outside, with some distance.

What do you think? What is a rapper?

Masato: Hip-hop changes with the times. Maybe there isn’t a clear answer that says, “This is a rapper.”

Sam: Zeebra once said it’s not about what kind of hip-hop somebody performs, but whether the person performing is hip-hop.

Masato: That might really be it. Maybe it’s less about the genre and more about the person singing—the life they lead, who they are.

Lucie: I’ve always wanted people to judge the sound itself…

But lately, I’ve started to think that maybe hip-hop can’t be judged on sound alone. In the end, it’s music that depends very strongly on the individual. You’re talking about yourself in the songs.

So, although more people are criticizing RAPSTAR, I’ve started wondering whether some of that criticism might miss the point. That’s just my opinion.

A message to listeners

Lucie: Lately, when I think about how to keep hip-hop from fading in Japan, I’ve started seeing the way listeners engage with it as part of the problem.

Is there anything you want to tell listeners? How would you like them to approach it?

Masato: Well, listeners often tell me not to engage with comments about me.

But I’m the type who wants to face each one directly. If somebody misunderstands me, I want to say, “That’s not how it is.” Holding that in and acting unbothered wouldn’t be me, either. So I’ve decided to face it.

Maybe it won’t get through to those people. And I do understand why somebody might find it off-putting. But I’m not trying to fit some image of how an artist should act. I want to be myself.

And honestly, it interferes with my work. [Laughs]

Lucie: People have recently been saying you buy views, too.

Sam: Can you even buy views? [Laughs]

Masato: That’s what I’m wondering: “Can you?” [Laughs]

They shout “He’s buying them!” so loudly that they create this image of me as the guy who buys views. It harms my work, and I’m the only one losing out.

Lucie: Time to request disclosure of their identities.

Masato: They also say I delete comments… I wouldn’t. [Laughs] Apparently, listeners report them, and that gets them taken down? I’m not sure.

I’d thought posting in my own YouTube comments was lame and didn’t want to do it. But I wrote, “I’ll contact YouTube. Please take screenshots and send them to my Gmail. I’ll look into what’s happening.”

Then no emails, no replies… I was like, “What is with these people?” [Laughs]

People posting opinions publicly is part of social media. But one thing you say can seriously change someone’s life. It’s no different from kids bullying somebody.

I really want to get that across.

Lucie: There’s such a lack of imagination about the other person’s circumstances. As Japanese hip-hop has grown, I feel that tendency has become more noticeable.

Masato: Definitely in hip-hop. Hip-hop and soccer comment sections get pretty rough. On the other hand, maybe that shows how passionate people are…

Sam: True. [Laughs] The hostility around soccer and music does feel similar.

Iconic, and hip-hop as “a conversation on the street”

Lucie: We’re coming toward the end of the interview…

What are you thinking of doing next, both to help the scene thrive and to keep your own place in it?

Masato: Well… I know I’m contradicting myself a little here…

But I think rejecting new things too much leads to decline. With genres that have faded, I think clinging too tightly to old methods and rejecting the new stops them from evolving.

I want to recognize new things. But if you take away every boundary, it becomes “anything goes,” and I feel like that can weaken a scene, too.

The balance is really difficult. I think an approach that doesn’t reject the new but also properly values the old is what keeps a scene alive.

Lucie: Learning from the old to understand the new. That’s onko chishin.

Masato: Exactly. If you don’t have respect, I honestly don’t think anything you do will work.

Sam: When we interview OGs, they all say the same thing: in the end, it comes down to who you are as a person. Respect is essential.

Lucie: I couldn’t agree more.

This may be the last question: looking back at Iconic, which came out in September, what kind of album was it for you?

Iconic — Apple Music · Iconic — Spotify

Release note: Masato Hayashi’s Iconic was released September 2, 2026, with 19 tracks. See TuneCore Japan’s release information and listening links.

Masato: This time… What was it, really? I never set a concept for each album.

If I had to say, RAPSTAR ended, I started making the album, and that brings us up to now. Maybe it’s a record where you can see who I was during that period. [Laughs]

Lucie: So listening to the songs lets you look into your life: “This is how Masato Hayashi’s been living.” I can see that.

Masato: Ultimately, I think hip-hop is a conversation on the street.

