Translated by CLAUDIA
March 2003

This year Amuro Namie will turn twenty-six. She’s moved from her first stage, where she was the fashion leader of the young generation, and her presence itself continued to be charismatic, to her second stage, as an adult woman, and Japanese R&B diva. She, who continues to change, told Frau about ‘Those things that change, and those that don’t’. We are spellbound again by a beautiful, simple and elegant Amuro Namie such as we have never seen before.

‘Singing and dancing. That is my pride. I don’t want to lose to anyone.’
Aside from my work, in my everyday private life, I’m not a very adventureous person. I don’t look for change.

Even in what I eat, for example, my favorite and least favorite foods never change. My favorite thing in the world is Zaru-soba, and it has been since my debut. If I had to give something that changed recently, it’s nothing more than the fact that I have always liked vanilla ice cream best, and then one day I suddenly switched to liking green tea ice green. (laughter)

Also, I’ve gotten really into video games, one of the two ‘current major hobbies’ of comic books and video games. Now, on nights that I can’t sleep, I play video games alone until the morning. ‘Momotaro Densetsu’ and that kind of thing. SAM-san loves video games, and at first I would always just watch him, but after a while I wanted to try it myself. I love action games like ‘Biohazard’, and when the movie of ‘Tomb Raider’ came out, I went straight to the theatre to see it. It was watching her play Lara Croft that I started to really like Angelina Jolie.

‘I don’t care what everyone else is doing’
For the most part, I don’t care about what everyone else is doing, or what is popular. It doesn’t make me want to change. In fact, if people keep on about something to me, it makes me not like it even more. (laughter) I have to be interested in something on my own. Other than that, the thing that makes me interested is the actions and ideas of people about whom I think ‘I can trust this feeling’.

Even where music is concerned, my basic love for R&B hasn’t changed, but lately I’ve grown able to listen to rock without resisting. This was because Pink, who I love, started to do rock songs, and they were cool. Right now I’m doing a project called ‘Suite Chic’ with people like Zeebra-san and Verbal-san who represent R&B and Hip-Hop in Japan. Before, even when I did R&B or Hip-hop, the name ‘Amuro Namie’ got in the way, and there was some part that never sounded like [R&B or Hip-Hop], but [in this project] that part has become clear, and for the first time I’ve been able to put out a completely different side of myself. I really like to be able be really bold and put out a different side of myself, thanks to people I trust, I think. So I’m having a lot of fun right now.

‘Even now I’m really careful and a coward when it comes to people’

Where make-up is concerned, since I dance and work up a sweat, I never like mascara. Then when I met my current make-up artist, she forcibly put mascara on me (laughter) and I was always kind of against that, but then I grew to trust her, and when I let her do it really throuroughly, it actually looked pretty good. Lately I put on mascara even when I’m doing my make-up on a day off.

Even where friendship is concerned, it takes me a long time to trust people. I guess you could say I’m cautious, or a coward. Because in general I always start off by mistrusting everyone. (laughter) I think that that turns a lot of people off when they first meet me. For example, when I go on ‘Music Station’, everyone else is a member of a group. At times like that, I’m the only solo artist so I’m just standing there completely alone. And it pisses me off, so I give out this ‘Don’t come talk to me’ aura. I wonder why. I really do want people to come and talk to me. (laughter) Once when Puffy-san were next to me and they said to me ‘That outfit is really cute.’, I got flustered and just answered ‘Oh, yeah.’, and that was the end of that. (laughter) I’ve always been painfully shy, and this has gotten a little better since I started working, but I’m definately not someone who makes friends easily. But lately I’ve begun to think that quality is more important than quantity. Is there a similarity between the people I trust? Well, I guess they’re all odd. (laughter) Because that way I can feel at ease with them.

The arrival of new people is a stimulus
The one thing that I think will never change for me as an artist is my predilection for ‘singing and dancing’. If we’re talking about just singing, there are many people who are better than me, and there are people that I can’t best at dance. But I believe that as far as singing and dancing are concerned, that when the two are joined together, I can definately become the best. Or, to to be honest, even if I don’t have 100% confidence, I want to perform as though I do.

Only, artists that both sing and dance will continue to come out. In truth, part of me is afraid of their apperance. But if there were no artists like that, someone like me who has no sense of adventure could soon start to think ‘Oh, this is fine.’, and not change or grow at all. So I want to make it a good stimulus, and continue to always challenge myself with some new cool thing that they couldn’t do. For example, Britney Spears is already complete as an artist at such a young age, and that feels great. But in the same way, I think that Janet Jackson and Madonna are amazing. Because they’re continually evolving. I honestly think that they are truely amazing. I hope that I myself can become like that someday. In order to do that, I’ll continue to work as hard as I can, and I won’t be afraid of gradually changing.