Singer Mikaben dies at 41 after going into cardiac arrest onstage in Paris
The Japanese singer Mikaben died on Sunday night at the age of 41 in a car crash during the French capital’s annual Bastille Day celebrations. She was rushed to a hospital in Le Mans but died shortly afterwards.
Mikaben was the only one of her six children to survive to adulthood. Her eldest daughter, Yuki, was born in 2004 and she had two other children, Mika and Yosuke, while she was married to another artist.
The singer who began her career in an almost entirely instrumental style while living in the country town of Chiba at a young age, began her career in the electronic dance music scene in Tokyo in the late 1990s and, after releasing her single “Ai no Iru” (I can’t control) in 2004, went on to create her own identity.
Her debut album Hikari no Okuribi (Hikari no Okuribi, “Fashion My Life”) was released in September 2009 and spawned her first hit single, “Watashitachi wo Kakeru Nari” (We are not the same).
She quickly became a regular on the local music scene and, despite being signed to Pony Canyon, never went on to release another album. She was also a part of Nogizaka46 and the “Yonkoma Sore” girls’ trio.
While working with her fellow members on the latter project, she met the other member of the trio, Shoko Nakagawa. The two became a couple and began living together in October 2016. The two were often seen together on social media, with Mikaben often showing a picture with Shoko and discussing her feelings for her.
Mikaben’s last tweet on her Twitter account addressed her feelings towards her fans.
“You are what we dream to be when we were young. You are the reason that I wanted to be a singer. I’m sorry. I always felt that the most precious thing in life was you. My whole heart is yours.”
The singer would most likely have celebrated this year’s Bastille Day by going on a journey