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bmsgClimbers 2025 conference was held on May 8 - 9, 2025 for any working employee to attend. The conference included speakers from various fields of work (medicine, start-ups, marketing, etc.). SKY-HI was part of the speakers line-up and spoke for the session on May 9, 2025.
Records of the speakers in their sessions were made available online, free to view until the end of May as long as one has an account registered with the Climbers 2025 website.
Below is a summary of what SKY-HI discussed!
Before he started his speech, he wishes they’d stop raising the bar when they introduce him 😂
🌞: Did you guys read the intro pamphlet? “What does the great leader of this era want to tell us the most”, please stop that.
Climbers means challengers, who are trying to overcome a wall / obstacle
Anyone who feels like they've hit a wall? Raise your hand (though I know it's hard to raise your hand in this situation).
Talent = ice axe and can help you overcome your obstacles / walls
[先天的才能] Congenital talent – you’re born with certain skills and gifts
[後天的才能] Talent that is acquired – skills and talents that are honed and crafted later in life
How to discover your talents (that are / is acquired [後天])?
Your complex may be your talent
A special trait about you > your personality > your talent
I was born unable to hear from my left ear
My dad told me, “Mitsuhiro, you want to do music?”
Mitsuhiro: “mm”
Boss's dad: “But you can't hear from your left ear right? That's awesome! You can hear things other people can't!”
(Boss's dad isn’t at home a lot so this conversation stayed with boss)
This helped boss feel like his congenital hearing impairment is not something negative but something special.
Middle school - in band, drums; also started dance around this time; started getting into rap with a friend
In an idol company from middle to high school (Johnny's)
Wanted to dive deeper into a rap, “even though you're an idol”, he was told not 100, maybe 300-400 times
Started going underground and appearing in rock festivals, was still told the same. Could not find a “culture” that he could fit into, but he thought his ideas and vision were unique.
A lot of talent is buried; many, countless. These talents are treasures of Japan. Too few ways for them to debut. Too many “determinators” of how a “rapper”, “vocalist” should be and they don't fit those boxes.
Hence, SKY-HI created an environment where these talents can flourish, BMSG (Be MySelf Group), and can be themselves.
Slogan: “To not kill talent”
Talents unable to debut, therefore they go to Korea.
Japan is a country safe enough for kids to take lessons late at night and go home safely. They're honing and training their talent, yet there's very few chances to debut for them.
THE FIRST audition - he started the audition not knowing who will show up, but he found talented boys and formed BE:FIRST
No No Girls - an audition in collaboration with CHANMINA. Birth of HANA, only two songs on Spotify but close to 2M monthly listeners.
Rather than a survival audition, SKY-HI wants an audition that focuses on developing and training talent.
THE LAST PIECE - an era where it's hard for young talent to fulfill their dreams, because they're mostly online and not gathering in a physical place. In his generation, it was Shibuya, for his sister it was Ikebukuro, but when he asks the BMSG Trainees, they say they don’t have one.
1. Japan - country is ranked 2nd worst in the mental health / emotional happiness of their teenagers (UNICEF, 2018 data)
2. High rates of suicide among students across all school sections (elementary, middle, high) (2024 data)
3. Career choice questionnaires for middle school and high school students, "artist" or a career in music is not listed
SKY-HI feels entertainment should be careful of saying entertainment is showing young people dreams, because as the stats show, they're clearly not. As someone working in entertainment, he feels a sense of responsibility [to solve this].
Entertainment is not an escape or to help young people run away from reality. While it is true that people may work hard because of their oshi, he says that's only a small part of what entertainment does. Entertainment can be nutrients for society, just like how hip hop culture and music can be used to critique war, inequality, injustice in society, (artists like JayZ, Kendrick Lamar were mentioned) and he wants to value that. Thus, words like "show off your dreams" can be dangerous, because there are young people who have their dreams crushed. He thinks that entertainment can be an ally for young people and their dreams.
THE LAST PIECE - let's show the world the biggest, most free form of a dream.
(End of June)
Final words:
[SKY-HI works with a lot of young people. When I talk to my team, I often get emotional and very angry with them. How do I talk calmly to my team?]
- Like the person first.
- You must've been scolded before and know what you liked and didn't like from that experience - it's a lesson for both parties. They learn what they can do better next time, and you learn to talk to your employees / team based on what you "liked" before.
[SKY-HI is a genius at roping people in to what you do. How should I get people around me involved in something?]
He wouldn't call it get everyone onboard. What he wants to do, plus what's necessary sometimes. Since it's something he wants to do, he'll take it seriously. He doesn’t think it’s necessary to “rope people in” in everything, but if it’s something you seriously want to do, then he thinks it’s necessary to have the love, passion and energy that follows it.
Last words: Trust in the scenery you see above the wall is great and not the wrong choice. Keep climbing, enjoy the climb. Once you overcome the wall and thrive with the talents you have trained, I think we'll all see an even better landscape. Let's do our best together (頑張りましょう), I will too.
Hope you enjoyed this and JuLeo's interactions!
Please note I translate these for free and I'm not a professional, so they may not be super perfect.
Retranslations or sharing of the summaries is fine! For retranslations, please notify me beforehand and credit once posted!
If you like my translations, you can consider tipping me on Ko-Fi!
