About YUI

YUI was born in Fukuoka.

She was raised only by his mother since her father letf her when she was three years old.

She was a shy girl and was horrible at talking to others. She liked to play in the montains, rivers, by the sea and rice paddies.

It was her mother who told her to write a book with her feelings and thoughts and try to do poems with them.

She started to write songs when she was in the high school as to express herself in a better way. In that time, she worked in a part-time job at a Chinese restaurant to help her mother with the tuition.

However, she decided that she could not persuade her dreams anymore since she didn't had time with the studies, work and music she only slept about 2 hours and she eventually got ill.

While at the hospital, she thought that school and music could not coexist and left hight school short after that.

She had a chance to watch a live street performance after leaving the hospital and confessed her desire of singing to the band Bianco Nero. The band advised her to enter a private music school.

YUI did not hesitate to leave school and began to learn guitar and songwriting at cram school in Fukuoka. Aspiring to become a professional, she started to perform at Fukuoka's Tenjin Station. That helped YUI to overcome her shyness.

YUI began her professional career in March 2004 when, at recommendation of her cram school instructions, she applied for an audition hosted by Sony Music Japan.

Despite the audition rule that a participant only could perform two songs, YUI was allowed to sing three.

She first sang "Why Me", followed by "It's Happy Line" and "I Know". The judges gave her the maximum score.

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 2.000 copies in her home area.

After leaving Fukuoka to Tokyo, YUI wrote the song "Feel My Soul" as a tribute to her hometown. Although she intended its released on indie label, producer Mr. Yamaguchi was so inspired by her voice that he insisted on having her work on the music for his primetime drama "Fukigen na Gene" even before she released her first major single. The music in Fukigen na Gene was eventually based on her songs "It's Happy Line" and "Feel My Soul".

On February 23, YUI released her first major debut single "Feel My Soul". With the publicity the drama tie-in drew in, "Feel My Soul" sold 100.000 copies and managed to chart at number 8 on Oricon Weekly Charts in his first week. Her next three singles "Tomorrow's Way" (theme song of the movie Hinokio), "Life" (5th ending theme for Bleach) and "Tokyo" did not chart as high as "Feel My Soul", and were only moderately successful in comparison.

After that, YUI released her first album "From Me To You", a moderate success with sales of more than 200.000 copies.

YUI made her acting debut in the full-length feature film "Song of the Sun". The film was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. YUI attended the Japan Academy Prize and received the Best Newcomer Award for Midnight Sun. Prior to the release of the movie, YUI released her fifth single "Good-Bye Days", written specifically for the movie. The single is, by far, her highest selling at more than 200.000 copies sold. All three tracks on the single are featured on the film. The single also re-released the track "It's Happy Line".

Her next single "I Remember You", did well in terms of sales, riding on the wave of the popularity of "Good-Bye Days". YUI's seventh single "Rolling Star" was chosen as the 5th opening theme for Bleach. Her eighth single, "Cherry" was featured in commercial promoting KDDI, a Listen Mobile Service. She released her second album "Cant Buy My Love" on April 4, 2007. The album spending two weeks at number 1 on the Oricon charts, shattering her entire previous album's record sales in one week. "Can't Buy My Love" managed to sell over 680.000 copies. Due to the success of "Can't Buy My Love, YUI's previous album, "From Me To You" charted once again, adding another 9.000 copies to the Oricon counting.

YUI released her 9th single "My Generation/Understand" on June 13, 2007. It was her first double A-side single. "My Generation" was selected as the ending theme for the TV drama Seito Shokun! and "Understand was chosen as the theme song for the movie Dog in a Sidecar. The single charted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts in the first week of its release.

Her tenth single, "Love&Truth" was released on September 26, 2007. The title track is the theme song to the filme Closed Note.

During this time, her previous two albums were re-released as Winter Sleeve Editions in alternative covers taken from her "Love&Truth" photoshoot. Her first live concert DVD "Thank You My Teens" was released on November 14, 2007, which contained footage of her second live tour promptly sold out.

The Budokan concert was structured similar to a live performance, which a writer from B-Pass called it fitting considering her beginnings as a street performer on the streets of Fukuoka.

YUI started 2008 with her eleventh single "Namidairo", released on February 27, 2008. YUI composed the song as a "mysterious and sad sounding" insert for the telivision drama 4 Shimai Tantei Dan. The chorus was incidentally written by YUI long ago, during her singing debut.

A week following the release of her 11th single, the promotional video of a new song "Laugh Away", was released. The song was used in Glico's "Watering KissMint" commercial. "Laugh Away", was released as a digital single on March 10, 2008.

Her third studio album was released on April 9, 2008 titled "I Loved Yesterday". It quickly charted at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and sold more than 400.000 copies, only a little behind her second album. The 10th track on the album, titled "Oh Yeah", was used as the opening theme to Mezamashi TV, a morning tevision show. The limited edition version of the album included a DVD which contained music videos of her previous singles and live footage of her Nippon Budokan show. The album was composed mainly of semi-ballads with much of the same themes as her previous releases such as youth.

