Yu Takahashi is a pop-rock singer-songwriter who has scored a run of Top 10 albums on the Japanese charts since his 2010 debut. ∙ The son of a folk singer, Takahashi played in bands during high school and college, then honed his chops as a solo artist while busking on the streets of Sapporo in the mid-2000s. ∙ His 2010 major label debut, “Subarashiki Nichijo,” hit No. 5 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, and he landed five more singles in the Top 10 over the next two years. ∙ “Hontonokimochi,” from the 2011 debut LP Realtime Singer Songwriter, was the first of four Takahashi singles that were certified Gold in Japan. ∙ In 2011, he took out an ad in The New York Times saying, “I think the universal language of the world is not English but a smile,” a translated lyric from “Fukuwarai,” which is his signature song. ∙ All seven of his studio LPs have reached the Top 10 of the Japanese album charts, as did his 2015 best-of collection, Takahashi Yu Best 2009-2015 “Warau Yakusoku”. ∙ After being appointed Music Ambassador of his native Akita Prefecture, Takahashi launched an annual outdoor festival, the Akita Caravan Music Fes, in 2016.