When asked to pull up a lyric from his new album, Who We Used to Be, that sums up its ethos, James Blunt’s response is telling. He cites a starry-eyed verse from “Some Kind of Beautiful,” with references to winging through Elysia, shots in the dark and nights that never end. The kicker line: “Heaven’s a place where the lines get crossed.”

“It just feels spontaneous and exciting,” the singer/songwriter we all know for 2004’s “You’re Beautiful,” and its album, Back to Bedlam, tells GRAMMY.com. More than that, it’s reflective of a sea change in his artistry 19 years on — the self-proclaimed past purveyor of “selfish songs about myself” is actively singing outside of himself.

“The questions of life are about not just whether I'll be all right,” says the now-husband and father, ”but whether my children will be all right, the passing of time and how it goes so quickly and that fear that you'll miss out on that time with them.”

Every song on Who We Used to Be is permeated with this empathetic energy; another key line for him comes from “Glow”: "I hope that this night never ends," he wishes aloud. “It's just that thing — life moves pretty fast,” Blunt says. And it certainly did in the Back to Bedlam days — and he feels lucky to still have a fruitful career, with a renewed label deal under his belt.

Read on for an interview with the five-time GRAMMY nominee about how Who We Used to Be came to be, his memories of the mid-2000s music business, and the self-proclaimed irony of putting out a Greatest Hits release. (“I always joke it should be called Greatest Hit and Songs I Wish You Heard,” he cracks.)

This interview has been edited for clarity.

What was the initial creative spark that led to Who We Used to Be?

I think I'm just at a stage of my life where I've got a ton of different things going on, and that was what I was just going to write about is just the things that were inspiring me at the moment.

And once upon a time, I was this young man with a dream to be a musician with so many questions of whether I would achieve that ambition, that dream. Who would I be? Where would I go? Who would I meet? Those kind of things.

I've reached this stage in my life where lots of those questions have been answered. I've met the person I hope to live with for the rest of my life and married her and started a family. And I've been in the music business now for a little while, so I can feel pretty safe about that as a job.

All the questions I had when I was an aspiring musician, many of them have been answered. But at the same time, I've been thrown a ton of new questions. My parents are getting old, and they need looking after. Instead of them looking after me when I was a child, it's my turn to look after them.

My position in the world is changing, because I'm a family man, in charge of a family. Having kids raises these questions. And also there are moments of celebration and moments of sadness along the journey.

I've been in the business now for 20 years. I've lost some friends… obviously, you write about those losses along the way, and lost some battles along the way. But fundamentally, it's also an album of celebration.

If I'm the guy who wrote “You’re Beautiful” about a girl I saw in a subway for one second, then having met the girl who I'm hoping to spend the rest of my days with, the songs better have bigger statements than just saying “You’re beautiful” to her.

So, that's why this album's got great celebratory songs saying "All the love that I ever needed/ I got it from you," as an example. Oh, “I heard there's a song that God only knows and it's keeping me dancing beside you/ Nobody here knows how the melody goes, but it's keeping me dancing beside you.”

That's kind of the idea: just to capture where I'm at now, with its highs and with its lows.

What would you tell that guy who wrote “You’re Beautiful” if you could?

Don't take the blue pill. [Chuckles.] I don't know. I mean, that the same rules apply as now as when you're starting out, which are: follow your instinct. Don't be pushed into following what other people think is best for you, necessarily, particularly when it comes to art and music.

So whilst I have a beautiful relationship with my record label [Atlantic Records, since 2003], and I'm very lucky to be with them, sometimes, when you just go on your own journey, that's what makes things stand out.

How did starting a family change your perspective on art and the world?

Well, I used to write selfish songs about myself — about what was going on in my mind. Now, I write songs with other people in my mind, instead — of people who are more important than me to me.

The questions of life are about not just whether I'll be all right, but whether my children will be all right, the passing of time and how it goes so quickly and that fear that you'll miss out on that time with them.

So, there's a song on this album called “Glow,” and it just says, "I hope that this night never ends." It's just that thing — life moves pretty fast. Yeah so that would be it really, just thinking about other people, songs about other people rather than just about myself.

Build a bridge from that song to another in the tracklisting. Give me another one that takes you out of yourself.

