Minami Kizuki

Biography

Minami Kizuki was born on 26 December 1989 on the island of Amami Ōshima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. She once lived in the neighbouring island of Tokunoshima, part of the Amami Islands at junior high school age, at the age of 14 she moved to the city of Kagoshima on the mainland. Having learned the piano from the age of 2, it was not until after she moved to Kagoshima that her brother influenced her to study Shima-uta, the traditional folk music of her home islands.

Beginnings

In 2006, a talent scout from the Pony Canyon record label discovered her singing Shima-uta songs in a park in Kagoshima. In 2007, at the age of 18, she made her public debut at the MBC Summer Festival in Kagoshima. The following year, Kagoshima Television aired a short documentary about her debut and career rise. For the next several years, she released several singles and performed numerous times on radio and television throughout Japan, as well as travelling to New York City in June 2010 to perform at "Japan Day @ Central Park", a Japanese cultural expo.

Television fame

On 29 July 2014, Kizuki first appeared on THEカラオケ★バトル (The Karaoke★Battle), a televised karaoke competition shown on TV Tokyo. The initial contest was made during various type of professional persons who are concerning to singing, and she got the highest score and won the competition. The second contest was a team event, with various teams of professional singers. Kizuki and her team Amami Ōshima with Kosuke Atari and Mina Ganaha, ultimately won the competition. She has become renowned for her pitch and singing technique, called Guin, a kind of kobushi, in which a single syllable of text is sung while moving between several different notes in succession (this technique being common to her native islands' Shima-uta singing).

Since her premiere on The Karaoke★Battle in 2014, Kizuki has gone on to win ten competitions (most recently in June 2016), and has garnered the nickname 'The absolute Karaoke Queen'.

Outside of karaoke, in 2014 she coveredthe ending themes to the Korean drama The King's Doctor in Japanese language, and in December 2014 provided Inoriuta - Toutoganasi, a ending song for the NHK World programme J-Melo, an English-language programme aimed at exploring Japanese music.

On 21 January 2015, her first cover album Sakuranagashi (サクラナガシ, lit. "Rainy Season of Cherry Brossoms") was released, featuring many songs covered on The Karaoke★Battle. On 17 June 2015, her second cover album, Minamikaze (ミナミカゼ, lit. "Southern Wind") was released.

She also won a championship on a Fuji Television program "The 5th Championship of Impersonators" on December 11, 2015, by imitating Ayumi Hamasaki, Superfly and Chitose Hajime during 28 professional impressionists and singers.

Radio personarity

She was in charge of a radio program "Emotional Beat, Music Airport" on Rainbow Town FM in Koto Ward, Tokyo from January 2014 to March 2017. The program made a renewed start in April 2017,the name of which is "Music Delivery". It is a monthly program on the third Tuesday of every month (21:00 - 22:00 JST)

She is also in charge of a radio program "Island Home presents Kizuki Minami's AiRadio" on FM Kagoshima in Kagoshima Prefecture from April 2017.It is a weekly program (19:30 - 19:55 JST)

Musical

Kizuki played Shiro mokuren or white magnolia, which protect the raccoon dog forest on musical Tanuki Goten（狸御殿, lit. "Raccoon Dog Palace"） in Shimbashi Embujo, Tokyo, during August 2016. It is directed by Amon Miyamoto and starring Onoe Matsuya and Miori Takimoto. The musical will be aired on January 2, 2017 on NHK educational channel.

Original Albums

Cover Albums

Singles

Comprehensive list available on Japanese page (in Japanese)

Co-works

Comprehensive list available on Japanese page (in Japanese)