Toshiki Kadomatsu

From student to city pop

Toshiki Kadomatsu (角松敏生) was born on August 12, 1960 in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, and raised in Nerima, per Japanese Wikipedia. English Wikipedia calls him one of the pioneers of city pop. He started on guitar young, naming Happy End and Tin Pan Alley among early influences, and studied Indian philosophy at Nihon University, graduating in 1987 after eight years. He used the pseudonym Oshamanbe Taro for the AGHARTA project.

He debuted in 1981 while still a student with the single "Yokohama Twilight Time" and the album Sea Breeze on RCA. Weekend Fly to the Sun (1982) was recorded in Los Angeles with session players including Abraham Laboriel Sr., JR Robinson, Louis Johnson, Nathan East and Dorothy Ashby, per Sessiondays. On the City Shore (1983) was his first self-produced, self-arranged album and reached 21 on the Oricon chart. After 5 Clash followed in 1984, then Gold Digger (1985), with scratching and rap, which Japanese Wikipedia calls his signature work, Touch and Go (1986), Sea Is a Lady (1987, an instrumental fusion album that reached number 4) and Before the Daylight (February 1988). The Japan Record Awards named Touch and Go and Before the Daylight outstanding albums. He produced Anri's Timely!! and wrote and produced for Miho Nakayama, whose Catch the Nite reached number 1 on the Oricon album chart.

He announced a freeze at the Nippon Budokan on January 27, 1993, and stopped releasing and touring under his name until a Budokan show titled He Is Back in May 1998. He founded the iDEAK label and the VOCALAND project with Avex in 1995, and AGHARTA performed at the closing ceremony of the Nagano Winter Olympics. Time Tunnel (1999) was the first album back; later records include Incarnatio (2002), Fankacoustics (2004), No Turns (2009), The Moment (2014), Inherit the Life (2022) and Forgotten Shores (2025). He plays anniversary concerts at Yokohama Arena every five years, the 45th on June 27, 2026, and ten post-Time Tunnel albums were announced for streaming in June 2026. Sea Is a Lady won the Japan Gold Disc Award for instrumental album of the year in 2017.