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AK Recording Artist, Producer AK, aka Akemi Kakihara, has been in the music business since she was 19. She owes her sophisticated musical taste to her father, who gave little AK a steady diet of great music such as Jazz and sound tracks. She showed an early sign of talent by composing her first music at 8 after she heard "Prelude" by Eumir Dodato, and eventually her style shifted to what was called "Cross Over" then, which is the combination of Soul, Jazz, Funk, Bosssa Nova and such. It was 1986 when record labels became interested in her songs , and soon, she was releasing the first of her 8 albums from Polestar Records as a singer- songwriter . Her writing skill also gave her steady songwriting works for other Japanese artists like Miki Imai and Tomoyo Harada. After switching her labels to Toshiba EMI/Virgin in 1998, AK recreated her position as a singer/songwriter/producer, became in charge of all the aspects of her creativity such as singing, song writing, arrangement, programming, production of the sound (selecting everything from musicians, engineers to studios), budgets and artwork. Her first self produced album was "Yes", recorded in London in 1998 with a mixing engineer Roland Herrington (Swing Out Sister, Simply Red), and programmers Phil Chill (Mark Morrison) and Guy Sigworth (Madonna) . For the next album "Dreamin'", she chose studios in LA to work with an engineer Gerry "the Gov" Brown (Brandy) and a programmer Chris Bolden (En Vogue). In a meantime, her love for new generation R&B grew stronger every day, and there was only one place for her to go. NY. She was lured to the sanctuary of NY R&B recordings , Chung King Studios, to record her third and the latest full album "Love" ,with the likes of an engineer Kevin "KD" Davis (Destiny's Child, Ashanti, also a partner of She'kspere of Destiny's Child fame) and Demian Desandies (Carl Thomas), the programmer. Her creative network exploded first in London, then LA and finally found home in NY in 2001. That same year, Francois Kevorkian & Eric Kupper remix of her single "Say That You Love Me" (released in US through King Street Sounds) gave her the first big ticket to the world. Even before its release, the promos were heavily played by such big name NY DJs as Francois Kevorkian & Danny Krivit of Body & Soul, "Little" Louie Vega, Kim Lightfoot, Frankie Feliciano, and soon it became a big hit in the US, Japan & Europe. It entered the charts of heavy play lists of BBS Radio, Galaxy FM in England, and became No.1 on many other hype charts. This single is later edited by Danny Krivit, a NY legend, and included as a bonus track in "AK Trilogy", a best album. AK's sound crosses over R&B, Hip Hop & House freely. She is a global citizen who can treat NY, Tokyo and Europe equally as her playgrounds. AK the artist is starting to be recognized all over the world. Recently, a brand new track titled "No One Else" received a remix treatment from the up and coming NY house producer Jon Cutler (of "It's Yours" feat. E-man / Distant Music fame), and will be released on 4/28 from King Street Sounds as her second US single. The rumor of this fantastic single spread from this year's Miami Winter Music Conference, and next thing we know, all the big name DJs have this record in their record boxes. (Danny Krivit, Francois K, Timmy Regisford, "Little" Louie Vega, Ben Watt of EBTG, Frankie Feliciano , Jon Cutler, Eric Kupper are rumored to be rocking this record) Now with a solid base, AK is finally able to sit down and start working on her upcoming fourth album which is yet untitled. The connection and the friendship she made between many artists and industry heavies, such as Tonia, the manager of She'kspere and Dent (Destiny's Child), Angela Piva , who mixes Mary J Blige, Shamora, the big time producer of J-Lo and Monica, and NY's top house DJs Danny Krivit, Francois K and Blaze will guarantee to expand the horizon of her creativities.