Aska (singer)

Aska, Ryo Aska or Ryō Asuka (飛鳥 涼, Asuka Ryō) (born Shigeaki Miyazaki (宮﨑 重明, Miyazaki Shigeaki) on February 24, 1958, Ono, now part of Onojō, Fukuoka) is a Japanese singer-songwriter.

Aska is best known for work as part of the music duo Chage and Aska. As a composer, he wrote most of the principal hit songs for the duo, such as "Morning Moon", "Love Song", "Say Yes", and "Meguriai". Over half of their released singles were written by him. He has also written for many singers and groups in addition to Chage and Aska. In particular, his songwriting for Hikaru Genji in the late 1980s produced some of his most notable works. He began a solo career in 1987, and was highly successful in the first half of the 1990s. His most well-known song as a solo singer is "Hajimari wa Itsumo Ame" (The Start Is Always Rain), which was a single from his second solo album. The song reached #2 on oricon and sold over 1,160,000 copies. Success of this song lead him to widespread popularity across East Asia.^[1][2][3] He was arrested in May 2014 for possession of the illegal stimulant MDMA. On September 12, 2014, he was given a three-year jail sentence that was suspended for four years.

Stage name origin

Initially, it was thought that his stage name was derived from the Ryo Asuka character of the Devilman manga series by Go Nagai. Aska later denied this, explaining that his name was derived from "Asuka," the name a female radio DJ in Fukuoka, who was the object of his unrequited love during college. When he thought about his stage name, he used Aska in order to get back at the DJ. At first, the English notation of his name was Ryo Asuka, but this was often mispronounced, so Asuka was changed to Aska. He later gained notoriety as part of the successful duo Chage and Aska.^[4]

Discography

Contributions for other artists

References

External links

Shigeaki Miyazaki known as Aska