On the heels of their first United States concert ever, we had to opportunity to sit down with hip hop duo Creepy Nuts at Anime NYC 2024. DJ Matsunaga and MC R-Shitei make up this duo and together the pair has released a variety of high-energy, genre-blending songs since their major label debut in 2017. The conversation between them and members of the press touched on a variety of areas, including their creative process, favorite horror movies, how a surge in popularity has affected and not affected them, and their reaction to international attention from anime fans.
Sections of this interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Creativity and Blending Styles
Among the creativity endemic to their musical performances, one of the more creative parts about Creepy Nuts is their name, something plenty of fans (and the members of the press) were curious about. While DJ Matsunaga-san didn’t delve into the exact details of where the name came from or what the inspiration for it was, he did seem to imply that the duo may have come up with something different had they known they’d become a global success in the way that they have.
“I somewhat regret my choice at this point (laughs). I wasn’t expecting worldwide audiences, so I’m a little embarrassed now.”
More broadly, speaking to the creative process behind Creepy Nuts’ work, he went on to explain that the duo iterates on a track by sending it back and forth and building on it over time.
“I create the beat in a really simple framework, fairly long, but then I send it to R-Shitei to swim in it, to experience it, to enjoy it, to iterate on it, and so that’s the beginning of the process of iteration, where the one side that’s working on it sends back something, and then there’s an expectation and beating the expectation of each other’s performance and creation.”
The styles that both DJ Matsunaga-san and R-Shitei-san make use of have countless inspirations, truly too many to count. When asked about who some of their biggest inspirations were and how those sources of inspiration shaped Creepy Nuts’ sound, they couldn’t point to just one thing, but instead to the confluence of musical inspirations they’ve experienced. DJ Matsunaga-san explained:
“It’s really hard to point to one specific influence. It’s everything I’ve absorbed, everything, all the music that has surrounded me. Within myself it’s a summation and a division; it’s really a matrix of music that I’ve heard throughout my lifetime that’s shaped me and influenced me.”
While not specifically on a question about inspiration, R-Shitei-san did speak to one of his personal favorite things: horror movies. The MC has spoken in the past about wanting to work on horror anime sometime in the future. The press asked him what some of his favorite horror movies or anime are.
“I really enjoy the genre of horror. Of course anything that I’ve already sung about in my lyrics, like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But I also really like visual special effects that are not CG like The Howling, the Halloween series, and Hellraiser. But for a recent set, I really like Some Like It Rare, Slaxx, and Get Out. those are some of the titles that I appreciate.”
In the case of both members of Creepy Nuts, fan expectations and industry demands are ever-present concepts that interface with their own creativity — for better or worse. On the question of accounting for these expectations from fans and balancing them alongside the duo’s inborn creativity, they had this to say.
DJ Matsunaga-san: What the audience wants, trying to guess that is a direction that is really difficult to get to. There is no destination in that way of thinking, and so what I want to do is really create the music that I enjoy. I want to enjoy music, and so I really don’t like to think about other influences beyond what I enjoy musically. I prefer to just be true to myself.
R-Shitei-san: Whenever I’ve thought, ‘All right, this is going to be a hit,’ it’s just kind of okay. Whereas when I don’t expect anything, it’s really natural. That’s when I’ve really had great feedback from the audience, so I’ve decided that it’s not worth thinking about either.
Hits and International Reception
Two of the anime Creepy Nuts has recently performed openings or endings for are MASHLE: MAGIC AND MUSCLES and Call of the Night. The duo recorded the opening of the former’s second season at the beginning of 2024. Creepy Nuts actually helped inspire the Call of the Night manga with their “Yofukashi no Uta,” which ultimately became the series’ ending song (they also performed a new song, titled “Daten,” as the series’ opening). The opening to MASHLE season 2 in particular, “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born,” absolutely blew up online, spawning countless hours of content from fans. Creepy Nuts will also be performing the opening song for upcoming anime DAN DA DAN. I asked about how it felt to perform songs such as those after even their prior work has been so well received by fans. DJ Matsunaga-san explained that while the positive reception from fans is great, it’s by no means the motivation behind the music.
“Yes the reception was great, but that’s not what we write music for. What we write music for is to create our sound and to be ourselves. The reception is always wonderful and we’re really happy to see that so many people enjoy our music. But with every song, what we do is we do our own thing, we do our very best to create music that is unique to us and free to us.”
Additionally, he remarked that while some aspects of Creepy Nuts’ musical presence have of course changed with increasing popularity, the core of the duo’s music hasn’t changed. As mentioned earlier, they weren’t expecting to have such a worldwide audience and the reception has been surprising to them. Even so, it hasn’t made them into fundamentally different artists.
R-Shitei-san: We really weren’t expecting such a worldwide audience, and so yesterday was a complete surprise to see how much New York was into our music. We really felt that the audience was singing with us, even in Japanese. And so being able to perform live in the U.S. finally made it feel real. This is reality, because we were able to experience the audience and the music together in New York last night.
DJ Matsunaga-san: As a musician, I’ve always had the fortune to create the music I felt was true to me. So that hasn’t changed overnight. That hasn’t changed since the mega hit. But what has changed is the ability to be, for example, here [in the United States] and have more of a worldwide audience listening to our creation, to our music. And so I really do feel that it’s a moment of appreciation. I’m grateful that new doors are opening, new scenery is available to us, new experiences are available to us. So gratitude? Yes. Have I changed as a musician? No.
Looking toward the duo’s much more recent work, they were recently featured on Dua Lipa’s remix of “Illusion.” When asked how they approached the remix differently than they would for their original music, Creepy Nuts explained that the stylistic and linguistic differences affected their approach.
DJ Matsunaga-san: Usually, our tracks are rap-based, as where this was really a song-based creation, and so that was unique. Even more, it’s two different languages that I had to blend together, and so how to synchronize two completely different languages I thought may be difficult, but it turned out to be very enjoyable. I feel really lucky that I had the opportunity.
R-Shitei-san: My lyrics are usually my personal world. It’s my personal experience, me as a core. As we’re in this situation [doing a remix], I’m entering an existing world. I’m coming into somebody else’s world, and so, how do I enter into this existing world? And as far as “Illusion,” what’s my interpretation of this? How do I work it into this creation? […] it was really enjoyable to experience something where another person’s world already exists and I’m entering and moving into such a situation.
We’d like to thank both members of Creepy Nuts for speaking with press and giving us a peek into their creative process amidst international success. The duo is performing the opening song, titled “Otonoke,” for the upcoming DAN DA DAN anime. Keep an eye out for future news of their performances and anime collaborations.
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