Biography Since 1998, with the Release of Poker Face, Ayumi Hamasaki has been a vivid figure in Japan's pop culture. Ayumi Hamasaki was born on October, 02, 1978 in Fukuoka, Japan. She grew up not knowing her father. Raised by a single mother and grandmother. She lived in Fukuoka, untill she turned 14, and moved to Tokyo to pursue a acting career. She had bit parts in five low-budget movies and some TV dramas, but then she got tired of acting and, did not have a future in modeling. She was dismissed by her talent agency and dropped out of school in the 10th grade, because she wasn't as free as she wanted to be. Then she spent her days shopping at trendy shops and her nights dancing at the massive Velfarre nightclub in Roppongi. One night out at a Karaoke a friend intoduced her to Masato Matsuura, who asked if she wanted to pursue a singing career, which she declined, because he was an older man, and it "sounded fishy". But over the next year, Masato Matsuura or Max, persisted and then Ayu finally she gave in to his request that she at least attend vocal training, only because "I had nothing better to do." But the classes were dull and the teachers harsh. "I felt like I'd gone back to school," she says. "If there are rules and regulations, I can't help it, I want to break them." When she confessed to Max that she had skipped most of the classes, instead of dropping her, he suggested that she go to New York for some 'real training'. She though he was kidding, because she was only 17, but she went, staying in a midtown hotel for three months, taking singing classes a few blocks away. "New York was a relief—not all hierarchical and rule-bound," she says. Then she had come to another obstacle. She had trouble expressing her thoughts, when they wrote letters to each other over the next year, Max must have seen come artistic work in her letters, and suggested that she write songs. She said "Part of me was flattered; part of me was terrified but didn't want to admit I couldn't do it. Plenty of people had patted my head and said, 'Aren't you cute.' Max gets mad, but when he praises me, I know I've won it. He's the one who found me and drew me out." He stayed with her too, when stardom didn't occur overnight. Her first two singles in 1998 stopped at No. 20 on the charts; her next four barely broke the Top 10. Then when Love ~Destiny~ came out, it jumped the No. 1 slot in April 1999, and every one of her singles have hit the top three since. At 23, Ayumi Hamasaki is the most powerful figure in Japanese pop music. She's sold more records than any other musical act for two years running in the world's second-largest music market.