Angela Aki
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| Angela Aki | |
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Angela Aki on the cover of her Japanese debut
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Kiyomi Angela Aki 安藝 聖世美 アンジェラ |
| Born | September 15, 1977 Itano, Tokushima, Shikoku, Japan |
| Origin | Vienna, Virginia, United States |
| Genres | Pop, jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Instruments | Vocals, piano, guitar |
| Years active | 2000–Present |
| Labels | Sony Music Japan Tofu Records |
| Website | www |
Angela Aki (アンジェラ・アキ Anjera Aki?), born Kiyomi Angela Aki (安藝 聖世美 アンジェラ Aki Kiyomi Anjera?) on September 15, 1977, is a pop singer-songwriter, and pianist born in Itano, Tokushima, Japan to a Japanese father and Italian-American mother.[1]
Contents
Biography
Early life
Aki was born in the small town of Itano, population 14,600, in the mostly rural island of Shikoku.
Aki began to take piano lessons when she was three years old and lived in Tokushima through sixth grade, and spent her junior high school days in Okayama. She has admitted that growing up in rural Japan proved very difficult, as she was bullied and she turned to the piano as an escape from the isolation she felt. She grew up listening to a mix of enka, The Carpenters and The Bee Gees.[1]
Aki moved to Hawaii when she was fifteen years old and graduated from Iolani School. She speaks English and Japanese.[1] She was immersed in music there for four years. She graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and majored in political science.[1]
Personal life
Angela's first marriage was to an engineer, producer and artist Tony Alany, who co-produced her first album These Words in Vienna, Virginia, USA. On March 9, 2007, Aki announced that she had married Japanese A&R director and publisher Taro Hamano, and made public that she had been briefly married previously and got divorced.[2] In September 2011, she announced that she was pregnant.[3] In February 2012, she announced that she had given birth to her first child, a baby boy.[4]
She is good friends with J-Pop star Yuna Ito. Both singers attended the same Japanese language school.
Janis Ian is her mentor and friend.
Career
Beginnings
In 1997, Aki went to a Sarah McLachlan concert at age 20 and felt that she wanted to go into the music world, deciding to become a singer-songwriter. In 2000, she released an indie's album in the United States, called "These Words". After graduation from university, she found a job in Washington, D.C. and worked as a secretary. She could not give up her dream of being a singer, however, and quit her job in 2001. She worked as a waitress for 2 dollars 13 cents during the day, and she played songs at night at a nightclub. Aki briefly married her first album’s engineer in Vienna, Virginia, USA. In 2002, she composed two tracks for "Let It Fall" by Dianne Eclar, a teenage pop singer from the Philippines.
Debut in Japan
After producing commercial music for several Japanese companies, including one for milk product Yakult which was sung by US Jazz vocalist Jimmy Scott, she decided to move back to Japan. On September 27, 2003, Aki saw Shiina Ringo's concert in Nippon Budokan Hall, and promised herself she would perform at the same place within three years, even though she was unheard of, had not yet been offered a contract with any record label, nor had she made an album or major debut. She performed live in many small venues and bars in Tokyo while working as a waitress in a Chinese restaurant,[1] wrote 100 or more songs, and also made several demo CDs. In 2005, she released an independent mini-album under Virgo Music entitled "One," which was the #1 selling Indies album of 2005. This alerted Nobuo Uematsu to her music, and he asked her to write lyrics and perform the theme song for Final Fantasy XII, "Kiss Me Good-Bye".
She contracted with Epic Records and made her major debut with the single "HOME" in September, 2005. The album sold over half a million copies and reached #2 on the Oricon charts.[1]
On December 26, 2006, she held a concert in Nippon Budokan Hall, making history there as the first artist to ever perform in the famous venue solo (with just her piano) -- no backup singers, band or opening act.
Reaching an English audience (2006-2007)
In May 2006, Angela signed with Tofu Records in order to release English singles and albums. Her first release with Tofu was "Kiss Me Good-Bye" as a digital single in the USA, with a slightly altered track list. Later that month she performed the Final Fantasy XII theme song, "Kiss Me Good-Bye" at the premiere PLAY! A Video Game Symphony concert in Chicago on May 27, 2006. With orchestral backup, she played piano and sang the English lyrics, which she had written herself. She also performed a cover version of Faye Wong's "Eyes On Me", the theme song of Final Fantasy VIII, with her piano accompaniment.
In 2007 Aki's second major label album, Today, reached #1.[1]
Recent career (2009-2012)
In February 2009, Aki released her third full album in Japan, Answer — the first she produced entirely by herself.[1]
Angela Aki was chosen to sing Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" with her original Japanese lyrics for the movie Heaven's Door, and was chosen to write and perform the theme song titled “Ai no Kisetsu” for the NHK morning drama “Tsubasa” broadcast from March 30, 2009.
In September 2010, Aki released her fourth full album in Japan, Life, and then in September 2011 released her fifth full album White.
Songbook, a cover album by Aki, was released on January 11, 2012.
BLUE was released as Aki's 7th full Japanese studio album on July 18, 2012, along with the single from the same album, "Confession" (告白), released July 11, 2012.
Discography
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References
External links
- Official Site (Japanese)
- Angela Aki - italian FanSite (Italian)
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- Articles with Japanese-language external links
- Articles with hCards
- Articles containing Japanese-language text
- Articles with Italian-language external links
- 1977 births
- Living people
- Sony Music Entertainment Japan artists
- Sony BMG artists
- Japanese people of American descent
- People from Tokushima Prefecture
- Japanese female pop singers
- Japanese pianists
- Japanese pop musicians
- Video game musicians
- George Washington University alumni
- People from Hawaii
- ʻIolani School alumni
- Japanese people of Italian descent
- Musicians from Tokushima Prefecture
- English-language singers of Japan
- Japanese female singer-songwriters
