BLAISE & D-SETO Interview: HUMAN JUNCTION, Bay Area Flow and Patience

BLAISE and D-SETO released their five-track joint EP HUMAN JUNCTION on June 16, 2025. Apple Music lists the project at 18 minutes, issued through Smooth & Truth/Stay Studio Records. Its musical premise is just as concise: two low-register rappers with different geographical roots meeting over KAY DIEGO’s production.

BLAISE is based in Shibuya, Tokyo, with ties to kiLLa, BSTA and Stay Studio Records. D-SETO is from Aomori Prefecture and is associated in the Japanese source with EVIL MINDS RECORDS and sutari forest. The title turns that contrast into an image: central Tokyo and the regions, people and sounds, all entering from different roads and crossing at one junction.

In this HIPHOPCs interview, the two artists explain how a conversation in a Tokyo club became a three-year project; what they hear in each other’s flow; why D-SETO rewrote the title track four times; and how Bay Area and Southern drum aesthetics guided the mix.

Translation note: Ito Kotaro conducted and wrote the original Japanese interview, published July 4, 2025. This English edition was translated and edited by HIPHOPCs on August 21, 2026. Repetition and conversational filler were condensed without changing the order or meaning of the answers. A short lyric passage printed in the Japanese edition is paraphrased here rather than reproduced in translation.

From a Tokyo club conversation to a joint EP

HIPHOPCs: What first set this joint EP in motion?

D-SETO: I think it was about four years earlier. The first time we really spoke was at the club Asia. BLAISE told me he liked my track “Like a Dirty R.A.Y.”

The musical reference behind it was Celly Cel, the 1990s Bay Area rapper. We talked about that, and about KAY DIEGO—a young producer who had been sending me a lot of tracks carrying Bay Area and Southern flavor. BLAISE became interested and said that making something together in that lane could feel new. It began naturally: “Then let’s do it.”

I had known about him since he emerged with kiLLa. I remember thinking there was an unusually talented young artist coming through, so I was surprised that he already knew my work.

First impressions: seriousness, humility and shared instincts

HIPHOPCs: What do you remember about meeting each other for the first time?

D-SETO: He is younger than me, but I immediately thought he was very grounded. We started talking about rap that first day, and a lot of our views lined up. I felt a real affinity.

BLAISE: He struck me as a very humble person—someone who had spent a great deal of time in conversation with both music and himself.

What “HUMAN JUNCTION” means to each artist

HIPHOPCs: You seemed to share a vision from the beginning. What does the title HUMAN JUNCTION mean to each of you?

D-SETO: I come from a regional area, and although I live in Tokyo now, I am based in the suburbs. The idea came from driving the expressway from west to east across Tokyo. Maybe this is the perspective of someone from the countryside, but the complexity of the Metropolitan Expressway always gets to me. If central Tokyo is the heart, all the merges and exits feel like blood vessels crossing over one another. I still tense up because I am not used to it.

Back in Aomori, if I was driving from Misawa toward Hirosaki, I could get on the highway and keep moving without that same complexity. That may be the difference between simply using an interchange and confronting a real junction.

On this EP, the rappers and beatmaker all come from different places and backgrounds. We put our values and experiences with other people into the sound and lyrics. Those experiences can be as complicated as the junctions themselves. To me, the title describes energy circulating through music—from Tokyo out to the regions, and from the regions back into Tokyo.

BLAISE: Tokyo mixes together people who came from overseas and people who arrived from elsewhere in Japan. That crowded mixture was the clearest image of a human junction for me.

Tokyo and Aomori roots meeting on one record

HIPHOPCs: How did the difference between your Tokyo and Aomori roots affect the chemistry?

D-SETO: I do not think the musical style at your roots really changes. If you force yourself to become something else, the gaps show. Even after moving to Tokyo, I kept the rough, regional character in my style instead of hiding it.

What felt fresh was BLAISE leaning all the way into that side of the music. It was a style he had not rapped over before, but it brought out a lot of his groove. His pocket on the fourth track, “Choshi a Get Up,” feels especially good. KAY DIEGO’s track may carry Bay Area and Southern sounds that are not familiar to every listener in Japan, but the roots are still 1990s hip-hop, so they suit BLAISE’s style. I had already heard the depth he showed on Jab Step; this collaboration let me hear that quality from another angle.

