Intervals Nº8: Shin Okuda

An interview series with creative professionals exploring music's role in the artistic process.

Intervals is an interview series exploring how music integrates with and informs the creative process. In each installment, I speak with artists across disciplines about the role sound plays in their work and lives.

In today’s conversation, we’re in dialogue with Los Angeles-based furniture designer extraordinaire Shin Okuda of Waka Waka.

Long before we moved to LA, my wife and I met Shin Okuda at his studio/showroom and talked directly with him at length about his array of bold and beautiful pieces of functional furniture and objects. We were in awe of his work’s unique but distinguished simplicity and happened to buy a couple pedestal pieces from his collection.

Okuda operates under the moniker Waka Waka and primarily works with Baltic birch plywood as his medium of choice; fashioning unmistakable cylinders and curved edges amid the contrast of treated plywood and stark, primary-colored façades of his shelving, bed frames, desks, and myriad of chairs and seating implements.

His pieces are at once elevated and casually playful. Each piece imbued with a particular life and energy and holding a thoughtful amount of quirkiness. His steadfastness to this aesthetic sets him clearly apart from his contemporaries dealing in the niche, bespoke woodworking and furniture design space.

Okuda has a long lineage of commissions from private residences to large-scale commercial installations with features and coverage from renown outlets such as New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Architectural Digest.

1. What role does music play in the conceptual phase of a project? Music really helps in opening me up to a wider set of possibilities. I love listening to all kinds of music in the design, fabrication and assembly phases. I usually make practical pieces that are commissions. Naturally, sometimes this arrangement often rises up a conflict or impasse where a compromise has to be made to meet the client’s needs. When I listen to music, it usually helps lead me to a path forward to find the way through to deliver the highest answer.

2. Has music ever informed creative choices or shifted how you thought about a project? In the design phase, I usually listen to some 60s-era jazz like Mal Waldron or some ambient music. In the fabrication phase, I like to listen to dub and r&b. I love Roy Ayers — tight and driving music. When I am in my space, as long as I’m there, I’m listening all the time.

3. What are your day to day listening habits? In the morning, I take my son, Issei, to school. On the way, I listen to whatever he plays in the van — usually hip hop. He loves Kendrick Lamar but also some 90s stuff like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest.

As soon as he gets out, I play my music. I have a small amount of hearing damage and I’m very conscious of sound levels. When I work in the shop, I always wear noise-canceling headphones.

4. What are a few of the most influential artists or albums in recent memory that have provided deep inspiration for your own work?
Black Harmony — Let’s Be Lovers
Thelonious Monk — Les Liaisons Dangereuses 1960
Mal Waldron — The Quest
Charles Stepney — Step on Step
Junior Delahaye — Showcase

5. Favorite film soundtracks or scores: Last Tango in Paris by Gato Barbieri

6. Is there a song or artist from your youth that encapsulates that time in your life? In grade school, in the 80s, I lived in Fukuoka, Japan. My Dad got us a Sony stereo system. On the way home with the system he stopped at a record shop and got two records: Ray Parker Jr. and Earth, Wind & Fire. Around this time, I was super into Nintendo; probably playing Donkey Kong with my cousins. A track that really grabbed me in that time was “It’s Tricky” by Run DMC. My uncle showed me that and I thought, “Wow. The world is big!”

The second time I realized this bigger world through music was when my uncle’s friend recorded some FM radio shows while on vacation in Hawaii. He brought them back to Japan and it blew my mind when I heard them. Malcolm McLaren’s “Madame Butterfly” was one I remember on that mix.

In high school, I moved to Kobe and I got totally obsessed with Thelonious Monk. His 1956 album Thelonious Himself was my favorite. It’s a solo piano album but John Coltrane plays on the final track (“Monk’s Mood”). That was a powerful song for me.

I was also super into the 1986 Sting album Nothing Like The Sun when it came out, which featured a backing band that was mostly jazz musicians.

When I was a teenager in Kobe, I had a friend in Amagasaki (near Osaka). When we hung out, we were always going to record stores. Coming from a smaller town, I was introduced to a lot of music through going to those shops with him.

My first CD was the Jungle Brothers. I had no money then, so I would just get an album or two each time. Once I was in college, I moved to Tokyo and was getting into Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, 90s hip hop, and trying to find the rare groove titles that hip hop artists would sample. Labels in Japan around that time were reissuing all these jazz-funk records in heavy-weight vinyl. I couldn’t get enough.

I found a place called Lion’s Den with vinyl from floor to ceiling with these massive speakers. This nerdy guy was blasting all of these reggae and dub singles. I got obsessed. Shortly after, I visited Jamaica and went to all of the famous studios.

My favorite was King Jammy from Kingston. I also really got into the English producer Mad Professor and his label Ariwa — that was highly influential for me. I loved the big sounds, all of the digital effects, and the deep bass.

7. A track currently on repeat: "Scared Money" by Kelis

8 Last truly amazing live performance: Neither of these are particularly recent, but a significant concert for me was seeing Gil-Scott Heron at the El Rey in Los Angeles. He nailed it, even though he was super drunk; I remember I could see his hotel room key in his back pocket.

Another one was Nina Simone at the Wiltern, also in Los Angeles. She wasn’t able to walk at the time and had to be wheeled out onto the stage. She was incredible.

I also saw Public Enemy in Osaka once, which was quite an experience.

9. How do you find out about new music? I try to keep up with new music but it’s hard to know where to start sometimes. I don’t want to be the old guy who is out of touch. I always ask my friends on my soccer team what they’re listening to.

Intervals Nº8 Playlist: Spotify, Tidal

Okuda’s maternal grandmother taught the rituals of traditional Japanese tea ceremonies. His interest in that history and philosophy led him toward a recent work of a custom two-tatami tea house (below). The tea house is on exhibit at Overduin & Co. in Los Angeles through April 4, 2026.

Okuda also operates Wagetsu, a side brand in partnership with Karimoku, which is an ongoing collection of contemporary-leaning chairs, tables, mirrors and room partitions.

In addition to forthcoming work for a hotel group, Okuda’s time is currently focused on continued private and commercial Waka Waka commissions as well as producing metal-based products with the Japanese sheet metal company Eetal.

More on Shin Okuda and his work at Waka Waka & @wakawakainc.

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More discussions from the INTERVALS series:

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