Well, pretty much all of them, I would think. “Saving a Life” is about someone else and the struggle that they have. As a friend to that person, it seems like the answer is so obvious. The way out of the struggle is so easy, but if that person doesn't want that kind of help, then it's not for you to help them.

It's a frustrating feeling. And everyone has that kind of friend who is either in financial difficulty or is in relationship difficulty or has a problem with addiction. You want to help them. But there's an ocean between you, and you can't.

The obvious other song on this album is a song called “Dark Thought” for Carrie Fisher, which it took me just a number of years to actually dive into — 2016. So it's taken me a while to write.

*James Blunt. Photo: Michael Clement*

How did this translate to the music itself? How did it come to reflect that sense of empathy?

I don't think I necessarily thought that the two had to go hand in hand. Each song has got a different idea, a different subject. And with that, every production has been just in keeping with the song, rather than anything else.

What do you remember about building up these songs, and imbuing each with its own character?

Once upon a time, I would get in a studio for maybe four months with a producer like Tom Rothrock, who did my first albums. And we would just bury ourselves to make a body of work that was all interrelated and connected, recorded at the same time, in the same way, with the same musicians. There was a great beauty to that.

I've spoken to him about, "I missed that. I haven't done that with this album." More recently, what I do is I write a song with the guys that I'm in with. We produce it then and there. And there are pros and cons to doing that.

The con is that you don't craft that song as often and as much as I'd like. Sometimes, we want to go back in and change a lyric and it seems annoying. I have to go and see someone in Copenhagen when I just want to change one lyric, one word.

And then, at the same time, the problem I've had sometimes with albums that I've crafted over a long period of time is they lose their spontaneity. You have demo-itis; people will go, "Oh my God. I love the demo." And then you can just smooth off all the edges.

So, by writing a song and recording a song then and there, it keeps its excitement. It keeps that freshness of a fresh idea.

How did you and your accompanists jointly craft the sound of the record, the way you wanted it to strike the listener?

With everything I do, I just know that the more honest it is, the less considered, the less pretentious, the more genuine, then the more the audience will all connect to it. People can really hear that in me.

So, each song has a different production on it, because each song deserves a different kind of production. I just know to not overthink it, but just to enjoy and feel it.

How would you compare recordmaking and album cycles in 2023 to back when you got started?

It's a faster turnover. It's, sometimes, less considered. It's got this kind of organic spontaneity, which is great fun. If I had my way, I think I'd probably prefer to go and sit in a studio and do it over a decent few months. But sometimes, life moves pretty fast.

Back then, how did your relationships change when you skyrocketed to global fame?

Well, they say fame changes you, but they're wrong. Fame changes everybody else.

You walk down the street, and suddenly, when you get famous, everyone on the street behaves really strangely towards you. They all want a selfie and say "Hello," and they can just respond differently. And so you kind of react to that. In the long term, you have to adapt to that.

But for me, I'm an English guy who was in the Army, who went to a boarding school. Sent away to boarding school when I was 7. I was very, very independent. But when the madness of the music business took hold, that's when I called my parents. I hadn't really seen them since I was 7 years old, not properly. I've just left home at that stage. And then I called them up.

And I've always joked that my parents never saw me again. They put me into boarding school and never saw me again until I was famous. But the real truth is I called them when I got famous saying, "I really need support. I really need my family around me.”

When I've been spoiled — behaved like a trumped up little pop-star — they'd smack me down and tell me to act like a normal human being.

And my friends, of course, from whether it be the army or from school or from university, if I was struggling with the press, I could call someone in the army and they'd say, "You think you're having it hardcore. So-and-so's leg has just been blown off here in Afghanistan." That kind of would put things in perspective.

So, my close friends, and my family, have always been the same throughout that time, and I'm very grateful to them. Because I think they're the ones who've kept me a grounded, normal human being.

I think what I was really lucky about is, I got into this business fairly late. I had a proper job. I was 28 when I got in the business. They always talk about young people who get in the business early. There's always that thing. You never grow older than the age you get famous. So, if Michael Jackson got famous at whatever age, he never grew up beyond that age.

And you can see a lot of young people who go into the music business, they don't have a chance then to mature as adults anymore. And I was just lucky to have got in when I was older.

Now that you’ve broken into this fresh emotional territory, what do you feel is next for you?

