Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto was the first Japanese composer to win an Academy Award, taking Best Original Score for Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor in 1987. A musician, composer, keyboardist, producer, singer and actor, he moved between electronic music, pop, orchestral composition and film work across a career that joined Japanese and international collaborators. He also received a BAFTA, Grammy and two Golden Globe Awards for his screen music.

Born in Tokyo on January 17, 1952, Sakamoto began working as a session musician, producer and arranger while studying at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in the mid-1970s. His first major breakthrough arrived in 1978 with Yellow Magic Orchestra, the synth-based group he co-founded with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Alongside YMO, he developed a solo practice that was often more experimental: his 1978 album Thousand Knives fused electronic music with other forms, while 1980’s B-2 Unit included “Riot in Lagos,” a track that significantly influenced electro, hip hop and dance music.

Sakamoto sustained his solo career alongside YMO and worked with artists including David Sylvian, DJ Spooky, Carsten Nicolai, Youssou N’Dour and Fennesz. His 1999 composition “Energy Flow” became the first instrumental single to reach number one in the history of Japan’s Oricon charts. He also composed music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympic Games.

His film career began with Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence in 1983, in which he both acted and composed the score. The film’s main theme was adapted into “Forbidden Colours,” an international hit. After The Last Emperor, his screen work included The Sheltering Sky (1990), Little Buddha (1993) and The Revenant (2015), and he also occasionally composed and wrote scenarios for anime and video games. France’s Ministry of Culture awarded him the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009. Sakamoto died in Tokyo from colorectal cancer on March 28, 2023, aged 71.