Rie fu

Rie fu is een zangeres/songwriter wiens muzikale spectrum van pop en rock tot folk gaat. Als kind heeft ze drie jaar met haar ouders in de VS gewoond en werd zo geïnspireerd door Amerikaanse artiesten uit de jaren '70. In haar teksten is terug te zien dat haar Engels nagenoeg foutloos is, dit in tegenstelling tot veel andere Japanse zangeressen.

Rie Funakoshi was born on January 11th 1985 in Tokyo, Japan. When she was seven years old, she moved with her parents to the United States and they lived in the state Maryland until 1995. During her time in America, Rie learned to speak English fluently and still her pronunciation bears no accents. She also gathered her first musical experiences as the started to play the piano.

Back in Japan she studied at a high school between 1995 and 2003 and in the same period she started to play the guitar. To get some recognition, Rie fu recorded her songs on a small tape recorder and sent these recordings to various labels. Sony expressed an interest in her, and so she signed with the major label.

Rie who?! became her debut single in March 2004, followed by Life is like a Boat shortly after. This song was used as the ending theme of the anime "Bleach", which gave Rie fu’s popularity a huge boost.

Between 2004 and 2007 the young singer lived in the United Kingdom to study at the University of the Arts in London and traveled between her home country and the UK. During her studies in London she of course released more singles and performed in London at clubs and festivals. After graduating, she celebrated with the release of the single Tsukiakari, which was used as the ending theme for the anime "Darker than Black".

Rie fu is a very talented artist who has, despite her young age, already gained quite a lot of popularity and has plenty of admirers in, but also outside Japan. She is one of the few female artists that actually composes her own songs and she has also designed a number of her CD covers and booklets.

Thanks to these talents and the close connection she keeps with her fans, Rie fu has managed to establish herself in the Japanese music scene in only three years and without exaggerating, we can have some high expectations for this young woman from Tokyo.