My Greatest Hits was released a couple of years ago. That was the end of my record deal. And then, fortunately for me, my record label called up and said, "We'd love to sign you up to a new deal."

Now, as you can imagine, the greatest hits, presumably, has all your best songs on it. So all these next songs that I'm releasing now or releasing in the future, none of them are going to be on my greatest hits. It already exists. So these songs are all just gravy. These are all bonus tracks in my life. So I'm just having great fun. I'm kind of liberated by the experience.

Train's Pat Monahan Revisits Every Song On Drops Of Jupiter 20 Years Later: "I'm A Lot Happier Than I Was Back Then"

Music's Biggest Night, the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards, will air live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

In the weeks leading up to the telecast, we will take a stroll through some of the golden moments in GRAMMY history with the GRAMMY Rewind, highlighting the "big four" categories — Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist — from past awards shows. In the process, we'll discuss the winners and the nominees who just missed taking home the GRAMMY, while also shining a light on the artists' careers and the eras in which the recordings were born.

Join us as we take an abbreviated journey through the trajectory of pop music from the 1st Annual GRAMMY Awards in 1959 to this year's 53rd telecast. Today, the GRAMMY Awards remember the year the Dixie Chicks were flying high.

49th Annual GRAMMY Awards
Feb. 11, 2007

Album Of The Year
Winner: Dixie Chicks, Taking The Long Way
Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere
John Mayer, Continuum
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium
Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds

This Album Of The Year win was just the tip of a huge year for the Dixie Chicks, all of which was welcome vindication for the group after a politically charged comment made by singer Natalie Maines at a concert in 2003 had cost the group some fan and radio support. GRAMMY voters rose above the controversy to reward the album's merits. The group would win four GRAMMYs this year, and have won 12 to date. Gnarls Barkley (producer Danger Mouse and singer Cee Lo Green) teamed for a galvanizing album that drew from pop as much as the collaborators' roots in hip-hop. Mayer's Continuum won the Best Pop Vocal Album trophy, and marked his conscious awareness of the social issues of his generation, evidenced by his GRAMMY-winning "Waiting On The World To Change." The Red Hot Chili Peppers earned a nomination with the sprawling Stadium Arcadium, a 28-song double album released in a CD/digital-download age in which double albums rarely exist. Timberlake, the former 'N Sync star, rounded out the nominees with a modern-day, blue-eyed soul record, which ambitiously reached the top of the Billboard 200 in 2006. 

Record Of The Year
Winner: Dixie Chicks, "Not Ready To Make Nice"
Mary J. Blige, "Be Without You"
James Blunt, "You're Beautiful"
Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy"
Corinne Bailey Rae, "Put Your Records On"

The Dixie Chicks took Record Of The Year on the strength of "Not Ready To Make Nice," a fiercely defiant song that contained lines that spoke volumes about their trials, including death threats: "How in the world can the words that I said/Send somebody so over the edge/That they'd write me a letter/Sayin' that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over." "Be Without You" was equally heartfelt, with Blige pouring her soul into every word in her typical no-holds-barred approach, withholding no emotion. "You're Beautiful" was the ballad of the year, a soft ode to the perfection of a woman from the past, just out of the singer's reach. Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" captivated listeners with its combination of retro-soul, inescapable hooks and cutting-edge production. Brit newcomer Rae brought a jazzy feel to the neo-soul of "Put Your Records On," though she started out inspired by all-female punk groups such as L7.

node: video: Dixie Chicks Win Record Of The Year

Song Of The Year
Winner: Dixie Chicks, "Not Ready To Make Nice"
Mary J. Blige, "Be Without You"
James Blunt, "You're Beautiful"
Corinne Bailey Rae, "Put Your Records On"
Carrie Underwood, "Jesus, Take The Wheel"

