R-Naby Interview: From Kyoto to Brooklyn, Open Mics and Self-Made Survival

SeiAugust 20, 2026Exclusive Interviews25 min read

Text-only HIPHOPCs exclusive interview card reading R-Naby, Kyoto to Brooklyn — Original English R-Naby exclusive interview card created by HIPHOPCs. No interview photograph or third-party visual material used.

R-Naby arrived in Los Angeles by train from San Francisco and met HIPHOPCs interviewer Sei near Union Station. The conversation that followed was not a clean success story. It moved through Kyoto club nights, debt, a period of severe emotional distress, low-paid work in New York, hundreds of venue visits, years of open mics, a collaboration with Maino, family grief and a plan to leave Brooklyn without pretending that Brooklyn had failed him.

Translation note: This English edition has been translated and edited from the original Japanese interview. Repetition, conversational filler and remarks about third parties that were not necessary to R-Naby’s own story have been condensed. His chronology, first-person meaning and changes of tone have been preserved. The interview took place before the Japanese article was published on December 21, 2025; later release information is separated in editor’s notes.

Content note: The interview includes R-Naby’s recollections of debt, suicidal thoughts and the death of his father. These are personal accounts, not medical findings. Readers facing an immediate risk of self-harm should contact local emergency services or a crisis-support service in their country.

Table of Contents

From Kyoto to Brooklyn

Sei: For readers meeting you for the first time, how would you introduce yourself?

R-Naby: I was born in 1989 in Nishikyo, Kyoto, and grew up in Kyoto. I started rapping at 18. I looked up to ANARCHY, RYUZO and MAGUMA MC’s and began my career there. By the time I was 22, I had put out five independent albums, toured 28 stops and held release shows in Kyoto and Tokyo. I moved to the United States in 2013, and that brings us to where I am now.

Editor’s note: The birth details, early release count and tour count above are R-Naby’s account. HIPHOPCs has not independently reconstructed every early release or date.

The first doorway was 8 Mile, not a coast

Sei: What pulled you into hip-hop?

R-Naby: When I was 13, I bought the DVD of 8 Mile. The CD that came with it led me to 50 Cent, Eminem, Dr. Dre, DMX and TLC. My sister had 2Pac and Dre CDs too. “Stan” hit me hard, and I kept going deeper. I did not understand New York versus the West Coast yet. I just thought the people, the clothes and the presence looked incredible.

He remembers imitating that imagery with inexpensive chains, a red bandana and oversized clothes. The story matters because it undercuts a tidy geographic origin myth: the future Brooklyn-based rapper did not enter hip-hop through a conscious allegiance to New York. He entered through personalities and images powerful enough to cross geography.

DJ Shuma, a year of dance and the accidental rapper

Sei: When did performing become more than listening?

R-Naby: I started going to clubs around 16. DJs looked cool, so my sister helped me buy turntables and records. I debuted as DJ Shuma, but mixing was hard. I was basically playing one full song and then another. I realized it was not good and stopped.

Dance came next. He says he trained for roughly a year and appeared in a showcase, but still had not found the role that felt permanent. A local rapper then joked that rappers received more attention and invited him to perform once. The one-off appearance became the beginning of his rap career at 18.

R-Naby: We needed a name. I was from the Rakusai area, so I used the R. People around me were influenced by the R-Rated name. We first landed on R-Navy, but I did not like navy blue. I changed the V to a B. There was no deep master plan behind it.

Why he left Japan: ambition and an escape he could not admit

Sei: Why New York when so much of your first musical imagination came from the West Coast?

R-Naby: The practical answer is that my visa sponsor was in New York. But the reason I left Japan matters more. I had toured, sold records by hand and staged shows in Kyoto and Tokyo. I convinced myself that a major deal might come, and it did not. I was young, frustrated and getting attacked online. At the same time, I had accumulated serious debt. I told my sister I was thinking about suicide.

R-Naby: I felt I could not keep making music and that I would hurt my family financially. I could not say that publicly. So I said, “I’m going to challenge New York.” Once people repeated it and my family heard it, I could not turn back. The public story sounded brave. Inside, I was also hiding the fact that I felt unsuccessful and was in debt. I can say that now because that period is behind me.

The distinction is essential. R-Naby is not presenting migration as a single heroic decision. In his own telling, it contained ambition, shame, financial pressure and self-preservation at the same time. HIPHOPCs has not independently verified the debt totals, visa arrangements or private conversation with his sister.

New York in real time: work first, then every open mic he could find

Sei: What did entering New York’s hip-hop world actually look like?

R-Naby: I arrived without a Japanese rapper showing me the route. My English was limited and I did not have much money. I went to a job interview the day I landed and worked in a Japanese nightlife business. After about three months I asked myself why I had come to New York. I saw a video of an open mic and started looking for one.

He says he walked into roughly 200 venues asking, in basic English, whether they hosted open mics. He eventually found Freestyle Mondays in Brooklyn and began exchanging information with other performers. That turned into a system: if one open mic existed, he would find the next one.

R-Naby: I changed jobs because nightlife work kept me from performing. I washed dishes and worked my way up in restaurants. I went to an open mic every day for about a year and eight months, sometimes several in one day. New York had enough events then to make that possible. After a while, I started asking how I could move from one song at an open mic to having my name on a flyer.

A 2021 Billboard JAPAN interview independently records the broader outline: R-Naby described stacking multiple open mics in one day, using them to learn English, build stage experience and make connections. The exact venue count and duration remain his recollection.

Getting onto the flyer created a second kind of pressure

R-Naby: At an open mic I met someone from a booking agency. I was so excited that I signed without really reading the agreement. The agency could put my name on flyers, but I had ticket obligations for each event. It was the same quota pressure I knew from Japan. At first I could sell tickets. Later I was paying out of pocket while also paying to record.

