Minami Hazuki shows a big smile in the interview. She released her major label debut from TEICHIKU Records last June. Minami Hazuki is an artist from Niigata who made her major label debut with TEICHIKU Records in June this year. Her pleasant “emo” singing voice, which is nostalgic for older people and fresh for young people, and her back voice, called “magical voice,” have become a hot topic and attracted many fans.   The first two songs, “Don’t Forgive Me…Hey” and “Furusato-Bojo,” reached No. 1 on the USEN HIT Enka/Uta-Yokyoku Ranking. The songs have been long-time hits since then. Originally an enka singer based in her hometown of Niigata, Hazuki moved to Tokyo in January 2008 with a determination to make her major label debut. However, the wave of the pandemic affected her activities soon after. “I really had no idea what to expect, I just came to Tokyo,” she said. “I thought that if I stayed in Niigata, my current situation as a singer would not change. But when I arrived in Tokyo, the next month the coronavirus broke out, and I lost all the jobs I had lined up. I didn’t know what to do.” Hazuki came to Tokyo with a dream, but she was deprived of a place to sing. She worked part-time at a music store to make ends meet and spent her days pitching to entertainment production companies, record labels, and music industry people who might take her on.   “When the pandemic broke out, I was clueless as to what I was going to do,” she said. “But I had to live, and I had to eat. I worked part-time at Yamano Music and was looking for opportunities. That was when I met the producer, Mr. Iwao.” Mr. Sanshiro Iwao learned the producing business as an advisor to the Nagara Group, which produced numerous enka singers such as Kiyoshi Hikawa, Kaori Mizumori, and Yutaka Yamakawa. He later became an independent musician and is well known in the music industry for his efforts in nurturing young singers such as Leong Shinhama.