About Ayu
Truth be told, Ayumi Hamasaki might not look like much at first gloss. At just over five feet tall, she’s exceptionally petite. She hails from modest roots in Fukuoka where she was raised by a single mother and grandmother. She did her time modeling to raise money for her family and took gigs in b-movies when she dropped out of high school. Even so, by 2008 she was celebrating her tenth anniversary as a pop icon for the ages.
Since her debut single poker face hit stores in 1998, Ayumi Hamasaki has lead one of J-pop’s most prolific careers. With the help of mega-producer Max Matsuura, she has sold millions of her self-penned albums and singles, making her the highest-selling female and solo artist in Japan’s history. She has broken almost every sales record there is to break, and by 2004 she had taken home the industry’s highest honor a record three times.
A notorious workaholic, Ayumi Hamasaki — now widely known as “Ayu” — has spent the last decade meticulously grooming her brand. She has lent her name to dozens of high-profile endorsements like Panasonic and KOSE cosmetics, and her evolution from teen trendsetter to grown-up fashion goddess can be seen in the hundreds of fashion pictorials she’s shot over the years. All of this is done while she continuously records critically and popularly acclaimed albums. When not in the studio, Ayu spends her time personally bringing her music to her fans in unparalleled productions that tour throughout Asia.
However, for all its grandeur, Ayu’s musical career will forever be characterized as giving a voice to a generation. All of her self-penned lyrics are deeply personal, famously articulating her lonely adolescence and later exploring her ever-expanding world view. Even recently in 2007, when she experienced both great fame — a record-breaking second single collection — and personal tragedy — permanent deafness in her left ear and the death of a dear friend — she poured her heart and soul into her songwriting, creating a listening experience for fans that was intimate, heartfelt, and wholly unique.
Her fame may have earned her the casual title “Japanese Madonna,” but Ayu is an artist all her own. TIME Magazine was on to something in 2002: especially now in 2008, it’s safe to say that Ayumi Hamasaki ‘s the true “Empress of Pop.”
“I don’t set goals. Like, that’s what I want to be doing however many years from now. I do what I love to do at the moment. If I wake up tomorrow and decide I want to dance, that’s what I’d do. Or design clothes. I think I’d throw myself into whatever I’m doing now. It’s not about abandoning what I was doing before, or giving up. It’s about knowing that if I die tomorrow, I lived the way I wanted to.”
— Ayumi Hamasaki, qtd. in TIME Magazine “Empress of Pop”