Records of the speakers in their sessions were made available online, free to view until the end of May as long as one has an account registered with the Climbers 2025 website.
Below is a summary of what SKY-HI discussed!
Intro
Before he started his speech, he wishes they’d stop raising the bar when they introduce him 😂
🌞: Did you guys read the intro pamphlet? “What does the great leader of this era want to tell us the most”, please stop that.
Climbers means challengers, who are trying to overcome a wall / obstacle
Anyone who feels like they've hit a wall? Raise your hand (though I know it's hard to raise your hand in this situation).
Talent = ice axe and can help you overcome your obstacles / walls
[先天的才能] Congenital talent – you’re born with certain skills and gifts
[後天的才能] Talent that is acquired – skills and talents that are honed and crafted later in life
How to discover your talents (that are / is acquired [後天])?
Your complex may be your talent
A special trait about you > your personality > your talent
Storytime with boss
I was born unable to hear from my left ear
My dad told me, “Mitsuhiro, you want to do music?”
Mitsuhiro: “mm”
Boss's dad: “But you can't hear from your left ear right? That's awesome! You can hear things other people can't!”
(Boss's dad isn’t at home a lot so this conversation stayed with boss)
This helped boss feel like his congenital hearing impairment is not something negative but something special.
Middle school - in band, drums; also started dance around this time; started getting into rap with a friend
In an idol company from middle to high school (Johnny's)
TL;DR of the start of BMSG
Wanted to dive deeper into a rap, “even though you're an idol”, he was told not 100, maybe 300-400 times
Started going underground and appearing in rock festivals, was still told the same. Could not find a “culture” that he could fit into, but he thought his ideas and vision were unique.
A lot of talent is buried; many, countless. These talents are treasures of Japan. Too few ways for them to debut. Too many “determinators” of how a “rapper”, “vocalist” should be and they don't fit those boxes.
Hence, SKY-HI created an environment where these talents can flourish, BMSG (Be MySelf Group), and can be themselves.
Slogan: “To not kill talent”
Audition training programs, not survival auditions
Talents unable to debut, therefore they go to Korea.
Japan is a country safe enough for kids to take lessons late at night and go home safely. They're honing and training their talent, yet there's very few chances to debut for them.
THE FIRST audition - he started the audition not knowing who will show up, but he found talented boys and formed BE:FIRST
No No Girls - an audition in collaboration with CHANMINA. Birth of HANA, only two songs on Spotify but close to 2M monthly listeners.
Rather than a survival audition, SKY-HI wants an audition that focuses on developing and training talent.
THE LAST PIECE - an era where it's hard for young talent to fulfill their dreams, because they're mostly online and not gathering in a physical place. In his generation, it was Shibuya, for his sister it was Ikebukuro, but when he asks the BMSG Trainees, they say they don’t have one.
Some stats
1. Japan - country is ranked 2nd worst in the mental health / emotional happiness of their teenagers (UNICEF, 2018 data)
2. High rates of suicide among students across all school sections (elementary, middle, high) (2024 data)
3. Career choice questionnaires for middle school and high school students, "artist" or a career in music is not listed
Closing
SKY-HI feels entertainment should be careful of saying entertainment is showing young people dreams, because as the stats show, they're clearly not. As someone working in entertainment, he feels a sense of responsibility [to solve this].
Entertainment is not an escape or to help young people run away from reality. While it is true that people may work hard because of their oshi, he says that's only a small part of what entertainment does. Entertainment can be nutrients for society, just like how hip hop culture and music can be used to critique war, inequality, injustice in society, (artists like JayZ, Kendrick Lamar were mentioned) and he wants to value that. Thus, words like "show off your dreams" can be dangerous, because there are young people who have their dreams crushed. He thinks that entertainment can be an ally for young people and their dreams.
THE LAST PIECE - let's show the world the biggest, most free form of a dream.
(End of June)
Final words:
We'll use an ice axe to help you see your talents.
A compass to show you the path to your dreams.
QnA
[SKY-HI works with a lot of young people. When I talk to my team, I often get emotional and very angry with them. How do I talk calmly to my team?]
- Like the person first.
- You must've been scolded before and know what you liked and didn't like from that experience - it's a lesson for both parties. They learn what they can do better next time, and you learn to talk to your employees / team based on what you "liked" before.
[SKY-HI is a genius at roping people in to what you do. How should I get people around me involved in something?]
He wouldn't call it get everyone onboard. What he wants to do, plus what's necessary sometimes. Since it's something he wants to do, he'll take it seriously. He doesn’t think it’s necessary to “rope people in” in everything, but if it’s something you seriously want to do, then he thinks it’s necessary to have the love, passion and energy that follows it.
Last words: Trust in the scenery you see above the wall is great and not the wrong choice. Keep climbing, enjoy the climb. Once you overcome the wall and thrive with the talents you have trained, I think we'll all see an even better landscape. Let's do our best together (頑張りましょう), I will too.
Hope you enjoyed this and JuLeo's interactions!
Please note I translate these for free and I'm not a professional, so they may not be super perfect.
Retranslations or sharing of the summaries is fine! For retranslations, please notify me beforehand and credit once posted!
If you like my translations, you can consider tipping me on Ko-Fi!
