Atari Kousuke

Hailing from Amami-Oshima in southern Japan, Atari Kousuke is a young singer currently signed to Epic Records Japan. He is a self-trained musician, and performs in the difficult 'shima-uta' (or 'island-song') style of his hometown. While his style of music is close to mainstream pop, his vocals have an undoubtedly traditional Japanese flavour, and his inspiration still comes from his traditional roots.

Hailing from Amami-Oshima in southern Japan, Atari Kousuke is a young singer currently signed to Epic Records Japan. He is a self-trained musician, and performs in the difficult 'shima-uta' (or 'island-song') style of his hometown. While his style of music is close to mainstream pop, his vocals have an undoubtedly traditional Japanese flavour, and his inspiration still comes from his traditional roots. When Kousuke was in high school, he became a fan of Hajime Chitose. Inspired, he began to teach himself how to sing in shima-uta style. In 2000, he won the Amami Folk Song Grand Prix's 'New Member Award'.

He also won the Japanese Folk Song Association Award. He continued to participate in numerous Ryukyu based folk festivals and tournaments. He began releasing very traditional albums in 1999, under the Jabara Records label. He released four albums with this label before moving to a more modern pop style with Day! Records. In September of 2005, he gained much attention with the release of an indie mini album entitled "Materia". The album shot to #5 on the indie music charts, and sold over 7000 copies.

By March of 2006, he had released his debut major label single, "Sore Zore ni", for Epic Records Japan. Kousuke worked with much of the same staff for this single that helped him created his indie album "Materia", and the single was chosen as a 'power-play' track on Kyushu FM radio stations. His second single, "Omoide no Sugu Soba de / Mahiru no Hanabi", is being used as the theme song for the film Chakushin Ari Final. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..