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Hideki Naganuma

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Hideki Naganuma
長沼 英樹
Born (1972-05-16) May 16, 1972 (age 52)
Otaru, Hokkaidō, Japan
Other namesSkankfunk
Occupations
Years active1993–present
EmployerSega (1998–2008)
Musical career
Genres
Instruments

Hideki Naganuma[a] (born May 16, 1972)[1][2] is a Japanese composer and DJ who primarily does work for video games. Naganuma is best known for his soundtrack for the game Jet Set Radio and its sequel Jet Set Radio Future.

Early life

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Naganuma started his musical career by playing the electronic organ, aged five, under the influence of his older sister. When he was fourteen, he became interested in western music and composed his own songs. He then decided to have a job in the music business.[1] During 1993 to 1997, he worked as both a DJ and bartender. He was also aiming to become a singer-songwriter in the J-pop industry,[3] although he dropped this plan.

Career

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1998–2008: Work with Sega

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Naganuma sent demo tapes to Sega in 1998. His application was accepted, with voice editing for Shoujo Kakumei Utena: Itsuka Kakumei Sareru Monogatari and composition for Hip Jog Jog being among his first works with the company, the latter of which he worked with senior composer Kenichi Tokoi.

In 2000, he served as the lead composer for Jet Set Radio, serving as his breakthrough work. He took inspiration from big beat music for the game. He would go on to compose for its sequel Jet Set Radio Future in 2002, along with Ollie King in 2003, also developed by Smilebit. In 2005, he composed a large portion of Sonic Rush's soundtrack, of which he was later nominated at the Golden Joystick Awards for Soundtrack of the Year.[4][5] The following year, he was responsible for music supervision and composing two tracks for the anime adaption of Air Gear, itself being influenced by Jet Set Radio. For contractual reasons, he used the "skankfunk" alias as he was still employed at Sega at the time, while Air Gear had nothing to do with Sega.[6] He also created a remix of "Fuusen Gum" for the anime Gintama, but similarly was not credited at the time.

During his later years with Sega, Naganuma was part of Yakuza's team, where his role was mostly limited to voice editing and producing sound effects. The boss of its team did not allow him to work on the soundtrack of Sonic Rush Adventure.[7] Following his work on Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan! in 2008, he left Sega to become a freelance composer. He has continued to work on Sega games under his "skankfunk" alias, including Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō and Super Monkey Ball 3D.

2008–present: Freelance work

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During the earlier years following his departure from Sega, Naganuma contributed a handful of tracks to various Sega games such as Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō and Super Monkey Ball 3D, under the skankfunk alias. In 2012, he contributed the track "Luv Can Save U" for the 20th installment of Konami's arcade rhythm game Beatmania IIDX, and for the 21st installment an extended mix of the aforementioned track. In 2014, Naganuma contributed to the charity CD Game Music Prayer II for relief of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake with an original track titled "Aria di Maria".[8]

By the late 2010s, he became popular on the social network platform Twitter, where he frequently interacts with fans and posts internet memes and shitposts related to Jet Set Radio and other media, such as Family Guy, Among Us, Juuni Senshi Bakuretsu Eto Ranger, and Big Chungus.[9][10]

As a result of his online popularity and musical success, he has contributed tracks to a number of indie games inspired by Jet Set Radio. In 2017, Naganuma contributed two new original songs for the game Hover.[11] In 2018, Naganuma released the track "Ain't Nothin' Like a Funky Beat" as a part of the Lethal League Blaze soundtrack,[12] which featured other notable composers such as Frank Klepacki, Pixelord, Bignic, and Klaus Veen.[13] He was set to compose for Streets of Rage 4,[14] but due to schedule complications and copyright ownership issues, he withdrew from the project in 2020.[15][16]

Naganuma admitted that since leaving Sega, he has made attempts to work for Nintendo, after the topic was brought up by fans of the Splatoon franchise that he should have worked on the latest games' soundtrack, who drew parallels between it and his previous works.[17] He composed for indie game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, which was released on August 18, 2023.[18] He has also expressed a desire to create an original album and clarified he is not active in the gaming industry.[19]

