YUI Yoshioka

YUI YOSHIOKA


Yui (ユイ?, born March 26, 1987), stylized as YUI, is a Japanese singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, actress and radio personality. Born and raised in Fukuoka, she played live at various locations in her hometown before being noticed by Sony Music Japan when she was 17 years old and released her debut single months later. However her singles were only met with moderate success until her breakout "Good-bye Days", which charted for 44 weeks on Oricon and marked her as one of the Japanese music industry's rising stars.

Since her debut album, From Me to You, each of her albums has topped the charts, and has had at least one single reach number one yearly since 2007, including five straight from mid-2008 to late-2010.

She is popular in Japan and in surrounding countries, ranking number one in 2011 Count Down TV "Dearest Female Artist" and Music Station "Artist You Most Want to Marry" polls, as well as Radio Television Hong Kong's "Most Popular Japanese Artist".



Early Life

Yui was born in Fukuoka, Japan. The Associated Press has reported that her full name is "Yui Yoshioka"; but Yui and her record label have not confirmed this. She grew up in a single-parent family; her father left her mother when she was three. She stated that she had always been close to music, as she would remember the beats from music she heard on the radio, and could sing it. By the time she was in elementary school she thought she would like to become a singer.

Self-described as shy and horrible at talking to others as a child, she would play outside by herself in mountains, rivers, by the sea and in rice paddies. In her third year, she was influenced by her mother to begin writing a journal of her feelings and tried to compose them into poems. By the time she was in high school, she began to write songs, and she thought of that as being managing to be able express herself little by little. While in high school, she worked part-time at a Chinese restaurant to help pay for tuition. With her workload, she thought she no longer had the time to realize her dreams of a music career. For example, between music, school and work, she only had one or two hours of sleep; she would eventually get ill.While in the hospital, she was overwhelmed with the desire to make music and finally decided that school and music could not coexist.

Soon after leaving the hospital, she got a chance to see her first live street performance.She expressed a desire to pursue a musical career to the band, Bianco Nero, at the end of the concert. The band advised Yui to join a private music school. Despite the social norm of finishing school in Japan and discouragement from her teachers, Yui did not hesitate to drop out of high school and began to study guitar and songwriting at a juku (cram school) in her hometown of Fukuoka. Aspiring to become a professional, she took to street performing at Fukuoka's Tenjin Station. These street performances helped Yui to overcome her shyness.



Initial Career

Her professional career began in March 2004 when, at the recommendation of her cram school instructors, she applied for an audition hosted by Sony Music Japan.[13] Despite the audition rule that a participant could only perform two songs, Yui was allowed to sing three. She first sang "Why Me" (a song later included in her debut Sony Records single), followed by "It's Happy Line" and "I Know". The judges gave her the maximum score. Because "I Know" was incomplete at the time, the judges were able to get a glimpse of what would later be dubbed "Yui-go" (YUI語?)", or Yui-speak, nonsensical English hummed to a tune during her songwriting process – an example of Yui-go can be found in the film Song of the Sun when Yui is working on the song "Goodbye Days".

On December 24, 2004, she released her debut single, "It's Happy Line", under the indie label Leaflet Records, coupled with the track "I Know". The pressing was limited to only 2,000 copies in her home area.

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