The Dixie Chicks completed their sweep of the "big four" categories for which they're eligible with a Song Of The Year win for "Not Ready To Make Nice," which the group wrote with Dan Wilson, whose band Semisonic scored a Best Rock Song GRAMMY nomination for "Closing Time" in 1998. Blige co-wrote "Be Without You" with hot R&B writers Johnta Austin, Bryan-Michael Cox and Jason Perry. Blunt wrote "You're Beautiful" with Amanda Ghost and Sacha Skarbek. Ghost, former president of Epic Records, also received a nomination for her production work on Beyoncé's GRAMMY-nominated Album Of The Year, I Am…Sasha Fierce, at the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards. Rae teamed with John Beck and Steve Chrisanthou for "Put Your Records On." Beck's credits include Tasmin Archer's "Sleeping Satellite," a Top 40 hit in 1993. Finally, Underwood scored a No. 1 Country Singles hit with "Jesus, Take The Wheel," a tune written by country songwriting stalwarts Brett James, Hillary Lindsey and Gordie Sampson. The track also picked up Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance honors.

node: video: "Not Ready To Make Nice" Wins Song Of The Year

Best New Artist
Winner: Carrie Underwood
James Blunt
Chris Brown
Imogen Heap
Corinne Bailey Rae

Underwood became the first, and so far only, "American Idol" alumnus to win the Best New Artist award. It was a solid choice, as the singer has gone on to win five GRAMMY Awards in her still growing career. Blunt's five nominations this year didn't result in any wins, but were a testament to the impact this newcomer made. Brown has earned four more nominations since his Best New Artist nod as he continues to develop an impressive career. Heap may not have won here, but she became the first female to win the Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, GRAMMY in 2009 for Ellipse. Rae also missed the cut, but would win the next year in the Album Of The Year category as part of the ensemble cast assembled by Herbie Hancock for his River: The Joni Letters album.

node: video: Carrie Underwood Wins Best New Artist

Come back to GRAMMY.com tomorrow as we revisit the milestone 50th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Tune in to the 53rd Annual GRAMMY Awards live from Staples Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Follow GRAMMY.com for our inside look at GRAMMY news, blogs, photos, videos, and of course nominees. Stay up to the minute with GRAMMY Live. Check out the GRAMMY legacy with GRAMMY Rewind. Keep track of this year's GRAMMY Week events, and explore this year's GRAMMY Fields. Or check out the collaborations at Re:Generation, presented by Hyundai Veloster. And join the conversation at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

IPod Named Decade's Top Music Moment
Apple's introduction of the iPod in 2001 was named Billboard's top music moment of the decade. Other moments making the top 10 included the death of Michael Jackson in 2009, the launch of "American Idol" in 2002, the introduction of YouTube in 2005, and Led Zeppelin's reunion concert in 2007. (12/29)

James Blunt Tops UK Decade Album Chart
James Blunt's Back To Bedlam (2004) was the decade's top-selling album in the UK with sales of 3.1 million copies as of 2008, besting Dido's No Angel (1999), according to the Official Charts Company. Amy Winehouse's Back To Black (2006) was No. 3, followed by Leona Lewis' Spirit (2007) and David Gray's White Ladder (1998). (12/29)

Music Video Games Sales Decline In 2009
Sales of music video games will total $700 million in 2009, down 50 percent from sales of $1.4 million in 2008, according to a Wedbush Morgan Securities report based on data from NPD Group. The projected decline is due to sales of new high-profile releases not meeting forecasted sales expectations. "The Beatles: Rock Band," which has sold 800,000 units, failed to meet first-month sales forecasts of 1 million units; "Guitar Hero 5" sold 500,000 units in its first month compared to "Guitar Hero III," which sold 1.4 million units in its first month in 2007; and "DJ Hero"'s sales of 123,000 units in its first days of release led analysts to cut their yearly sales forecast from 1.6 million units to 600,000 units. (12/29)
 

No one is arguing that “Bridgerton” is realistic or even particularly historically accurate — in fact, leaning into anachronisms is the point. Entering its third season, which premieres on May 16, the pulpy Netflix show based on a series of romance novels by Julia Quinn — often classified as “bodice rippers” — mixes modern life ideas with Regency-era social rules.

From Lady Whistledown's tantalizing gossip columns to the complex romances of the Bridgerton siblings, the series grips viewers with its blend of historical drama and contemporary flair. One key note in that chord is classical music. Instead of using current tracks like some historical-contemporary-hybrids (most famously “A Knight’s Tale" in 2001), “Bridgerton” has mastered the art of the classical cover. 