He says restaurant work made that period financially possible. Dishwashing led to cooking and eventually a second-chef position. The day job was not a detour from the music story; it financed the visibility that the music business demanded.

R-Naby also recalls that a music-industry contact he met during his first New York job followed his activity online and contacted him in 2017. A contemporaneous New York Biz report documents a 2017 Universal GEAR release by R-Naby and DJ Kaz Sakuma. That public record supports the label milestone, while the private conversation and contract details remain R-Naby’s account.

The lesson he would change: pride is not a support system

Sei: Looking back, what would you do differently?

R-Naby: I would drop my pride and spend more time with Japanese people too. I chose to build relationships in Black communities, and I do not think that was wrong. But I shut the Japanese community out. I was not honest enough with myself. More recently, I have tried to reconnect.

That answer is one of the interview’s clearest reversals. Early in the story, independence means proving that he can survive without a Japanese network. Later, independence means being secure enough to accept that every durable career depends on other people.

Self Made: what the plan became after the interview

Sei: What were you building next?

R-Naby: I was preparing an album called Self Made. I had left The Orchard about a year and a half earlier. When I looked closely at the money, I decided I needed a more independent structure for married life. I created my own company and began handling more of the artwork, videos, rights administration and documents myself. The title came from realizing how much I could build directly.

He described the separation from The Orchard, the economics and the company structure from personal experience. HIPHOPCs has not reviewed the relevant contracts, accounting or corporate filings and does not treat his interpretation as an independent finding about any company.

Editor’s update, August 20, 2026: During the interview, R-Naby expected nine tracks. The official TuneCore release page shows that Self Made arrived on January 2, 2026 with eight tracks. It includes “With Family” and “Oyaji” (“Dad”). The same page credits the release to R-NABY Music.

Two songs for his father

Sei: “With Family” was one of the songs that stayed with me. What did you want to put into it?

R-Naby: I left home at 15 and then moved through Tokyo to the United States. I had very little time with my parents. I had not seen my father for about 15 years when he died on January 1, 2025. That was my regret. His death brought me back into contact with my family. My sister and mother began talking about coming to New York. We realized we should meet while we can. “With Family” says that the family is still moving forward and smiling.

He says he wrote the second song, “Oyaji,” only days after the death and considered it too raw to lead with visually. These dates, family relationships and emotional details are his first-person recollection. The official Self Made track list confirms both songs, not the private circumstances behind them.

Maino and the Brooklyn credential he chose to buy openly

Sei: Which collaboration changed your position most?

R-Naby: Working with Maino on “Take A Chance” was the biggest moment in my New York life. I was open about paying for the feature. For me, respecting Brooklyn also meant working with a veteran from Brooklyn and putting that connection into the music. After the song, people around me treated what I was doing differently.

Billboard JAPAN’s release interview documents R-Naby and DJ Kaz Sakuma’s collaboration with Maino, while the official video is published by R-NABY Official. What that collaboration changed inside private Brooklyn relationships remains R-Naby’s assessment rather than a measurable public fact.

The 2026 plan: one more New York chapter, then Los Angeles

Sei: Where did you expect to be based next?

R-Naby: My plan for 2026 was to make one more album in New York, hold a private “Last NY” event in SoHo and then move to Los Angeles. I do not mean that New York failed me. I have become comfortable, and I want another challenge. I came into hip-hop through artists connected to the West Coast, and I want to test myself in a different environment.

Editor’s update: This was a plan stated during the interview, not a confirmed itinerary. As of August 20, 2026, Apple Music lists “Hey New York,” released July 18, as R-Naby’s latest release. A music catalog does not establish his current residence, whether the SoHo event occurred or whether the move to Los Angeles has been completed.

“I think I will break through within three years”

Sei: What do you imagine ten years from now?

R-Naby: I think I will break through within three years. If it happened tomorrow, I would want to return to Japan the day after. My wife tells me that, realistically, I would need at least a week. But that is the energy: make it happen during the Los Angeles chapter and come home with a result.

Sei: What would you tell Japanese artists who want to work in the United States?

R-Naby: Drop the pride that says you will never speak to Japanese people once you arrive. Be grateful to every person you meet, because one relationship leads to the next. Bring English ability and enough money too. And if artists reading HIPHOPCs want to collaborate, I can show them New York. We can make music and tour here, and they can bring me back to Japan in return.

What survives the bravado

R-Naby’s biggest statements are easy to isolate: hundreds of venues, years of open mics, a promise to break through, another move across the United States. The interview becomes more useful when those claims are read beside the admissions that complicate them. New York was a challenge and an escape. Independence was control and loneliness. Paid access to a larger name was commercial and, in his view, a way to show respect to the city where he worked.

That tension is the story. He is not asking the reader to believe that persistence guarantees success. He is explaining how persistence can continue even when the public reason for leaving, the private reason for leaving and the reason for staying are all different.

Continue exploring

ANARCHY profile — the Kyoto artist R-Naby names as an early influence.
2Pac profile — the artist who became R-Naby’s strongest teenage influence.
HIPHOPCs English Exclusive Interviews — original conversations with artists, DJs and organizers.
HIPHOPCs English Artist Profiles — sourced career guides and listening routes.

Sources and verification

Interview and Japanese article: Sei for HIPHOPCs. English translation and editing: HIPHOPCs. Latest verification: August 20, 2026.

Personal history, private conversations, debt, health-related recollections, family details, employment, contracts and plans are attributed to R-Naby. HIPHOPCs did not independently verify private records. Public milestones were checked against the sources below. Third-party gossip from the longer Japanese conversation was omitted from this edition.

Featured image: original English typography artwork by HIPHOPCs. No interview photograph, artist likeness, logo, album artwork or other third-party visual material is used.

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