Beyond the singer-songwriter discovered on TikTok
The 2020s—a time when the entire media landscape has reorganized itself around social media. Short-form content built on highlights traverses borders as it travels from platform to platform, while dance challenges, which tap into Gen Zalpha’s strong desire to be in on the action, have become an essential promotional tool. Riding this wave are so-called TikTok artists, who post snippets of songs they’ve written and develop them alongside the feedback they receive. Just like imase with “NIGHT DANCER” and tuki. with “Bansanka,” natori—who we’ll be looking at more in depth—is another case of a rising star who landed on the list of defining artists of the 2020s thanks to the viral success of “Overdose.”

It’s been over five years now since natori first broke out onto the scene, and he radiates a sensibility unique to the Internet generation—one that rejects stifling values and social norms in favor of easygoing connections with like-minded people. What makes him stand out is that he also draws influence from musicians rooted in Vocaloid culture, like Jin, Tatsuya Kitani, and Kenshi Yonezu, alongside the mainstream appeal of J-pop acts he grew up listening to, like ORANGE RANGE. With an attitude that says it’s okay to stay negative and a philosophy that music should be enjoyable for all listeners, natori has a singular approach to music. It’s also why you can’t limit any discussion of his creative vision to “Overdose” alone.

“Overdose,” the song that introduced natori to the world, shares quite a bit in common with “NIGHT DANCER,” imase’s hit from around the same time. The mellow sound, the vocals that flow like the spoken word, and the short, repetitive chorus tap directly into what young listeners want from the music that forms the soundtrack to their lives. But natori has said that his song was “the result of stepping outside my own musical zone to go after something people would like,” explaining that pursuing that direction left him in an uncertain place. When a new artist achieves mainstream success before even establishing their own musical identity, that success poses both an opportunity and a difficult question about where to go from there.

Now, more than five years later, natori has moved past that challenge and taken root in his role as a professional musician, with music remaining at the center of it all. The reason he was able to move beyond one-hit wonder status and see his fan base continue to grow is that he’s consistently chosen formats and styles accessible to as wide a range of listeners as possible. You can see that in the way he keeps his intros to a minimum and quickly gets to the main melody, as well as the bass-driven rhythm that anchors it all. Thanks to the solid, repetitive structure, the core appeal comes through immediately, even in short snippets. It’s a format built for the short-form era. At the same time, he’s developed his own genre-bending sound—drawing freely on R&B, funk, and bedroom pop—so that his appeal wouldn’t stay confined to Japan alone.

This musical distinctiveness let him build an audience early in his career directly, without having to rely on writing music for anime, and that foundation became a key factor in earning him a reputation worldwide as an artist you can count on for quality. Korean listeners who’ve been invested in the Vocaloid world and Internet subcultures a long time likely felt right at home with his music, given it has that Internet feel while also exploring a range of genres like K-pop does. That much is clear from how quickly tickets for his second show in Korea sold out, much like the first last fall.

natori’s concerts show just how high he’ll fly
The two-night concert, part of his “Koshin” tour, was a meaningful look into exactly where natori stands today. If there were people in the audience who only knew “Overdose,” they were in for a musical ride on an entirely different scale over the course of the roughly two-hour setlist. The album is like a map of his world—the live show was like taking a trip there to see the sweeping landscape with your own eyes.

The show opened with a groovy performance of “EAT” bathed in red. Up next was “Serenade,” the ending theme for season three of the anime “Oshi no Ko.” Written alongside tsumiki, the electro swing track is without a doubt the single best representation of natori’s current sound, true to his Vocaloid roots but wrapped up with a pop music ribbon. Even as he expands his musical territory through various collaborations, though, it feels like a vow not to make the whole classroom his target audience, focusing on the kids always sitting over by the window instead.

The next song on the setlist, “Osmanthus,” made for an even more fundamental discovery. Reborn onstage with a full band, this song that natori first posted online five years ago reminds you of how he got his start. Built on the delicate dynamics of live musicians and a tightly packed chorus, it’s music that could only have been made in this era. The sheer power of it live is almost overwhelming to witness as part of the crowd. It becomes clear that natori isn’t out exploiting TikTok trends but a genuinely talented singer-songwriter who simply became known thanks to the app.

Another of natori’s great strengths lies in his lyrics. His approach to songwriting, with its roots in Internet culture and the way he expresses exactly how he feels, lands persuasively with listeners his own age—even if it seems contradictory. “Cult.” uses a detached voice to describe how a sense of alienation from reality can end up being a route into another community, while the pop rock “Nostalgia” exemplifies his views on love—how hope can only exist because despair does, and anticipation only because it’s possible that something is missing. Together, the two songs gave the audience plenty to analyze. “Just Between Us” and “Propose,” both vocal-driven tracks that unpack emotion calmly and clearly, drew the audience in with the kind of delicate wonder you can only experience live.

The most important discovery of the night came in the second half of the show. Across the six-song finale spanning “NO EMERGENCY EXIT” to “Absolute zero,” he revealed a new side of himself that went beyond the impression you get from studio recordings alone. “NO EMERGENCY EXIT,” a song that hints at his potential for electronic music, had extra rough distortion that practically drove the crowd into a frenzy, setting up a kind of waypoint on the way to the climactic “Overdose,” the song that first introduced him to the world. “IN_MY_HEAD,” “Poltergeist,” and “HELPMETAKEME” went beyond simply filling the audience with energy, practically bringing them to nirvana. It was also in that moment that he let his rock musician aura truly shine. After that, he thanked his Korean fans before raising the stakes with “Absolute zero,” and the show ended with the crowd’s adrenaline still absolutely surging. “Overdose” by itself falls far short of capturing the artist, his other songs drew even bigger reactions from the crowd, and the vastness of his musical vision has yet to be defined—that was what this concert ultimately revealed.

As mentioned earlier, for artists who get their start on TikTok, a debut isn’t a finish line but the real starting point. Whether they start for fun, to seek recognition, or out of a genuine love of music, social media has created an environment where debuting no longer requires the skill and capital it once did. These days, it’s enough to have the heart or the pure will, and plenty of artists have used that path to get themselves in front of an audience. The question is what comes next. For anyone labeled a TikTok artist today, what matters more than being discovered is staying power. In other words, it comes down to how long you can stay in the spotlight once the initial shine fades.

natori is living proof of exactly what that kind of staying power looks like. He doesn’t carry around the weight of suddenly being considered a pro with any fanfare. Instead, when the going gets tough, he lets it be tough. When things don’t come together, he wracks his brain, blames himself, and keeps moving forward one step at a time. He’s proven again and again, with his music and in concert, that nobody’s going to help you survive—it’s a point you only reach by transcending yourself, by yourself. And in the process, he’s making himself out to be the model for musicians in the 2020s. And so the low-resolution dream he once had has now turned into a sharp, high-definition reality, reflected in the faces of everyone who seeks out his music.