Hideki Naganuma

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Hideki Naganuma
長沼 英樹
Also known asskankfunk, Funky Uncle
Born (1972-05-16) May 16, 1972 (age 49)
Hokkaidō, Japan
Genres
Occupation(s)
InstrumentsKeyboards, synthesizers, turntables
Years active1993–present

Hideki Naganuma[a] (born May 16, 1972) is a Japanese composer and DJ who primarily does work for video games. Naganuma is best known for his score for the game Jet Set Radio and its sequel Jet Set Radio Future. He was nominated for the Golden Joystick Award for Soundtrack of the Year for his work on the 2005 release Sonic Rush for the Nintendo DS.[1]

Early life[]

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.[2]

Career[]

1998–2008: Work with Sega[]

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] but later changed those plans and sent demo tapes to Sega in 1998. He 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.

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 for Sonic Rush.[4] 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.[5]

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.[6] Following his work on Yakuza Kenzan in 2008, he left Sega to become a freelance composer. He has continued to work on Sega titles under the skankfunk alias, including Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō and Super Monkey Ball 3D.

2008–present: Freelance work[]

He has expressed a desire to create an original album.[7] In 2012, he contributed the track "Luv Can Save U" for the 20th installment of Konami's arcade rhythm game Beatmania IIDX. 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 or Big Chungus.[8][9] In 2014, Naganuma contributed towards the charity CD Game Music Prayer II for relief of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake with an original track titled "Aria di Maria".[10]

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 is composing for indie game Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, which is set to be released in 2022.[18]

Musical style[]

Naganuma's early sound is often labelled as an energetic, rhythm-heavy blend of hip hop, electronic, dance, funk, jazz, and rock.[19][20][21] 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.[20] Since the release of Jet Set Radio, Naganuma's sound has incorporated many elements of breakbeat,[13][22] digital hardcore,[22] gabber,[22] and EDM.[23]

Works[]

Video games[]

Year Title Notes
1998 Shoujo Kakumei Utena: Itsuka Kakumei Sareru Monogatari Voice editing
Hip Jog Jog[24] With Kenichi Tokoi
1999 Sega Rally 2 Dreamcast version with Tomonori Sawada
Atsumare! Guru Guru Onsen With various others
2000 JRA PAT for Dreamcast "Ebb & Flow"
Jet Set Radio[25] With various others
Daytona USA 2001 Sound effects
2001 Super Galdelic Hour Voice editing
2002 Jet Set Radio Future[26] With various others
2003 J. League Pro Soccer Club o Tsukurou! 3 "Get It 2 Win It"
2004 Ollie King
2005 Sonic Rush With Teruhiko Nakagawa, Masayoshi Ishi and Hiroyuki Hamada
Yakuza Voice editing
2006 Sega Rally 2006 "Boosted"
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz Arrangement ("Southpole (Winter Banana Pretz Mix)")
2008 Super Smash Bros. Brawl Supervisor
Yakuza Kenzan[27] Cutscene music, sound effects
2010 Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō With various others; as skankfunk
2011 Super Monkey Ball 3D
2012 Kurohyō 2: Ryū ga Gotoku Ashura Hen
Beatmania IIDX 20: Tricoro "Luv Can Save U"
Yakuza 5 "Vendor Pop"; as skankfunk
2013 Dead Heat Riders
2014 Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U Supervisor
2016 War of Brains "Feel the Power in Your Soul"
2017 Hover "Heaven Up" and "Never 4ever"
2018 Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight Arrangement ("When the Moon's Reaching Out Stars")
Lethal League Blaze "Ain't Nothing Like a Funky Beat"
2020 Warp Drive "Pumpin' Jumpin'"
2022 Bomb Rush Cyberfunk "Get 'Enuf" and "Jack da Funk"

Other[]

Year Title Notes
2006 Gin Tama[28] Arrangement ("Fuusen Gum (Gintama Mix)")
Air Gear[29] "Love Sensation" and "Sky-2-High"; as skankfunk
2007 Dance no Chikara Arrangement ("Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree (skankfunky mix)")

Notes[]

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

References[]

  1. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on January 16, 2007. Retrieved November 14, 2006.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ "Hideki Naganuma Interview". Archived from the original on September 27, 2003. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
  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". Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  4. ^ Mambrucchi, Steeve (December 5, 2005). "Sonic Rush Test". JeuxActu (in French). Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  5. ^ Naganuma, Hideki. "It's a contractual matter". Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  6. ^ 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".
  7. ^ 第1676回　Game Music Composer　Hideki Naganuma (Video) (in Japanese). December 17, 2019.
  8. ^ Frank, Allegra (April 27, 2017). "Jet Set Radio composer would like to remind you that he can't make a new game happen".
  9. ^ Murray, Sean (March 17, 2020). "Is A Famed Game Composer Thirsty For Family Guy's Lois Griffin?". TheGamer.
  10. ^ 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). Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  11. ^ "The composer of Jet Set Radio has new music for Hover". Destructoid. April 19, 2017. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  12. ^ Sullivan, Lucas (December 20, 2018). "How Lethal League Blaze became the future's best ball game". GamesRadar. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  13. ^ Jump up to: a b Pavlovic, Uros (September 10, 2018). "Lethal League Blaze PS4 Officially Coming Out During 2019". PlayStation LifeStyle. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  14. ^ Romano, Sal (July 17, 2019). "Streets of Rage 4 'Behind the Tracks' developer diary". Gematsu. 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.
  16. ^ Naganuma, Hideki (December 9, 2020). "Naganuma's reasons for dropping out of SoR4". Twitter. 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. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  18. ^ Hetfeld, Malindy. "Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is an indie ode to Jet Set Radio, with the original composer". PC Gamer. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  19. ^ Koumarelas, Robert (November 7, 2020). "Jet Set Radio is Still a Top-Tier Game 20 Years Later". CBR. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  20. ^ Jump up to: a b Jet Set Radio Documentary, retrieved June 8, 2021
  21. ^ "What Today's Video Games Could Learn from 'Jet Set Radio'". www.vice.com. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  22. ^ Jump up to: a b c Galán, Diego (December 19, 2019). "Albums of the Decade: The Money Store - Death Grips". Warp.la. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  23. ^ "Jet Set Radio Inspired Parkour Game Hover Is Receiving A PM Studios Physical Release". Nintendo Life. February 15, 2020. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
  24. ^ Naganuma, Hideki. "That game is called…"Hip Jog Jog"". Retrieved October 1, 2015.
  25. ^ Smilebit (October 31, 2000). Jet Grind Radio (Dreamcast). Sega. Level/area: Credits.
  26. ^ Smilebit (February 25, 2002). Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox). Sega. Level/area: Credits.
  27. ^ 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.
  28. ^ "Captain Straydum - Fuusen Gum -Gintama mix-". Retrieved January 5, 2021 – via YouTube.
  29. ^ "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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