Crunchyroll is gearing up for the fall anime season, and to celebrate, they’ve teamed up with critically acclaimed rapper Che Lingo and Cö shu Nie member Miku Nakamura to release a new song called LIFETIME alongside a trailer for the fall 2023 anime season. The collaboration between Che Lingo, Miku Nakamura, and Crunchyroll is sure to excite fans of anime who are ready to get excited about the upcoming season of anime.
Anyone who is familiar with Jujutsu Kaisen will be familiar with Lingo’s work, as the UK-based artist contributed to the soundtrack for the massive shonen hit’s first season. Now, Che Lingo returns to the world of anime alongside Miku Nakamura for LIFETIME and Crunchyroll’s fall 2023 anime trailer. The trailer is epic, featuring a wide variety of incredible moments from big franchises like Jujutsu Kaisen, Spy x Family, and One Piece. According to Crunchyroll, the full cut of LIFETIME will be available on Spotify soon.
Che Lingo & Miku Nakamura Team Up With Crunchyroll for Fall Anime Trailer
To commemorate Crunchyroll’s first official musical collaboration, we spoke to Che Lingo about his love of anime and the process of collaborating on something as hype as LIFETIME.
Screen Rant: Your new song Lifetime is the first time a song has been produced for Crunchyroll. Can you talk a little bit about how that collaboration came to be?
Che Lingo: I’d already written music for another anime (Jujutsu Kaisen) in 2020, so I’d been invited to some anime movie premieres the year after in London and I happened to meet some of the UK team a few times. Some of the team already knew about my prior album “The Worst Generation” as it’s a One Piece reference and when they learned about my work in JJK, me being from the city, and my personal relationship with anime we started talking about ways to collab. This was a sincere and genuine result of those moments.
Screen Rant: The hip-hop scene in Japan is obviously quite different from the ones in America and in the U.K. Has your music been influenced by Japan’s hip-hop scene? Was that difference something you were conscious of when contributing to the soundtrack of Jujutsu Kaisen season 1?
Che Lingo: I’ve been predisposed to a lot of different sounds since I first started going to the studio as a teenager. I resonated most with Hiphop, Grime & Jazz. All very rebellious but deeply soulful and fiercely expressive styles of music. Coming from that its almost instinctual to just start thinking of lyrics & melodies in my head even when there’s no music, so working with Youki Yamamoto and Hiroaki Tsutsumi on the music they’d composed and produced for JJK season 1 was a fun way to return to that instinct.
Screen Rant: Obviously when the topic of anime music comes up, I think the first thing that comes to many minds is the subject of openings. Do you have a top 5 anime openings that are personal favorites?
Che Lingo: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure music is top-tier full stop in my opinion — insane guitars. Jujutsu Kaisen (Vivid Vice) is a favourite. Hunter X Hunter’s first Opening was really well arranged, Soul Eater’s use of drums and guitars and hi-hats in the first OP was dope & both Death Note’s OP were just dark, beautiful, and lyrical in very unique ways.
Screen Rant: Even outside of openings, are there any anime soundtracks that have been particularly influential for you?
Che Lingo: I came into anime quite early as a kid and my house was filled with Reggae and Jazz mostly, so as much as I enjoyed the music on some of them —I didn’t listen to a lot of them consciously enough to name a specific soundtracks influence, especially with it being in Japanese most of the time. It definitely developed my musical pallet as I grew up though, for sure.
Screen Rant: What was the collaboration process of working with Miku like? Was there any sort of language barrier and was that difficult to overcome?
Che Lingo: Miku is insanely talented and working with her was very cool, especially as it’s also my first international feature officially. The language barrier melted really early, we moved quite beautifully from longer explanations through an excellent translator and friend of Miku’s, to more fluid sentiments and melody convos whilst recording. It’s dope how music can do that. I’d love to make more music with Miku in future.
Screen Rant: Given that you’re such a big fan of anime, it must have been incredibly exciting to collaborate for the soundtrack of a series like Jujutsu Kaisen. What was the process like for creating the songs you worked on for that soundtrack? Was there any added pressure knowing that those songs were attached to a series with as much hype behind it as Jujutsu Kaisen?
Che Lingo: I’d seen news about the anime coming and already promised myself I’d watch it on release. So when I was contacted about writing more than one song for the soundtrack it felt surreal. Recording at Pinewood Studios, working with renowned composer Youki Yamamoto and Hiroaki Tsutsumi who’s known for writing a lot of music for Pokémon too and all through Manon Dave, a fellow musician & composer (and close friend) who introduced Youki and Toho Animations to my music — I saw it more as a freeing experience than a pressurising one. The alignment was too specific and too unique. I think it would’ve been disservice to not give my all because of my nerves. Especially for something so influential and important to the anime community at large and to me personally. I rose as high as I could to the occasion did what I had to do, had fun, and was grateful to be recognized.
Thank you to Che Lingo for speaking with us. Check out Che Lingo and Miku Nakamrua’s work on LIFETIME for Crunchyroll’s fall 2023 anime trailer!
