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| PHOTOGRAPHED BY JONATHAN SAUNDERS |
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Good deeds on the cutting edge
At a recording studio in Tokyo's forever-young Shibuya district, Ryuichi Sakamoto pushes up the sleeves of his rust-color sweater and leans back in his chair. Looking relaxed, the 51-year-old composer, keyboardist and singer is happy to talk about some of the musical projects he has in the works. But what really captivates him at the moment is an environmental organization he's just founded called Artists' Power. Although still in its planning stages, Sakamoto hopes the collection of artists, writers and musicians he is assembling will soon become a powerful advocate for renewable-energy sources such as windmills and solar power. "Our reliance on fossil fuels is causing a whole world of problems," he says. "We need to find alternatives."
Sakamoto's burgeoning activism is a new chapter in an already illustrious musical career. An electronic-music pioneer and movie-soundtrack composer (he won an Oscar for The Last Emperor), Sakamoto has long been an oxymoron: a careerist who lives on the cutting edge. But he has recently expanded his portfolio to include antiwar and environmental causes, both in the studio and outside of it.
His interest was piqued a few years ago by a chance viewing of a TV documentary about land mines. Horrified by the carnage inflicted on innocent civilians, he teamed up with David Sylvian, Ryu Murakami, Kraftwerk and Brian Eno, among others, to produce a single called Zero Landmine, which has raised millions of dollars for mine-removal efforts worldwide. For many of his devotees, Sakamoto's new social voice was an unexpected but appreciated wake-up call. "It made me realize what's going on in other parts of the world," says Kazushi Inagaki, a 34-year-old fan in Shizuoka.
In recent months Sakamoto has also become a vocal critic of the conflict in the Gulf, speaking against the military campaign in newspaper interviews and promoting (via mass e-mail) a widely acclaimed Japanese antiwar book called On a Small Bridge in Iraq.
Though he hesitates to call himself an activist, that's clearly what he is becoming. Spend just a little time with him and you recognize he has the necessary ingredients: hefty amounts of outrage leavened with even greater doses of idealism. "You know what I'd love to do?" he asks, sliding forward in his chair in that studio in Tokyo, returning to his vision for a world less dependent on oil. "I'd love to play a concert among a sea of windmills which are powering the concert itself. That," he says, grinning broadly, "would be beautiful."
—With reporting by Michiko Toyama/Tokyo
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