Lyric

"Tokyo Neon" is the first single from "Greetings from Tokyofornia," the debut album from Nelson Babin-Coy.

Born and raised in Burbank, California, Nelson has now called Tokyo home for 19 years, nearly half his life. He has a word for the California and the Tokyo that coexist inside him: "Tokyofornia." The album brings together everything those two homes have taught him.

"Tokyo Neon" is bilingual dance-pop. Picture the wide-open West Coast groove of a car stereo on a beachside drive, the jazzy chords of city pop, and the sparkle of a J-pop arrangement, all melting into a truly multicultural track.

The song took shape around 2015 in a bar in Roppongi. Just into his thirties, Nelson would go out for drinks and end up meeting tourists, expats, and Japanese locals from every walk of life. After hitting it off, someone says "let's grab a drink at the place next door," and somehow it all works, even when neither of you fully understands what the other is saying. That feeling, one he found in Tokyo, slowly grew into this song.

Nelson Babin-Coy is a singer-songwriter, cultural interpreter, and actor based in Tokyo. He has written official English lyrics and translations for some of Japan's biggest artists, including BE:FIRST, Kenshi Yonezu, King Gnu, SEKAI NO OWARI, and the English version of Foorin team E's "Paprika," and he serves as lyric translator and English supervisor for NHK's "tiny desk concerts JAPAN." After years of bringing Japanese music and culture to the world through other artists' words, he is now sending his own voice out into the world.

"Greetings from Tokyofornia" is due out in 2027. "Tokyo Neon" is its first postcard.