Mami Japanese Singer From Aichi Prefecture

Early life

Mami was born on 21 May 1990 in Nagoya, in Japan's Aichi Prefecture. She enrolled at Caless, a school for voice and dance, and it was there that she met the girls who would become her bandmates in Scandal. Before the group made its debut, she appeared in a television commercial together with her future bandmate Tomomi and the singer Yuya Matsushita.

Career

Scandal formed in 2006, when Mami was sixteen. The four members are Mami, Haruna, Rina and Tomomi, and Mami plays lead guitar. In 2008 the band put out its first releases on the independent label Kitty Records, then signed to Epic Records Japan and made its major-label debut in October of that year with the single "Doll". At the 51st Japan Record Awards in 2009 the group received a Newcomer Award. In March 2012 Scandal played the Nippon Budokan, a concert recorded as the fastest debut at that venue by a girl band.

Within the group Mami is one of the principal songwriters. She mostly plays guitar rather than sings, but she takes the lead vocal on a few songs, among them "Koe" and "Oh! No!". Her music is classed as J-pop and garage rock, and her records are listed under Sony Music. Albums she has made with Scandal include Best Scandal (2009), Temptation Box (2010), Baby Action (2011), Standard (2013), Hello World (2014), Yellow (2016), Honey (2018), Kiss from the Darkness (2020) and Mirror (2022).

In 2011 Mami and the band's bassist Tomomi formed Dobondobondo, a rap duo. Their song "Dobondobondo no Theme" was filmed as a video that appeared on Scandal's home video release Video Action that year. Another duo song, "Cherry Jam", was included on a limited edition of the 2012 Scandal single "Taiyō Scandalous". In 2016 two further duo songs, "Sekapero" and "Dobondobondo Dungeon", were placed on separate limited editions of the single "Take Me Out", and a video for the second of them was part of Video Action 2, released later that year.

Mami has also written for other performers. She composed and wrote "Exceeeed!!" in 2017 for the idol group Yumemiru Adolescence, and in 2018 she composed and arranged "Story" for the singer Airi Suzuki. Her first solo performance took place on 4 October 2020, as part of the event Chōshidōkan Sō no Mori no Oto Shizuku at Maruyama Park. She is also the author of the book Rock Study Go!!, published on 25 September 2013.

Equipment

She mainly plays Fender guitars and is closely tied to the Stratocaster, particularly a black American Standard Stratocaster HSS decorated with colourful circles. In May 2014 the Fender brand Squier released her Jazzmaster Pearl White "Stratomaster", a model whose name reflects its mix of a Jazzmaster and a Stratocaster. Signature models for two of her bandmates came out at the same time, and the three became the first female Japanese musicians to have signature guitars with the company. In November 2017 she signed an endorsement agreement with Fender, and the Mami Stratocaster, a red guitar with a pearl pickguard and three single-coil pickups, was released that December. In August 2022 Fender issued a second model, the Omochi, which she named for its vintage white colour. Its pickups carry an engraving of a geometric figure that she designed herself.