Musical style

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Naganuma's early sound is often labelled as an energetic, rhythm-heavy blend of hip hop, electronic, dance, funk, jazz, and rock.[20][21][22] His music was produced to match the visual style of the games he was working on as closely as possible, and experimented with voices, cutting and rearranging samples to the point that they become nonsensical.[21] Since the release of Jet Set Radio, Naganuma's sound has incorporated many elements of breakbeat,[13][23] gabber,[23] and EDM.[24]

Works

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Video games

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Year Title Notes
1998 Shoujo Kakumei Utena: Itsuka Kakumei Sareru Monogatari Voice editing
Hip Jog Jog[25] Music with Kenichi Tokoi; & sound effects
1999 Sega Rally 2 Dreamcast version; music with Tomonori Sawada
Atsumare! Guru Guru Onsen Music with various others
2000 JRA PAT for Dreamcast Music ("Ebb & Flow")
Jet Set Radio[26] Music with various others; & sound effects, music editing
Daytona USA 2001 Sound effects
2001 Super Galdelic Hour Voice editing
World Advanced Daisenryaku Music editing
2002 Jet Set Radio Future[27] Music with various others
2003 J. League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 3 Music ("Get It 2 Win It")
2004 Ollie King Music
2005 Sonic Rush Music with Teruhiko Nakagawa, Masayoshi Ishi and Hiroyuki Hamada
Yakuza Voice editing
2006 Sega Rally 2006 Music ("Boosted")
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz Music ("Southpole (Winter Banana Pretz Mix)")
Yakuza 2 Voice editing
2008 Ryu ga Gotoku Kenzan![28] Cutscene music, sound effects
2010 Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō Music with various others
2011 Super Monkey Ball 3D
2012 Kurohyō 2: Ryū ga Gotoku Ashura Hen
Beatmania IIDX 20: Tricoro Music ("Luv Can Save U")
Yakuza 5 Music ("Vendor Pop")
2013 Dead Heat Riders Music
2016 War of Brains Music ("Feel the Power in Your Soul")
2017 Hover Music ("Heaven Up" and "Never 4ever")
2018 Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight Arrangement ("When the Moon's Reaching Out Stars")
Lethal League Blaze Music ("Ain't Nothing Like a Funky Beat")
2020 Warp Drive Music ("Pumpin' Jumpin'")
2023 Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Music with various others

Other

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Year Title Notes
2001 Guitar Vader - REMIXES_GVR "I Love Love You [Love Love Super Dimension Mix]"
2006 Gin Tama[29] "Fuusen Gum (Gintama Mix)"
Air Gear "Love Sensation" and "Sky-2-High";[30] music supervision

Notes

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  1. ^ Japanese: 長沼 英樹, Hepburn: Naganuma Hideki

