Namie Amuro

Namie Amuro (安室奈美恵, Amuro Namie, born September 20, 1977) —formerly known as Namie Maruyama in her personal life— is a Japanese singer, dancer, fashion model, actress and businesswoman. She achieved popularity by a series of successful singles and albums, both exploring different genres and working with producers and musicians outside of Japan, one of the first Japanese artists to do so at the time. Due to her longevity and resilience in the industry, she has been often referred by critics and music publications as the "Teen Queen" of Japan, "Queen of J-Pop", and the "Japanese Madonna or Janet Jackson".

Born in Naha, Okinawa, Amuro debuted in music as an idol with the band Super Monkey's at age 14. Although majority of their releases were unsuccessful in Japan, Amuro's venturing in modelling fashion and acting helped the group gain attention on their single "Try Me ~私を信じて~". Retitling themselves as "Namie Amuro with Super Monkey’s" to achieve further success, they released a studio album and a compilation. She signed with Avex Trax in 1995 to released her debut single “"Body Feels Exit", the lead single from her best-selling album Sweet 19 Blues (1996). She achieved large success with her single "Can You Celebrate?", which is still the best-selling single from a female artist in Japan. Transitioning into westernised R&B music, she released her third album Genius 2000 (2000).

As she was beginning to mold her well-known signature R&B sound, sales started to decline by the release of her fifth album Style (2003). But in 2007, Play, her eight studio album, was a period of her resurgence with sales. She then moved from R&B, onto electronic dance music with her tenth album Uncontrolled (2012), and has since recorded primarily in English language, including her most recent album Genic (2015). Though Amuro has been credited as a record producer and songwriter in some of her releases, she has remained solely as a recording artist, with many of her singles hitting number one including "Chase the Chance", "A Walk in the Park", "Dreaming I Was Dreaming", "I Have Never Seen", "Wild", and an extended play single 60s 70s 80s. Alongside this, her compilation albums 181920 (1998) and Best Fiction (2008) are two of the best-selling greatest hits albums in Japan.

Having sold more than 30 million records in Japan, Namie Amuro is recognized as the 12th best-selling artist, the fourth best-selling solo artist, and third best-selling female artist in that region according to The Richest. She has been recognized at several award ceremonies, including being a recipient at the World Music Awards, Japan Record Awards, Japan Gold Disc Awards, among many others. Recording to calculated results by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ), she has a total of 43 million certified units. Her album Sweet 19 Blues was the best-selling album of Japan, until it was released by several more entries during most recent years.

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