Yoshida Brothers

The Yoshida Brothers actually consist of two brothers, elder brother Ryoichiro Yoshida, born in 1977, and younger brother Kenichi Yoshida, born in 1979. Born and raised in Noboribetsu, Hokkaido, Japan, the two began studying the shamisen at the very young age of five. They started to learn the traditional Japanese music style of Minyō-shamisen, and in 1989, under Takashi Sasaki I, they began to study another traditional Japanese music style, Tsugaru shamisen. It was at Tsugaru shamisen conventions where the brothers started to win numerous awards, thus gaining lots of attention.

They made their major debut in 1999 with their first album Ibuki. Ibuki sold over 100,000 copies, a stunning accomplishment for the genre as traditional folk music albums generally sold at most 5,000 albums. The next year, the Yoshida Brothers won ‘Best Traditional Japanese Music Album of the Year’ award at Japan’s fifteenth annual Gold Disk Awards, and two years later at the same awards they won '30th Anniversary Of Normalization Of Japan-China Diplomatic Relations Commemorative Special Prize.'

The year 2002 gave the Yoshida Brothers a lot of firsts. They were able to go on their first nationwide tour, Live Soul, which contained thirty different tour dates and went from May to July. That same year they also released a new album, Soulful, released by their new label Sony Music Records. Their first maxi-single STORM was released the next month.

The next year saw the Yoshida Brothers expanding overseas. With their label Domo Records, they released their US debut album, Yoshida Brothers, in August. Following the release were their first overseas lives in Los Angeles and New York in October.

The year 2004 ended up being an important year full of significant breakthroughs for the Yoshida Brothers. Their fourth Japanese album, Renaissance, was released in Japan on May 21, and the same album was released one month later in Korea. The day after their album was released in Korea, they performed in Seoul to promote it. In fall of the same year, their next US album came out and was titled as Yoshida Brothers II, and the brothers even toured seven US cities to promote the album. Not only did they tour Japan, hitting twenty-eight different cities, release an album in Japan, Korean and the US and perform in the US and Korea, they had also gone to Sweden for a international exchange event and even participated in a Japanese TV commercial.

From April to July of 2005, the brothers were in Los Angeles recording their next album, YOSHIDA BROTHERS. It came out in Japan at the end of September. In November, their song Sprouting was used for the main trailer for the movie SAYURI. The next month commenced the beginning of their shamisen-only national tour in Japan, which went into March of the next year. Right after finishing the tour, their third US album came out on March 21 titled Yoshida Brothers III, which was followed by an American tour in ten different cities. Their greatest hits album was released in Hong Kong in August, selling considerably well. The next month, they traveled to Spain to perform two dates there, and the month after that they performed two dates in Hong Kong. In November, a commercial for Nintendo Wii premiered on TV; it featured their song Kodo-Inside the Sun Remix-.

In February of 2007, the Yoshida Brothers toured the US again and came out with another US album, HISHOU. This album also came out in Japan in April; however, it was re-recorded and put out as the brother’s first live album. In the same month, the Yoshida Brothers collaborated with rock band Monkey Majik and put out a single called Changes. Another project they worked on this year was the theme for TBS’s drama "Jigoku no Sata mo Yome Shidai," which aired from July to September 2007. In December, the brothers returned to Los Angeles to start recording a new album, which didn't get released until 2009.

In 2008, the brothers toured the US and Canada, and in November they did an Oceanic tour in Fiji and New Zealand. They were also featured in the 2008 Disney album Nightmare Revisited, remaking the track Nabbed. 2009 started off with the Yoshida Brothers releasing a new original album called PRISM. It featured collaborations with many different artists from around the world. This album was released in January and was officially released in the US in the beginning of May, just in time for their West Coast Tour 09’.