"Being on the radio was always what I had wanted to do," a sleepy Peter Barakan told me while sitting in the InterFM lobby. It was 11 a.m. on a Sunday. He had just finished his show, "The Barakan Beat," and after offering me coffee, we sat and talked about what brought him to Japan and his success here.

After finishing high school, a young Barakan faced a common dilemma: What do I do now? And as with most decisions, it's easier to decide what not to do.

"I didn't want to go to work at the age of 18, and the only way out of it was a university degree," he said.