References

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  1. ^ a b "Hideki Naganuma Interview". Archived from the original on September 27, 2003. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  2. ^ @Hideki_Naganuma (May 15, 2024). "Today, May 16th, Japan time, Funky Uncle turns 52 years old!!! So what???". Twitter. Retrieved May 15, 2024.
  3. ^ Naganuma, Hideki. "I had written lyrics. Long ago, I was trying 2 be a singer-songwriter in J-Pop industry. But 4 games… no plan at this moment". Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  4. ^ "SEGA". Archived from the original on January 16, 2007. Retrieved November 14, 2006.
  5. ^ Mambrucchi, Steeve (December 5, 2005). "Sonic Rush Test". JeuxActu (in French). Archived from the original on June 8, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  6. ^ Naganuma, Hideki. "It's a contractual matter". Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  7. ^ Naganuma, Hideki (June 18, 2020). "I wanted to make music for Sonic Rush Adventure too but my boss didn't let me do it. Because I was in Yakuza team at the time". Archived from the original on June 18, 2020. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  8. ^ Ohji, Masashi (April 15, 2014). "東日本大震災義援金チャリティCD「Game Music Prayer 2」がM3などで限定リリース。49組のゲーム音楽作曲家が参加した2枚組みコンピアルバム". www.4gamer.net (in Japanese). Archived from the original on October 19, 2020. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  9. ^ Frank, Allegra (April 27, 2017). "Jet Set Radio composer would like to remind you that he can't make a new game happen". Polygon. Archived from the original on April 28, 2017. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
  10. ^ Murray, Sean (March 17, 2020). "Is A Famed Game Composer Thirsty For Family Guy's Lois Griffin?". TheGamer. Archived from the original on March 21, 2020. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
  11. ^ "The composer of Jet Set Radio has new music for Hover". Destructoid. April 19, 2017. Archived from the original on September 16, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  12. ^ Sullivan, Lucas (December 20, 2018). "How Lethal League Blaze became the future's best ball game". GamesRadar. Archived from the original on June 8, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  13. ^ a b Pavlovic, Uros (September 10, 2018). "Lethal League Blaze PS4 Officially Coming Out During 2019". PlayStation LifeStyle. Archived from the original on June 8, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  14. ^ Romano, Sal (July 17, 2019). "Streets of Rage 4 'Behind the Tracks' developer diary". Gematsu. Archived from the original on July 17, 2019. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
  15. ^ Wong, Alistar (March 20, 2020). "Hideki Naganuma No Longer Composing Streets of Rage 4 Soundtrack Due to Scheduling Complications". Siliconera. Archived from the original on March 20, 2020. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
  16. ^ Naganuma, Hideki (December 9, 2020). "Naganuma's reasons for dropping out of SoR4". Twitter. Archived from the original on August 7, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  17. ^ Carter, Chris (October 6, 2020). "Absolute legend and Jet Set Radio composer Hideki Naganuma muses on how he 'tried to be an employee of Nintendo twice'". Destructoid. Archived from the original on September 27, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  18. ^ Faulkner, Cameron (August 21, 2023). "August games you might have missed". Polygon. Archived from the original on August 21, 2023. Retrieved August 21, 2023.
  19. ^ 第1676回 Game Music Composer Hideki Naganuma (Video) (in Japanese). December 17, 2019.
  20. ^ Koumarelas, Robert (November 7, 2020). "Jet Set Radio is Still a Top-Tier Game 20 Years Later". CBR. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  21. ^ a b Jet Set Radio Documentary, January 8, 2014, archived from the original on June 8, 2021, retrieved June 8, 2021
  22. ^ "What Today's Video Games Could Learn from 'Jet Set Radio'". www.vice.com. April 13, 2015. Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  23. ^ a b Galán, Diego (December 19, 2019). "Albums of the Decade: The Money Store - Death Grips". Warp.la. Archived from the original on November 27, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  24. ^ "Jet Set Radio Inspired Parkour Game Hover Is Receiving A PM Studios Physical Release". Nintendo Life. February 15, 2020. Archived from the original on June 8, 2021. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  25. ^ Naganuma, Hideki. "That game is called…"Hip Jog Jog"". Retrieved October 1, 2015.
  26. ^ Smilebit (October 31, 2000). Jet Grind Radio (Dreamcast). Sega. Level/area: Credits.
  27. ^ Smilebit (February 25, 2002). Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox). Sega. Level/area: Credits.
  28. ^ Naganuma, Hideki. "Just a few songs for movie scene on "Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan!" But those were not JSR style music". Retrieved December 20, 2015.
  29. ^ "Captain Straydum - Fuusen Gum -Gintama mix-". September 28, 2017. Retrieved January 5, 2021 – via YouTube.
  30. ^ "ＴＶアニメ「エア・ギア」オリジナルサウンドトラック ＡＩＲ ＧＥＡＲ ＷＨＡＴ Ａ ＧＲＯＯＶＹ ＴＲＩＣＫ！！". Retrieved August 19, 2015.
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