The Japanese film composer, musician, actor and producer Ryuichi Sakamoto (“The Last Emperor”, “The Revenant – The Returner”) is dead. He died last Tuesday, as his office announced on Sunday. The music genius was 71 years old. Sakamoto suffered from cancer. He has already been buried with his closest relatives, it said. The exact cause of death was not initially known.
Sakamoto has transcended numerous musical and cultural boundaries throughout his groundbreaking career. He won several awards, including the 1988 Oscar for the soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. In the war film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (1983), for which he also composed the film music, he also played a leading role alongside David Bowie.
As the bandleader of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, once ranked among the “Kings of Techno” along with German band Kraftwerk, he helped lay the foundation for synth-pop, electro and techno in the 1970s and early 1980s. His fusion of pop, classical and global rhythms as well as his experimental works also earned him a high reputation and inspired many artists.
Sakamoto, who was born near Tokyo on January 17, 1952 as the son of a publishing manager and a hat designer, has worked with many important artists over the course of his long career, including Brian Eno, Iggy Pop and David Sylvian, as well as representatives of ambient and glitch , a subgenre of electronic and experimental music, like Fennesz. He also composed music for films, television series and video games.
In 2014, Sakamoto was diagnosed with throat cancer. After the cancer initially seemed defeated, his doctors diagnosed rectal cancer in 2021. Sakamoto had to undergo surgeries to remove the cancer that had spread to both lungs.
