Sky-Hi: Taking up the fight for artistic freedom

Mitsuhiro Hidaka never wanted to be a pop music revolutionary. He simply wanted to help a younger generation find their way into Japan's entertainment industry without being forced to compromise their talents.

“I talked to a young dancer, someone who had a good look and was really good at dancing. I heard him singing karaoke, and he even sounded great singing, too,” Hidaka, better known by his artist name Sky-Hi, tells The Japan Times. “I said to him, ‘Someone like you who can sing and dance, which could fulfill a weakness of Japanese entertainment, should become an artist.’ Then he told me that he needed to change himself to suit the style of the management agency if he wanted to be successful.”

The young talent's frustration seemed to strike a chord with Hidaka.

“I see these young talented people, but because they can't find an agency that fits what they want to do, they go through tough times or just quit the entertainment industry," he says. "I had the same issues decades ago, nothing has changed in the years since. So I made my own company, for the younger generations.”

The 35-year-old Sky-Hi (stylized in all caps) launched BMSG (Be My Self Group) in September 2020 to assist artists in pursuing their own path to success in line with a modern, international mindset. Having been active in J-pop for more than two decades, primarily as a member of the Avex-helmed group AAA and, simultaneously, as a solo artist leaning more into hip-hop since 2013, he’s well aware of how slow the industry can be in adapting to global trends.

More importantly, he doesn’t want the gifts of promising young Japanese to go to waste, especially now that alternative paths to stardom have popped up in neighboring South Korea, which has benefitted — and profited — from an influx of talent from this country.

"Things could be better here if we changed the outdated aspects of our industry," Sky-Hi says. As CEO of BMSG, one such area of change has been how his agency approaches the internet. While the major players in Japan's music world have tried to avoid dealing with the web, Sky-Hi leaned into it by pushing his stable of talent on YouTube and other streaming platforms. This has led to him signing an impressive roster that includes rappers Novel Core and edhiii boi, the neo-city pop vocalist Aile The Shota and, BMSG's biggest act so far, the male idol group Be:First (also stylized in all caps).

Taku Takahashi, who is one-third of the group m-flo and a prolific producer in his own right, says Sky-Hi is "changing how the industry once worked."

"He's not a talker," Takahashi says, "he really does it and commits himself to what he is doing."

That drive Takahashi praises comes from a personal place. As a teen, Hidaka struggled to stand out in a crowded musical landscape. He joined entertainment powerhouse Johnny & Associates in 2001, to train in the agency's developmental branch Johnny’s Jr. He largely performed as a backup dancer and made a single appearance on TV, barely visible on the left-hand side of the screen. He left the company a few years later.

While critical of the music industry, Sky-Hi still chooses his answers carefully when speaking and avoids putting blame on individual entities, balancing the traits of a wannabe revolutionary and an established player in the system he hopes to change.

“What’s important to BMSG is that each artist has his own style and musical preferences," he says. "I can feel and see styles in each of our artists. BMSG doesn’t have a specific style or musical preference, but rather, each artist brings his own style and I personally enjoy their choices. That is the baseline of who we are.”

This stands in contrast to other talent agencies, which try to push a specific image tying into their brand strategy. This guiding principle may come from the idea that he wasn't able to try everything he wanted to as a young talent, though he did have the chance to explore hip-hop after joining Avex.

His beliefs on artistic freedom have been a running theme in his work — his 2018 solo album “Japrison” means exactly what you think it does. It has also pushed Sky-Hi to take BMSG in interesting directions, specifically with “The First,” a 2021 reality talent competition that streamed on Hulu, one that he personally spent ¥100 million to create.

“If we stay on this path, I fear that, in Japan, we will never get high-quality dance and vocal groups,” Sky-Hi declared on the show's debut episode, which doubled as a mission statement for BMSG. “Even with great talent and creativity, (performers) never get the chance to show their talents to the world.”

The idea for “The First” came from the recent popularity of “survival shows,” originally via South Korean programs but recently through domestic ones that have helped birth popular outfits such as NiziU and JO1.

“For an audition program or a survival program to be successful or well-received, they often seem to create such a program where they may not consider the participants’ mental health or their future,” he says, adding that he wanted to make a show focused on the participants’ growth and self-awareness as artists and human beings. “I know from my past experiences in this industry how mentally tough it is to chase after a false image once it’s created. Therefore, if you can be true to yourself and to the public from the beginning, you don’t need to lie to yourself.”

The show was a hit and resulted in the creation of the seven-member Be:First, who have enjoyed chart success and been tagged as a "trend to watch" in 2022.

“The kids are trying hard, and Sky-Hi is really passionate about what he’s doing, it inspires me,” says Takahashi, who has produced songs for Be:First. “I’m not in the team, but when I’m working with them, I try to put everything into it. Like my own family.”

While Sky-Hi says he's still trying to get the hang of being the guy in the top seat at an agency — juggling everything can be a challenge, though he makes sure he spends at least 15 minutes a day speaking with a different artist on the roster — he believes he is making headway on his ultimate goal in challenging the Japanese music industry's reluctance to change.

“For BMSG, the timing was the key element for us to get more exposure among Japanese media. During the pandemic, many talent management agencies faced crises in business opportunities,” he says. “The stories and words I expressed were somewhat related to their situation and were probably easier for them to support. What I was expressing was simple, ‘Let’s make things better.’”

This may be why Sky-Hi stays upbeat while talking about the obstacles in his current path. (Although he could also be coming off the high of a recently announced collaboration with 3Racha, a subgroup of the popular South Korean unit Stray Kids.) Next on his agenda: strengthening J-pop's visual elements and fixing the music charts so that they more accurately represent the country's musical tastes. Big challenges for sure, but he’s just being true to himself, and what he wants out of the country’s music industry.

For more information about Sky-Hi and BMSG, visit https://bmsg.tokyo.