Yui

Yui (stylized as YUI) (born March 26, 1987), is a Japanese singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, music arranger and actress. She is currently signed to Studioseven Recordings and attached to the talent agency Stardust Promotion. Yui Yoshioka was born in Fukuoka, Japan. She grew up in a single-parent family; her father left her mother before she was born. She stated that she had always been close to music; 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.

During her third year in middle school, at her mother's suggestion, Yui began 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.While in high school, she worked part-time to help pay for tuition. She thought that, being so busy, she no longer had the time to realize her dreams of a music career. Eventually she got ill.While in hospital, she was overwhelmed with the desire to make music. She decided that school and music could not coexist. Upon leaving the hospital, she encountered a live street performance and expressed her desire to pursue a musical career to the band, Bianco Nero, at the end of the concert. Bianco Nero advised Yui to join a private music school. Yui soon dropped out of high school and began to study guitar and songwriting at a juku 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.

Her professional career began in March 2004 when, at the recommendation of her juku instructors, she applied for an audition hosted by Sony Music Japan. 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 single), followed by "It's Happy Line" and "I Know". The judges gave her the maximum score, causing a fierce scramble among record labels to sign her.[citation needed] Because "I Know" was incomplete at the time, the judges were able to get a glimpse of what would later be dubbed "Yui-go", or Yui-speak (Yui語 in Japanese), nonsensical English hummed to a tune during her songwriting process — an example of Yui-go can be found in the film Midnight 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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