Ryuichi Sakamoto

Sakamoto Ryuichi (Japanese: Sakamoto Ryuichi/Sakamoto Ryuichi, Romanized: Sakamoto Ryūichi (January 17, 1952 - March 28, 2023) was a Japanese composer, pianist, singer, record producer and actor. He was born in Nakano Ward, Tokyo. He was a member of the avant-garde music band Yellow Magic Symphony. He and band members Hosono Haruomi and Takahashi Yukihiro had a pioneering influence on the psychedelic house and synthesizer movements in the world, and influenced the electronic music genre with their pursuit of diversified styles. Sakamoto began his career as a live musician, producer and arranger while attending school in the 1970s. His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of the Yellow Magic Orchestra. and released the experimental electronic fusion album "Firecracker". Two years later, he released the album "B-2 Unit". Among them is the track "Riot in Lagos", which was important to the development of electronic and hip-hop music. He has since gone on to produce more solo albums and collaborate with many international artists active around the world, including David Sylvian, Alvar Noto, Yusu Ndol and Feniz, among others. Sakamoto composed music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Summer Olympics. His work "Energy Flow" (1999) was the first instrumental single in the history of Japan's Oricon Chart. As a film score composer, Sakamoto has won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. He made his debut as an actor in the 1983 film "The Captive". His most successful film composition works include "The Captive" (1983), "The Last Emperor" (1987), "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), "The Little Buddha" (1993) and "The Vengeful Hero" (2015). In addition, Sakamoto also serves as a composer and script writer for animation and video games. In 2009, he was awarded the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture for his contribution to music. In recent years, Sakamoto has actively participated in peaceful activities such as environmental protection and constitutional law, and also launched the forest regeneration conservation project "More Tree". In 2006, he established a new music brand "commmons". In February 2009, he published his first oral autobiography "Music Makes People Free" in Japan. On March 28, 2023, Ryuichi Sakamoto died of late-stage rectal cancer in Tokyo at the age of 71.