Maki Ohguro is a Japanese pop singer and songwriter from Sapporo, Hokkaido under B-Gram Records label. In 1989, she passed Being Inc’s.‘s singers audition, the “3rd BAD”. In 1992, she debuted with the single “Stop Motion” released by B-Gram Records. Her second single “DA・KA・RA” sold 1.1 million copies and won the Japan Record Grand Prix Newcomer Award of the Year. Because of her rare public appearances, she was originally known as a phantom singer, like Izumi Sakai of Zard. Her famous songs are “DA・KA・RA”, “Chotto”, as well as others. “Anata Dake Mitsumeteru”, the first ending theme for Slam Dunk, was the number 2 song for the month of January 1994, and is certified as a Million record, selling 1,087,160 copies. She joined in production of albums and singles in position of backing chorus for various artist including Field of View, Wands, Deen, Zard and many others.
In 1999. she released a compilation album “Maki Ohguro Best of Best: All Singles Collection”, then Maki left Being Inc. company and moved to EMI Japan where she was active from 2003 until 2010. On 25 August 2010, on same day when her studio album “Suppin” was released, she announced a hiatus from music activities due to ovarian illness which resulted in hysterectomy due to multiple miscarriages.
After six-years of hiatus, in June 2016 she announced resume of her music activities under her debut company, Being Inc. Two months later on 10 August, she released new digital single “Higher Higher”. On 18 November 2016 Maki has made her television appearance after 18 years in Music Station program.
Since February 2017 she has been performing her live tour Maki Ohguro 2017 Live-STEP!! in 47 prefectures. At the end of May, Ohguro participated as a guest artist at the annual touring ice show Fantasy on Ice in Makuhari, where she performed to her song “La La La” in the finale amongst others. In September 2017, she released her first single after hiatus titled “Lie,Lie,Lie”, which was used in media as an opening theme for Anime television series Case Closed. Ohguro provided backing vocals for three songs on Luna Sea’s 2017 album Luv, and later performed at their Lunatic Fest at Makuhari Messe on 24 June 2018.
So far she has released 37 singles, 15 studio albums and 6 best-of albums. In March 2022, Ohguro participated in the Shiichi ‘Ponta’ Murakami tribute concert “One Last Live”, performing “Respect” (with Miho Fukuhara) and “La La La”. She also joined Mie in performing the Pink Lady hit single “Wanted (Shimei Tehai)”.