Paired with original compositions by Kris Bowers, an Oscar winner and GRAMMY nominee — including one for Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media for "Bridgerton" — the tone of the show is that of a heightened, classic world. Bowers, along with music supervisor Justin Kamps collaborates with the Vitamin String Quartet and other artists to create a full circle sonic landscape. They make the classical music in “Bridgerton” pop by re-recording, rearranging, and reimagining contemporary pop songs as classic pieces. 

Over three seasons, as well as with the spin off, “Queen Charlotte,” the team has included a mix of the newest songs as well as nostalgic favorites. This season features GAYLE’s “abcdefu,” which was released in 2022 as well as a cover of Pitbull, Ne-Yo, and Afrojack’s “Give Me Everything,” which was released in 2011, which can appease the full gamut of millennial and Gen Z viewers.  

Regency traditions 

The Regency period in which the show is based, spanned from 1811 to 1820, and was known as an era of elegance and refinement in British history.  In the first chunk of the 1800s, pop music included pieces by Beethoven, Liszt, Haydn, and Mendlesson (famous for the “Wedding March”). Waltzes were all the rage, and this “new” music was considered much more emotional and passionate than previous offerings. The romance of being swept away in a dance increased the thrill, and string quartets were highly popular. 

As seen throughout the series (and much like today), society placed a significant emphasis on social gatherings and music played a central role in these events. Balls, soirées, and intimate musical evenings were common, the perfect backdrop for orchestrating romance. 

In “Bridgerton," the show's modern portrayal of the Regency period occasionally features or references music from the time period, such as Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” which was written a century before the events in the show but was and is still a popular piece of classical music. The show frequently uses arrangements of classical songs in a slightly modern way, but most often, it underscores scenes with either classically arranged covers of pop songs or original music by Bowers. 

Contemporary music covers

Choosing between a cover or original music is a nuanced decision for the music team. The music team considers “whether or not, there's something that can, lyrically, even though we don't hear lyrics, speak to a moment really well,” said Bowers. Absent a cover by an outside band, Bowers arranges pop hits to suit the tone of the scene. He said, “when you're saying something with a song, you're making commentary on what's happening.” 

When they do outsource tracks, more often than not, these covers come from Los Angeles-based Vitamin String Quartet. VSQ is the new Mendlesson in that they have been the predominant wedding-march artist for nearly a decade, known for producing string renditions of highly eclectic mix of artists including Cardi B, Lana Del Rey, Björk, and Sigur Rós. 

They contributed four covers in season one, including Billie Elish's “bad guy” and Ariana Grande's “Thank U, Next,” about which Leo Flynn, VSQ Brand Manager at CMH Label Group said, “Talk about a great track changing the temperature of a room.” In season two, VSQ’s cover of Robyn's “Dancing on My Own” played under a dance scene. 

When we spoke to James Curtiss, Director of A&R at CMH, the song placements for season three were still a mystery. Curtiss shared, “When we finished that Taylor [Swift] record, we sent it right over to the people at ‘Bridgerton.’” 

[Spoiler alert:] Since then, we have learned Swift's “Snow on the Beach” will be featured in season three. This isn't the first time Swift's music has been featured in the show: Duomo’s cover of “Wildest Dreams” played under the honeymoon scenes in season one. 

Composer Bowers added his favorite cover of the season is in episode eight, the finale, but what title that is will be a surprise. The surprise of an “unexpected cover” as Bowers calls it is that when you “hear a song that you know, and have this strong indelible connection with it that is represented in this style that you typically don't feel like is for you. People get excited by having this music that they really love be elevated to this other level.” He said the familiarity makes “you feel connected to this time period, these characters, and these people in a different way.” 

Flynn said, “There’s something about the past that’s inherently romantic,” and the use of VSQ songs “unites something from the past with what’s going on now.” Because classical music “feels very idealized and formal,” he said, “there’s all this history and mystique built into it.” 

Flynn also mentioned that “Bridgerton” fuses past and present on a “major storytelling scale” between the historically-inspired stories themselves, the “visual feast” of the show, and the music. Curtiss added that the “romantic nature of the string quartet” juxtaposed with pop songs helps viewers tie the feeling of going to a bar or club to the experience of hearing “the popular bangers of the day,” as he called Beethoven et al., at a ball in the Regency era. 

