Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Nigo (2000)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Nigo, aka Tomoaki Nagao, and often stylised as NIGO®, grew up in Japan where from a young age he would read and watch Last Orgy, a magazine column and TV program presented by Major Force’s Takagi Kan and Hiroshi Fujiwara. During the early 1990’s Nigo started his own column with his friend Jun Takahashi titled Last Orgy 2. At the time Nigo was working as Fujiwara’s assistant, and it was through Fujiwara that Nigo earned his nickname which means “number two”, and represented his role as Fujiwara’s assistant and the pairs likeness.
In 1993 Nigo and Jun Takahashi founded the Nowhere store in Tokyo, and soon saw them launch their own brands, with Jun Takahashi starting Undercover, and Nigo teaming with the designer Sk8thing to create BAPE, or A Bathing Ape. Nigo’s brand utilised images from the Planet of the Apes series of films, and also borrowed one of the series slogans “Ape Shall Never Kill Ape” as their own.
Outside of fashion, Nigo also had an interest in music, and he DJed and played the drums, occasionally playing with Tokyo Sex Pistols, which also featured Jun Takahashi and Hikaru Iwanaga. As BAPE grew, Nigo began amassing a collection of toys, artwork, and movie memorabilia, accruing a large collection of Star Wars action figures, and he would soon meet a fellow collector who helped would become important to his future as a musician.
In 1995 Nigo met James Lavelle in London when he visited the Mo’ Wax offices, and the two bonded over their love of Star Wars and collecting. As their respective brands grew, it was only natural that they would work together, and they collaborated twice in 1997. First was a mix CD titled 60 Min’s Of Mo’Wax Shit, which was included in a special package for the Nowhere store anniversary. The mix featured music from across Mo’ Wax’s catalogue such as DJ Shadow, Money Mark, and UNKLE, and James Lavelle also DJed at the Nowhere anniversary party which included DJ sets from Nigo, and Hiroshi Fujiwara, among others.
Their second collaboration, a 2xCD compilation titled A Bathing Ape Vs Mo’ Wax, was released in Japan in October 1997. Lavelle would explain how the collaboration came about, “I just wanted to do something with Nigo. Something that hadn’t been done before. This CD is a combination of our strengths, a blend of all of those elements. In a way, it’s quite a mad project.” The compilation included some exclusive UNKLE songs, with March Of The General a collaboration between Lavelle, Nigo, Masayuki Kudo, and Tony Vegas of The Scratch Perverts. The song was recorded in London over two days and was the beginning of Nigo’s next project, his debut solo album.
At the time Lavelle’s UNKLE project was completing their debut album with production handled by DJ Shadow, but many of UNKLE’s earlier songs, included those featured on A Bathing Ape Vs Mo’Wax, were produced by Masayuki Kudo of the Japanese record label Major Force. Kudo had set up the Major Force West studio with Toshio Nakanishi within the Mo’ Wax building soon after moving to London in 1992, and as Kudo moved on from UNKLE he worked with Nigo, producing his debut album Ape Sounds. Sessions began in London before relocating to Tokyo, and the album also featured contributions from Money Mark, who Kudo had worked with in 1995 on some abandoned UNKLE album sessions.
Ape Sounds was released in Japan in 1999 by Toy’s Factory, and by Mo’ Wax in the UK in 2000, and the Japanese and UK editions of Ape Sounds are slightly different, most notably in the artwork, but also with a slightly different tracklisting as well. UNKLE’s March Of The General has been remixed for the Japanese album and is titled Symphony №25910 -Escape From Planet Of The Apes-, while it appears in its original form for the UK edition. The song had also been released in Japan as an UNKLE single in 1998, and for this release was re-titled Ape Shall Never Kill Ape.
Mo’ Wax released two singles from Ape Sounds, starting with Kung Fu Fightin’ in July 2000, a song which featured Major Force’s Toshio Nakanishi. This was followed in September by Freedivin’ which featured the Australian singer Ben Lee, who had met Nigo when he heard a promo of Lee’s 1998 album Breathing Tornados and invited him to join his Worldwide Bapeheads Show. Freedivin’ reached #125 on the UK Singles Chart, missing out on the official Top 100, and was Nigo’s only appearance within the UK charts.
Ape Sounds was called “the work of a true pop-fan making the music of his dreams” by The Times, London (Sep 2, 2000), and rated 8/10 in their review. Spin also awarded Ape Sounds 8/10, while The Guardian gave it 4/5 and wrote of Nigo, “He is like a Japanese UNKLE; however, where James Lavelle and DJ Shadow’s effort was often chaotic, Ape Sounds is deliberately retro, while injecting new elements into the brew.”
