“good driver” sings about the city from the perspective of a bicycle delivery rider.

As a record of the extreme heat of summer 2023, it has evolved into a five-and-a-half-minute epic with a new contribution from カンノアキオ of 4×4=16.


ABOUT “good driver -Summer Damn'23-”

Rappers YETTO and KTY (MONJU N CHIE, mizunotabibito), who both worked in bicycle delivery from 2020 to 2021, have continued updating and releasing “good driver,” a song about delivery riders’ circumstances, whenever social conditions changed since its first release in December 2020. They also released the album 20’s Over Drive Tracks.

This time, having resumed delivery work as a side job for personal reasons, YETTO realized how much conditions had deteriorated and urgently invited カンノアキオ of 4×4=16, who still does delivery work as a main occupation, to contribute a rap. カンノ delivered 64 bars, far exceeding the request. In response, the backing track was boldly rearranged, transforming the song into something entirely different from its previous versions.


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Alongside YETTO, the rap now features カンノアキオ of 4×4=16.

YETTO handled the track, mixing, and mastering.

Saya plays saxophone and Yuri (CHAILD) plays bass. The saxophone part was newly recorded.


RELEASE FORMAT

The track is available on streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify.

It can also be purchased through Bandcamp. Buyers receive an instrumental version and an audio commentary in which YETTO and カンノアキオ listen to the song and discuss its lyrics and work.


COMMENT FROM YETTO

(The story so far)

In 2020–2021, my depression was quite severe, and there were times when delivery work was the only work I could do. Together with KTY, a rapper who was also working as a delivery rider, I kept making songs about that working environment and how Tokyo was changing during the pandemic, eventually making an album.

After that, my mental state became relatively stable. I managed to find work and get various parts of my life in order, but as soon as I started doing delivery again as a side job this spring to pay for new equipment, I keenly felt how much worse the working conditions had become since we made the album.

I also felt guilty that, when we completed the album, we had given it a beautiful, enjoyable aftertaste, even if that was to give it a coherent shape. Taking into account the small response we received after making an album about an unusual subject,

I decided to remake—or rather, break apart again—the song “good driver,” using this summer of abnormal heat, ongoing incidents, and harm as its motif.


(About this track)

Instead of KTY, who no longer does delivery work, I reached out to カンノアキオ of 4×4=16, who still does this job. カンノアキオ came back with 64 bars—even though I hadn’t asked for that many—so I radically changed the backing track to match and recorded the saxophone again. I think we have managed to leave a bitter aftertaste.

I don’t know how long this painful summer will last, or whether it will continue next year, but I don’t think everything will improve right away. Listen from time to time and think back on the worst summer.

…By the way, is the season really to blame for what makes things so terrible?


COMMENT FROM カンノアキオ (4×4=16)

Watching YETTO and KTY’s “good driver” project from the sidelines, I kept thinking, “That looks great. I’d like to take part.”

I have also been doing bicycle delivery as one of my side jobs since 2018. I quit the part-time job I had, and it eventually became something like my main occupation, which brings me to where I am now.

The good thing about this job is that I barely have to communicate with anyone. I find “work-related conversations” extremely stressful, which is part of why I struggle to stay in conventional jobs. Delivery work just involves picking something up from a shop and delivering it, so I think all my conversations in a whole day add up to about two and a half minutes. For better or worse, it was the perfect job for someone like me.


But the number of orders fluctuates with the weather and customers’ appetites. This summer in particular, I felt as though I was shaving time off my life with every delivery, and I still do.

Along the way, I encounter customers who, for some reason, won’t open the entrance to their apartment building; I’m made to wait at restaurants that won’t tell me how many minutes until the food is ready; and, to begin with, delivery fees have been cut dramatically.

If someone says, “You chose that job, so it’s your own responsibility,” there’s not much I can say. But it is very hard. It was so hard that I wrote 64 bars in no time. Take this long verse, written with everything I had in two or three days!


Incidentally, today as I write this—August 15, 2023—I encountered a customer who wouldn’t open the entrance to an apartment building, got lost at an apartment with no name displayed, and, after asking the delivery service to cancel an order from a hamburger shop that simply wasn’t bringing out the food, was made to wait an hour. It was truly awful. I could write another 64 bars…


RELEASE

『good driver -Summer Damn ’23-』

YETTO & カンノアキオ(4×4=16)

Format: digital release


【Track List】

1.good driver -Summer Damn ’23-


Listen / buy:

Streaming: https://big-up.style/v7yF34umal

Purchase: https://yetto.bandcamp.com/



ARTIST

YETTO

Born in 1995. A project by beatmaker and songwriter YETTO.

Yuri (CHAILD) often plays bass and Saya saxophone, but the lineup is not fixed; there is trust between them.

Until early 2020, YETTO worked at a media-related company, but worries about interpersonal problems and the industry’s financial circumstances led to a diagnosis of depression and a leave of absence. Mental health deteriorated further amid the economic hardship brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, and YETTO left the company that spring. Around the same time, in place of rehabilitation, YETTO repaired an MPC1000 received from a friend and began making beats.

Drawing on influences including new wave, jazz, broken beats, and anime songs, YETTO continues making music. Without abandoning the perspective of an ordinary person and worker, and while questioning capitalism, YETTO carries on surviving day by day, keeping it fat on a small scale.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yetto_nakamura

Twitter: https://twitter.com/yetto_nakamura


カンノアキオ(4×4=16)

カンノアキオ’s solo rap project, active intermittently since around 2017. The project creates rap tracks incorporating culture beyond music, such as conversation and rakugo.

Also devoted to talking about music, カンノアキオ updates the casual music-talk blog SOMEOFTHEM with friends every week. Its zine edition, SOMEOFTHEM OF ZINE, has been released through Vol. 3.

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/kanno4416/

Twitter : https://twitter.com/akiokanno4