Ryuichi Sakamoto (坂本 龍一 Sakamoto Ryūichi, born January 17,

1952) (Japanese pronunciation: [sakamoto ɾʲɯːitɕi]) is a Japanese musician,

singer, composer, record producer, activist, writer, and actor based
in Tokyo and New York. Sakamoto began his career while at university in
the 1970s as a session musician, producer, and arranger. His first major
success came in 1978 as co-founder of the electronic-music trio Yellow
Magic Orchestra.[1][2] With his bandmates Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro
Takahashi, Sakamoto helped pioneer the genres of synth-pop, techno,
and house music.[3]
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; one track from it, "Riot in
Lagos", has been said to have influenced the development
of electro and hip hop music.[4][5][6] 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 has pursued a wide variety of projects in different genres,
ranging from electronic to classical, to world music. He composed music for
opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and his composition
"Energy Flow" (1999) was the first instrumentalnumber-one single in
Japan's Oricon charts history.[7]
As a film-score composer, Sakamoto has won an Academy Award,
a BAFTA, a Grammy, and two Golden Globe Awards.[8] 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. His most successful work as a film
composer was The Last Emperor (1987),[9] 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 has also worked as a composer and a scenario
writer on anime and video games. In 2009, he was awarded the Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture of France for his
contributions to music.[10]