Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一) was a Japanese composer, pianist, record producer, and actor who pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO).

With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, Sakamoto influenced and pioneered a number of electronic music genres.

Ryuichi Sakamoto was born on January 17, 1952, in Tokyo.

His father, Kazuki Sakamoto, was a well-known literary editor, and his mother, Keiko (Shimomura) Sakamoto, designed women's hats.

He began taking piano lessons at age 6, and started to compose at age 10.

His early influences included Johann Sebastian Bach and Claude Debussy — whom he once called "the door to all 20th century music" and stated that "Asian music heavily influenced Debussy, and Debussy heavily influenced me. So, the music goes around the world and comes full circle."

– and he discovered jazz and rock and roll when he fell in with a crowd of hipster rebels as a teenager and was also influenced by jazz musicians such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, as well as rock bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

He has described his political leanings during his time as a student as “not a 100 percent Marxist, but kind of”.

At the height of the Japanese student protest movement, he and his classmates shut down their high school for several weeks.

Sakamoto began his career while at university in the 1970s as a session musician, producer, and arranger.

Sakamoto entered the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1970, earning a B.A. in music composition and an M.A. with special emphasis on both electronic and ethnic music.

He studied ethnomusicology there with the intention of becoming a researcher in the field, due to his interest in various world music traditions, particularly the Japanese, Okinawan, Indian, and African musical traditions.

He was also trained in classical music and began experimenting with the electronic music equipment available at the university, including synthesizers such as the Buchla, Moog, and ARP.

In 1975, Sakamoto collaborated with percussionist Tsuchitori Toshiyuki to release Disappointment-Hateruma.

After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in 1978.

Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as electropop/technopop, synthpop, cyberpunk music, ambient house, and electronica.

The group's work has had a lasting influence across genres, ranging from hip hop and techno to acid house and general melodic music.

His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of YMO.

He concurrently pursued a solo career, releasing the experimental electronic fusion album Thousand Knives in 1978.

Two years later, he released the album B-2 Unit.

It included the track "Riot in Lagos", which was significant in the development of electro and hip hop music.

He went on to produce more solo records, and collaborate with many international artists, David Sylvian, Carsten Nicolai, Youssou N'Dour, and Fennesz among them.

Sakamoto was the songwriter and composer for a number of the band's hit songs—including "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)" (1978), "Technopolis" (1979), "Nice Age" (1980), "Ongaku" (1983), and "You've Got to Help Yourself" (1983)—while playing keyboards for many of their other songs, including international hits such as "Computer Game/Firecracker" (1978) and "Rydeen" (1979).

Sakamoto released his first solo album Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto in mid-1978 with the help of Hideki Matsutake—Hosono also contributed to the song "Thousand Knives".

The album experimented with different styles, such as "Thousand Knives" and "The End of Asia"—in which electronic music was fused with traditional Japanese music—while "Grasshoppers" is a more minimalistic piano song.

The album was recorded from April to July 1978 with a variety of electronic musical instruments, including various synthesizers, such as the KORG PS-3100, a polyphonic synthesizer; the Oberheim Eight-Voice; the Moog III-C; the Polymoog, the Minimoog; the Micromoog; the Korg VC-10, which is a vocoder; the KORG SQ-10, which is an analog sequencer; the Syn-Drums, an electronic drum kit; and the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer, which is a music sequencer that was programmed by Matsutake and played by Sakamoto.

Sakamoto's composition "Technopolis" (1979) was credited as a contribution to the development of techno music, while the internationally successful "Behind the Mask" (1978)—a synthpop song in which he sang vocals through a vocoder—was later covered by a number of international artists, including Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton.

In 1980, Sakamoto released the solo album B-2 Unit, which has been referred to as his "edgiest" record and is known for the electronic song "Riot in Lagos", which is considered an early example of electro music (electro-funk), as Sakamoto anticipated the beats and sounds of electro.

Early electro and hip hop artists, such as Afrika Bambaataa and Kurtis Mantronik, were influenced by the album—especially "Riot in Lagos"—with Mantronik citing the work as a major influence on his electro hip hop group Mantronix.

A version of the song "Thousand Knives" was released on the Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1981 album BGM.

This version was one of the earliest uses of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, for YMO's live performance of "1000 Knives" in 1980 and their BGM album release in 1981.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) marked his debut as both an actor and a film-score composer; its main theme was adapted into the single "Forbidden Colours" which became an international hit.

He also sang on several songs, such as "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" (1983).

His most successful work as a film composer was The Last Emperor (1987), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, making him the first Japanese composer to win an Academy Award.

after which he continued earning accolades composing for films such as The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993), and The Revenant (2015).

On occasion, Sakamoto also worked as a composer and a scenario writer on anime and video games.

Sakamoto composed music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and his composition "Energy Flow" (1999) was the first instrumental number-one single in Japan's Oricon charts history.

As a film score composer, Sakamoto won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and two Golden Globe Awards.

"Riot in Lagos" was later included in Playgroup's compilation album Kings of Electro (2007), alongside other significant electro compositions, such as Hashim's "Al-Naafyish" (1983).

He was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture of France in 2009 for his contributions to music.