Grimes’ Hatsune Miku collaboration is filled with love: “I feel really in awe of her, but also protective of her”

Throughout her career, Grimes has been a frontrunner among Western artists in appreciating and collaborating with East Asian pop acts. Over the years, she’s woven herself into K-pop lore by interviewing aespa and guesting on LOONA sub-unit yyxy’s ‘Love4eva’, and shown love to Taiwan by enlisting 潘PAN on ‘Art Angels’ track ‘Scream’. That she’s now teamed up with Japan’s turquoise-pigtailed Vocaloid star Hatsune Miku on ‘Miku-maxxing’, the frenetic lead track from the synthetic pop star’s new ‘Beyond Borders’ project, feels like it was inevitable to happen eventually. On ‘Beyond Borders Vol.1: Emerge M♡de Miku’, Miku teams up with a range of Western internet-music acts, like George Clanton, Frost Children and Odetari. The six-track EP is backed by Japan’s culture ministry – as part of a wider global Vocaloid-promoting initiative with media companies Dwango and Nebula17 – a fact that initially threw Grimes when she was first approached about the project. “It was bizarre, because it was like the government of Japan,” she recalls of the email that landed in her inbox. “Like, does the president know about this? It’s like the biggest no-brainer of all time: I will definitely collaborate w...