YUI's third tour, named "Oui: I Loved Yesterday" started in May 2008 and ran until July.

On July 2, 2008, YUI released "Summer Song" again charting at number 1 on the Oricon Weekly Charts. "Summer Song" sold 83.440 copies in a week, making "Summer Song" second highest in first week sales after Love&Truth.

YUI released her B-side compilation album "My Short Stories", on 12 November 2008, which charted at number 1 on Oricon. The album included all the B-side tracks of all her singles to date, along with a new song "I'll Be". YUI is the second female artist whose B-side compilation album topped the charts, after Seiko Matsuda's "Touch Me" in 1984. The last compilation album that reached No.1 was Mr. Children's B-Side in May 2007. On the success of "My Short Stories", sales of her first album "From Me To You" rose again.

In her "YUI Diary" blog entry on August 29, 2008, YUI mentioned that she would put her career on hold, not making any public appearances after the release of the album. With this break, she would be able to fully concentrate on her plans for the next year. During this break, she co-wrote the song "I Do It" with Okinawa girl band Stereopony. It was released as Stereopony's third single on April 22, 2009.

YUI announced her return from her 5-month hiatus on March 25, 2009 on her official website. The single celebrating her return is an up-tempo tune titled "Again". The track was chosen as the first opening theme of the new season of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, premiered on April 5, 2009. The single was released on June 3, 2009. "Again" debuted atop the Oricon charts, selling over 110.000 copies in its first week. It currently has the highest opening week sales for a female act in 2009.

Her website YUI-net.com annouced the release of her second double-A side single named "It's All Too Much/Never Say Die" on July 27, 2009. The two songs were eatured in the movie adaptation of Kaiji as both a theme and an insert song. The single was released on October 7, 2009 and Kaiji released on October 10, 2009. The single debuted at number 1, selling 75.000 copies in its first week of sales. This is her fifth overall number 1 single. YUI released "Gloria" on January 20, 2010. It was another chart-topper, selling 80.000 copies in the first week. Her next single, "to Mother" was released on June 2, 2010. On July 14, 2010, YUI released her fourth studio album "Holidays in the Sun", whitch included her five singles from "Summer Song" to "to Mother". It became her fourth straight album to top the Oricon charts, eventually selling over 300.000 copies, and attained the certification of Platinum.

Her single "Rain" was released on November 24, 2010. YUI's released a doubled A-side of "It's My Life/Your Heaven", on January 26, 2011. YUI traveled to Sweden for the shooting of the "Your Heaven" music video and a short movie showing YUI's journey to various places and shops in Sweden.

YUI's tour DVD, "Holidays in the Sun" was released on March 9. Her newest single, "Hello (Paradise Kiss)", was released on June 1, 2011, the A-side and B-side being theme song and ending song, respectively, of the live-action movie "Paradise Kiss". On June 16, 2011, YUI traveled to Hong Kong for her first overseas concert at the AsiaWorld-Expo Arena, performing to a capacity audience of 14.000 people.

YUI visited schools in stricken areas from  the 2011 Tõhoku earthquake and tsunami on July 7, 2011, and performed a charity concert. Her single "Green a.Live" uses the emotions and thoughts she felt from the visit, and was released on October 5, 2011. It was previewed on the Tokyo FM radio show School of Lock on August 22. "Green a.Live" debuted on top of the charts, and became her first number one single since July 2010.

On November 2, 2011, YUI's album "How Crazy Your Love" was released. The album debuted at number one on the daily charts, selling just under 50.000 copies on the first day of release, and would go on to reach number one on the weekly charts - making "How Crazy Your Love" her fifth straight album to debut at the weekly number one. YUI started her fifth major tour on November 11, 2011 to promote her recent album. It has cruising as the major theme.

via wikipedia

On January 25th, her 5th tour "Cruising: How Crazy Your Love" ended successfully.

On March 23rd, she completed 8 years of career and her new DVD "Cruising: How Crazy Your Love Live Tour" was released on March 28th, two days after her 25th birthday, including performances of past songs "Tokyo", "Good-Bye Days", and recent works like "no Reason", "Nobody Knows" and "Get Back Home".

YUI was chosen to write a song with the theme "light" for the anual choir contest at NHK. She performed the song herself for the first time on Radio, May 5th of 2012 and then live on tv "Music Japan" show, May 20th accompanied with the choir who previously sang her song on the contest.
After nine months since her laste release "How Crazy Your Love", it was announced that she would release the single "fight" on 5th September.
On August 18th of 2012, miwa and YUI got together for the first time on TV. The program went for about 30 minutes, where the singers-songwriters talked about various things and sang together.