IN a life of ups and downs the popular Japanese pop singer Amuro Namie is heading for one of her happier up moments. On July 11-12, Amuro will perform on the Shanghai Grand Stage. It will be her first solo concert in Chinese mainland, granting at long last her Chinese mainland fans an opportunity to watch their idol live.
The solo concert will be one of the stops in Amuro's Best Fiction Tour 2008-2009. It began in October 2008, after her latest album "Best Fiction" passed 1.7 million in sales. It's the largest ever concert by a Japanese female singer - in Japan alone there are 60 concerts in total with more than 500,000 attending. So far the concerts have met with rapturous acclaim.
Each tour concert lasts for about two and half hours - without any intervals or introductions. Amuro, who is famous for her energy, just keeps singing and dancing through about 30 numbers for the entire concert.
Born in September, 1977, in Okinawa, Japan, Amuro came from a broken home - her parents divorced when she was four and she was raised by her mother, who worked in a childcare institute and a bar to make a living for them both.
When she was very young, Amuro didn't think about being a singer. She dreamed instead of becoming an air hostess. But when she was visiting the Okinawa Actors School with her classmates, she caught the attention of Masayuki Makino, the president of the school. She became a student there, learning singing, dancing and other performance skills. In 1992, when she was in grade two of high school, she and four classmates formed a pop band named "Super Monkey's."
In March of 1992, "Super Monkey's" performed on television. One year later, the whole band moved to Tokyo for further development. Because Amuro's singing and dancing skills were very outstanding even among the other talented band members, in 1994, after they had made their fourth album, the band was renamed "Amuro Namie with Super Monkey's," which marked the beginning of her personal performance career.
In 1995, the popular music producer Tetsuya Komuro discovered Amuro's talents. He signed her with his company and began writing songs for her. That October, their first song "Body Feels Exit" topped the Oricon Chart - the first time Amuro had been a top-listed performer. After that song, all of her albums and singles passed the million-seller mark.
1996 was one of the most important years in Amuro's career. In that year, her single CDs sold over 4.25 million. It seemed that she was the only person in Japanese pop music. At the beginning of 1997, her single CD "Can You Celebrate" created an incredible record - getting sales of over 1.5 million within three days of release. She became a trend, and the entire world fell at her feet.
In October 1997, she married Sam, a member of a Japanese Disco band TRF and announced she was stopping work, temporarily. But in 1998 just after she had given birth to her son, Haruto, she returned to the stage and continued the beyond "1 million legend."
But her private life didn't go as smoothly as her career. In the March of 1999, her beloved mother was murdered, which almost made her give up her career. And in 2004, she was divorced from Sam, turning her and her 7-year-old son into a single-parent family just like the family she endured in her childhood.
But these setbacks did not defeat her. She published the song "Respect the Power of Love" to commemorate her mother, and was tattooed with her mother's birthday and her son's name - her two great loves. After overcoming deep sadness, she returned to performing as energetically as before.
In the 18 years after she first stepped into the limelight, she has never stopped progressing in her career. She has released 38 singles and 12 albums, as well 12 DVDs of her live concerts. Her tour train keeps travelling around the world - and the next stop is Shanghai.