Original compositions

When the music needs to set a specific tone without taking the audience out of the action to try and name that tune, “Bridgerton” often uses original compositions by Bowers. Bowers said, “Looking at pop music for those things like rhythm and tempo and all that stuff also helps in moments where we want to have the score feel a little bit more modern and not as traditional.” He continued, “I’ll put something in the violas and the celli that have this kind of guitar and bass feeling to them even though we’re looking at it orchestrationally from a classical perspective.” He explained that “borrowing the rhythms or the way that parts interlock from pop music” makes it feel like a modern classical sound. 

Each character and couple has their own theme. Bowers explained that it was enjoyable to create themes that could fit both heartbreaking and celebratory moments. “The melodies are still the same even if the harmonic tone is changed,” he said.

Instrumental Pop In Visual Media

The “Bridgerton” style of using instrumentalized versions of pop songs is not unique. Famously, “Promising Young Woman” used a haunting version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” adapted by Anthony Willis, and “Westworld’s” Ramin Djawadi used adaptations of Radiohead among others. “Wednesday” featured a stirring string version of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black.” The popularity of Vitamin String Quartet and other classical cover bands has not waned and, if anything, is becoming more of a mainstream staple.

As season three approaches, the unveiling of the time-spanning, romantic soundtrack is highly anticipated. Four episodes air May 16 and the second half of the season airs June 13, with original compositions by Kris Bowers and additional music by various artists, including Vitamin String Quartet, who will be taking over Pandora’s Classical Goes Pop in anticipation of their fall, “Bridgerton”-music-filled tour. 

Overall, to find the tone of the whole series, Bowers said, “Season three actually has a lot more lightness to it. (Showrunners) Shonda (Rhimes) and Jess (Brownell) really want to have a lot of fun this season so there's a little bit more of a playful, youthful quality to the music.” Whatever tunes make it into the season, they are sure to be a feast for the ears. 

Meet Usher Collaborator Pheelz, The Nigerian Producer & Singer Who Wants You To 'Pheelz Good’

"Your story is like that of a superhero. Literally, there needs to be a Marvel movie about her."

So gushed moderator Jamie Dominguez, the national director of industry relations at the Mechanical Licensing Collective, onstage at the acoustically designed National Sawdust space in Brooklyn. To a small crowd hiding out from the spring drizzle, Dominguez extolled the remarkable journey of Japanese hip-hop artist Awich. Hailing from Okinawa, Japan, Awich may just be a flesh-and-blood woman, but her sheer fortitude and tenacity are Stan Lee-scaled.

Born Akiko Urasaki — her stage name is short for "Asian wish child" — Awich was a natural fit for  the GRAMMY Museum-sponsored "A New York Evening With…" interview and performance series. Introducing Awich and Dominguez, Lynne Sheridan, Vice President of Public Programming and Artist Relations for the GRAMMY Museum, called her "the queen of Japanese hip-hop" and "the living embodiment of all that makes the genre so culturally vital."

"As she reaches global stardom on the strength of her music’s emotional potency and limitless originality," Sheridan continued, "Awich now moves forward with her mission of uplifting her community while fearlessly speaking her truth." With that, Awich and Dominguez hit the ground running, with a tip of Dominguez’s hat to the timeliness of the event: "Happy AANHPI month."

They started at the beginning: Awich is from Okinawa, a small island far from the Japanese mainland. To hear Dominguez tell it, Brooklyn is actually full of Okinawans. "I figured," Awich replied, "because Okinawans are everywhere."

The importance of Okinawa’s innate mysticism and turbulent history to Awich’s art cannot be overstated. As Awich explained, Okinawa was once the Ryukyu Kingdom, colonized by China, then Japan, before becoming an American territory after World War II. Her parents grew up during the latter period, which lasted until The United States returned Okinawa to Japan in the early 1970s.

"When they gave it back," everything changed," Awich said. "We drove on the other side of the road, the currency was different. It was always chaos, but Okinawan people always found a way to live through these complex changes." Because Okinawans, she says, are a resilient, hospitable people, "We value each other as brothers and sisters."

Awich speaking at National Sawdust during her "A New York Evening With..." appearance in 2024. Photo: Rob Kim/Getty Images

Awich’s father was born on the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; in the post-war era, it was rough going for Awich’s family, to put it lightly. One particularly jarring story involved a U.S. military jet crashing into a schoolhouse while her mom was in attendance.