“This happened to me,” or, “I heard this thing…” You’re just telling those stories well, making them interesting. So if you listen to this album, you’ll know who I was during that time.

The things I say change from album to album. Sometimes they contradict each other. I think you can hear me changing, too.

Sam: “Hip-hop is a conversation on the street.” That’s so good. [Laughs]

Learning to trust the audience: “I believe in everyone out there”

Sam: You finished your Tokyo solo show on September 23 to a great response. What was that performance like?

Editor’s note: The Japanese edition aligned the date in this question with ABEMA’s announcement for the September 23, 2026 “暴走東京” show at Zepp Shinjuku. That announced date is retained here.

Masato: First of all, I found out whether my voice would hold up.

Could I sing right through a long set? That would also affect the scale of shows I could do in the future. So it was quite a challenge. [Laughs]

Sam: Even some very established OGs lose their voices toward the end of a solo show. Those last 15 or 20 minutes are the test.

Lucie: You really are always challenging yourself. [Laughs]

Sam: You’re also so good at handling the audience. Maybe that’s not the best way to put it, but the coordination is like hardcore fans doing call-and-response. [Laughs]

Masato: To me, the audience feels like my children, my friends… fellow travelers. People I share this wish with: “Let’s enjoy our lives.”

Lately, I almost communicate it through my presence. Like, “You know this is where you sing!” In comedy, you give people a sense of where the laugh is. It’s something like that. Before, I wasn’t sure.

But I’ve learned to really trust the listeners. That means I can confidently hand it over to them. I believe in everyone out there.

Lucie: Wow… You heard him, listeners. If you’re planning to go to the Osaka solo show, let’s enjoy every moment of it.

We’ll end the interview here. Thank you!

View six more live photographs — Photo: Suguru Tanaka

Closing reflection: Bennu, rising again

Reality has soaked Masato Hayashi’s wings and left him face-down in the ashes. He has risen from them more than once. Now, at last, we can see him spreading those dark wings above the scene.

Under the studio lights, there was still something boyish and unclouded in his eyes. Yet the care with which he chose his words also revealed the thoughtfulness that comes from a complicated past.

That movement between the boy and the adult—the uncertainty of it—is part of what makes him so human. It gives his work its particular feeling and depth. I felt I understood a little more clearly why so many listeners are drawn to him.

This album felt like the powerful beat of wings after his return. To those who were planning to see the solo shows, I wanted to say: feel it with your whole body—the energy of someone who has lived through the bitter and the sweet.

One final connection: the phoenix legend is also associated with Bennu, the bird of Egyptian mythology that symbolizes renewal. Its name is thought to come from a verb meaning “to rise,” according to the Global Egyptian Museum.

That sounds like him.

Interview and original text: Lucie. Interview participant: YTG/Sam. Photography: Suguru Tanaka.

About the interview and its sources

This article’s central source is HIPHOPCs’ own interview with Masato Hayashi. Personal recollections and opinions remain attributed to the speakers. The following materials support the release information, scheduled dates and editorial notes.

Release information, event announcements and editorial references

• TuneCore Japan — Iconic: September 2, 2026 release, 19 tracks, and recording credits.
• ABEMA’s official announcement: RAPSTAR 2025 runner-up result and the announced September 23, 2026 Tokyo solo show at Zepp Shinjuku.
• Kyodo Osaka’s event page: the scheduled November 8, 2026 Osaka solo show at GORILLA HALL OSAKA, starting at 18:00.
• Hachioji City’s geographical overview: the editorial correction about the city’s borders.
• Global Egyptian Museum — “Phoenix”: the reference to Bennu in the closing reflection.

The Japanese edition checked these supplementary references on November 6, 2026. They were checked again for this English edition on November 9, 2026 (JST). Scheduled event information is distinguished from evidence that a performance took place.

Explore more original HIPHOPCs interviews in English.

Continue with Masato Hayashi

• Masato Hayashi’s English artist profile: Follow his recording names and releases.
• Tokyo Rap Atlas: Explore the local scenes around Tokyo, including Hachioji.
• Weekly J-RAP on “Jimoto Doko”: Read our review of DJ TATSUKI’s collaboration with Masato Hayashi and Jin Dogg.