Aside from the Mo’ Wax Ape Sounds release, all of Nigo’s music has been released exclusively in Japan, and following Ape Sounds Nigo released a series of new singles in Japan featuring Biz Markie, The Beatnuts, Rakim, GZA, and Prodigal Son. These were collected on an album titled Shadow Of The Ape Sounds, which was released in 2000 and later expanded in 2001 as Shadow Of The Ape Sounds — Director’s Cut with a new song featuring Flavor Flav. Later in 2006 songs and remixes from both Ape Sounds and Shadow Of The Ape Sounds were collected for the compilation Ni-Golden-Hits, a greatest hits of Nigo’s work so far. This was also one of the final releases of Ape Sounds, a record label Nigo ran, which had released all of Nigo’s albums, as well as some mixes, and releases from Hiroshi Fujiwara, Takagi Kan, OOIOO, and Cherie.
In 2005 a new label emerged from Nigo called (B)ape Sounds, with their first releases from a group a Japanese Hip Hop group called Teriyaki Boyz. The group were formed by Ryo-Z, Wise, Illmari, and Verbal when Nigo asked them to contribute to a mix he released in 2004 titled Nigo (B)ape Sounds. Their contribution was produced by DJ Shadow, and was followed in 2005 by the groups debut album Beef Or Chicken which featured production from Adrock, Daft Punk, Cornelius and Dan The Automator, among others, and was facilitated by Nigo. Verbal spoke about the project in 2018, explaining how the group was formed:
Teriyaki Boyz started when Nigo called upon us to record for his album. He was trying to come up with a new concept where he was trying to get all the Japanese MCs on American producers’ tracks...He started with a DJ Shadow track. He was like, “Yo, can you guys do something with this track?” Me and the other guys in Teriyaki Boyz were friends from a long time ago, before our professional music careers. We were like, “Yeah, let’s do this for Nigo, let’s do this for fun, so we can have a track to jam to in the clubs.” And then that one song turned out to be dope, so instead of saying, “Nigo, featuring four people,” we were like, “We should come up with a name.” That’s how the name Teriyaki Boyz came up, and that’s how we started.
Nigo made action figures of the group, similar to the ones he also made of himself, James Lavelle, and Beastie Boys, and Teriyaki Boyz released one more album in 2009, Serious Japanese. The new album featured new and returning guests such as Adrock, Cornelius, Takagi Kan, and Kanye West, while Nigo directed their music videos.
After a short break, in 2015 Nigo returned to music, acting as manager and producer for the Japanese girl-group BILLIE IDLE®. The group released five albums, each with contributions from Nigo credited for Art Direction or Executive-Producer, before they disbanded in 2019 following their final album Not Idol. Their final single’s title Last Orgy was a reference to the column that Nigo used to write, as Nigo explained in 2019:
What I want to say is that this is the end of BILLIE IDLE, but with the hope that I will start a new career and do my best individually, the title is “LAST ORGY”, which can be said to be my starting point.
Alongside BILLIE IDLE®, Nigo acted as DJ for HONEST BOYZ, a new Hip Hop group which featured Verbal from Teriyaki Boyz, alongside three other MCs. The group have released several singles between 2016–2019, with their most recent song Electricity featured in the Detective Pikachu movie.
Nigo has said he will continue to work in the music industry, but he continues to be most strongly associated with fashion thanks to the popularity of BAPE, and alongside releasing his albums, Nigo continued to run the fashion brand. Some of BAPE’s early collaborations included Futura and Stash, who were introduced to Nigo by James Lavelle in 1995, and later artists such as KAWS.
By 2004 the brand had expanded to include several stores, a cafe, gallery, and hair salon, but in 2011 Nigo sold 90% of BAPE, and in 2013 he sold his remaining share and left the company. Since then Nigo has focused on his new brand Human Made as well as working with UNIQLO and several other collaborative projects which have recently included Adidas, Louis Vuitton, and Star Wars. Nigo has also auctioned parts of his extensive collection through Sotheby’s, including artwork from Andy Warhol, KAWS, Futura, Stash, and his Star Wars merchandise.
Talking in 2019 about collecting and his career of collaborations, Nigo was asked about future projects and said:
I have many interesting projects on the go but they remain confidential for now. I think it’s more fun if they come as a surprise and are launched suddenly. I want to carry on working at my own pace.
While Nigo has said he has the intention of releasing another album, as he mentioned above it is likely only he knows when this will appear, but there is at least some hope that we will hear more Ape Sounds in the future.