In 1986, Awich was born in an Okinawa steeped in American influence. As a teenager, she became obsessed with Tupac Shakur; listening to the hip-hop icon helped her learn English. "In Japanese, it's like there's a different, poetic, more indirect way of expressing. It's beautiful in its own way, but I felt like English is so simple, to the point and quick." Which describes the quintessentially American hip-hop idiom to a T.

"What he was saying and what he was doing, what his passion was, what his message was, his poetry book, his interviews, his speeches at the community center, his lyrics, his struggles, that's all I wanted to know," Awich says of Tupac. "And I just would study him all day, all night."

While she later learned to sing — and sing tremendously — rap proved to be her ideal creative vehicle. "I was already a poet in my own head before I met rap music, she said. "So when I [became acquainted with] rap music, I felt like, 'Oh, you don't have to sing to be a musician? I can do this!" 

The story rolled on: at 19, Awich moved to the U.S., against her parents’ wishes. "They gave up because I was a stubborn young lady," the rapper said impishly. She opted to put down roots, not in the "overwhelming" New York or LA, but in Atlanta, partly to "watch the city grow."

She met her future husband on a fluke, walking to school; he convinced her to play hooky. "I sometimes hitchhiked to school, because it was just so far away," Awich said. "I was looking in his eyes; I'm like, All right, I don't think he's a serial killer. And then I got into the car and we started talking."

It was through him that Awich learned about the Five-Percent Nation, an Afro-American Nationalist movement that deeply informed hip-hop legends like the Wu-Tang Clan. "It really teaches the Black, brown and yellow to be the original people of the earth… It was really fascinating to me." One thing led to another, and they fell in love and wed.

Awich’s husband was complicated and troubled, and unfortunately, involved in the criminal world — and, as such, in and out of jail. Just as they found out Awich was pregnant, he was incarcerated. Three days before their daughter, Toyomi Jah’mira, was born, he was released. 

Tragically, not long after, her husband was murdered in a street beef — the brutal culmination of violent events that included gunfire directed at their home. Of course, Awich was devastated. She turned to education as an outlet, earning a social degree in Georgia, and then two bachelor degrees at the University of Indianapolis. Then, she and Toyomi moved back to Okinawa.

"So you were a wife, a mother, and widow, all before the age of 24," Dominguez remarked. Awich answered in the affirmative.

Awich felt unmoored back in Okinawa. "It was a rollercoaster of emotion every day. One day I feel so sad and depressed, and the next day I feel like I could change the world," she related. "And the thing that kept me going was writing. I kept on writing journals, the things that I accustomed to do ever since I was a child. And I just kept on writing, writing, talking to myself."

After two years and a long talk with herself, Awich redoubled her commitment to music. And the conversation led to her creative process. Namely, writing and singing in three different languages — Okinawan, Japanese, and English. "The goal is for me to kind of just express or just catch what comes out in my mind," Awich said. "Each language has its own personality."

Awich talked about the meaning behind her latest album, The Union — "If you don’t know who you are, you won’t allow people to be who they are, and the unification of people coming together will never be achieved," she said.

She also discussed the hurdles of being an Asian woman in rap ("I always think that if I was a guy, I would've been way more famous"), and her appreciation of the Black culture that birthed her artform of choice. "I identify with the struggle," she said. "Hip-hop, the music, the culture, it represents the basic human struggle, and that's why it touches the people all around the world."

After a brief audience Q&A (mostly adulation from fans, and the revelation that she’s Team Kendrick in the Kendrick-Drake beef), Toyomi took the stage. ("Thank you for coming for my mom," the teenager sweetly, and sheepishly, offered.)

Following a projected video for Awich's song "Ashes" — about she and her daughter spreading her husband’s ashes in the sea — she then launched into a brief yet head-spinning performance of her trilingual bangers: “Queendom,” “Rasen in Okinawa,” “The Union,” and “Gila Gila.”

And with that, the globally rising star took her leave. "You’re about to take off into outer space, and it’s going to be beautiful," Dominguez said near the end. And, well — that’s what real-life superheroes do: transcend trauma, heartbreak and destruction, and take to the stars.

An "Evening With" Gossip's Beth Ditto Turns Hilarious & Rockin' With Real Power Tracks