What they hear in each other’s flow

HIPHOPCs: You both have low voices and distinctive rhythmic placement. How would you describe each other’s rap style?

D-SETO: BLAISE makes full use of that low voice and fits words into the beat like he is striking with a hammer. He can work both on and off the beat, but his off-beat flow is on another level—it feels incredibly natural. I think his sense of rhythm is innate.

BLAISE: SETO’s rap skill is unquestionably at the top level in Japan. I think it can reach listeners anywhere in the world. His ear and lyrics are both full of character, and I respect the way he keeps evolving without abandoning his own style.

Clarity over technical display

HIPHOPCs: Was there anything you consciously challenged or prioritized in the flow?

D-SETO: This has also been true of my other work in recent years: rather than becoming trapped by technique, I built the verses around being easy to hear and understand.

Rewriting the title track four times

HIPHOPCs: Which track best used your voice and rhythm, or contains the writing you worked hardest on?

D-SETO: The first track, “HUMAN JUNCTION.” BLAISE’s part was so strong that I rewrote mine four times before I was satisfied.

Editor’s note: The Japanese edition printed a short passage from the song. In summary, D-SETO’s lines ask who remained beside him at his lowest point, place gratitude and moral debt above profit, and treat former loneliness as something to preserve and understand rather than erase. The passage is paraphrased here to respect the song’s copyright.

HIPHOPCs: Were there any words or themes you knew had to appear across the project?

D-SETO: Since it is called a junction, I scattered words associated with cars and driving throughout the tracks.

Southern and Bay Area drums—and a beat rebuilt from scratch

HIPHOPCs: What stands out from the recording and production process?

D-SETO: For the mix, I asked the engineer to focus on the sound of the snares and hi-hats associated with Southern and Bay Area rap. That sound had not fully settled into a standard approach in Japan, and scheduling meant I could not always attend the sessions. Some tracks took repeated revision requests before they matched what I heard in my head. I am grateful to the engineer for getting them there.

The first instrumental version of “HUMAN JUNCTION” reached me in 2021. After we started, we discovered that its central source idea overlapped with something another rapper was using. KAY DIEGO replayed and rebuilt it as a different version. It came back much stronger than the first one, so that became the record.

Another studio memory is from the year my child had just been born. I was short on sleep, took a caffeine tablet out of its container to stay awake, and BLAISE briefly thought I was taking something much harder.

More seriously, my life and daily schedule changed completely after we agreed to make the project. BLAISE and KAY DIEGO adapted even when I could not move at the pace I wanted. It took about three years to reach release, and I felt sorry for how long that was. Both of them believed the project would be finished and remained sincere through the very end. I am deeply grateful to them.

What comes next: a darker banger

HIPHOPCs: Is there another project or kind of collaboration you would like to attempt together?

D-SETO: Probably a full-force banger in the darker lane that both of us do well.

HIPHOPCs: One last change of subject: what have you been absorbed in lately?

D-SETO: Parenting, housework and patience.

Release and credit notes

• Original EP: HUMAN JUNCTION on Apple Music—five tracks, 18 minutes, released June 16, 2025.
• Official artist-controlled landing page: HUMAN JUNCTION via DistroKid HyperFollow.
• Later edition: TuneCore’s official English page for HUMAN JUNCTION (SLOWED + REVERB) lists all five tracks with KAY DIEGO as composer and producer and ZIPSIES as mixing and mastering engineer. Those credits describe the later slowed-and-reverbed edition; the interview itself attributes the original EP’s production to KAY DIEGO.

Continue exploring

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• Noah Ezra on BSTA, Harlem, Yuki Chiba and the “HAR7EM” story
• Tohji profile: the artist who turned isolation into infrastructure
• More exclusive interviews in English
• Read the original Japanese interview

Editorial verification: Release date, track count, runtime and label line were checked against Apple Music on August 21, 2026. The later edition’s track credits and artist-location description were checked against TuneCore Japan. Personal memories, private conversations, the production timeline and creative interpretations remain attributed to BLAISE and D-SETO; HIPHOPCs has not independently reviewed session files, private messages or studio logs.

Interview and original Japanese article by Ito Kotaro. English translation and editing by HIPHOPCs.