Biography
Ritsuki Nakano (中野律紀), born January 19, 1975, professionally known as RIKKI, is a famous Japanese folk singer. She was born in Amami Oshima, Japan. Amami Oshima is the main island of the Amami Islands, an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest of Kyushu.
She began to sing traditional Japanese folk music when she was four years old. Later, at the age of 15, RIKKI was the youngest winner ever to win the "Grand Prix" of the Japanese traditional folk music awards (known as All Japan Minyo awards). She first performed in Tokyo, Japan, at the prestigious Festival Konda Lota in 1992. She released her first single 満天の星 (Maten no Hoshi, which means "Sky Full of Stars") in December 1993, originally released in the Kyushu region of Japan. Shortly thereafter, she produced her debut album, 風の声 (Kaze no Koe).
RIKKI is widely known by gamers as the singer of the Final Fantasy X main theme, 素敵だね (Suteki Da Ne), released as a single on July 18, 2001. Other songs on the single include the Instrumental version of Suteki Da Ne, a vocal remix of Aerith Theme from Final Fantasy VII, and a new song entitled 御月様 ～ウティキサマ～ (Utikisama, which means "The Moon"). One reason why Nobuo Uematsu and Kazushige Nojima chose her to perform Suteki Da Ne (translated into English as "Isn't It Wonderful?") is that she is very famous in Japan as a traditional folk singer and they believed that her voice is rather nice and gentle, and that her voice has a higher pitch than the voices of mainstream Japanese singers. RIKKI was 26 years old at the time of Final Fantasy X's release.
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