The man who invented karaoke, Shigeichi Negishi, has died at 100 years old.
The Tokyo-based entrepreneur who was the first person to commercialize and automate karoake more than half a century ago said it came to him after being told he wasn’t talented at singing.
Negishi’s Sparko Box went on sale in 1967 and the rest is history.
He passed away on January 26 following a fall, his daughter Atsumi Takano told author Matt Alt who interviewed Negishi in 2018 for his book Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World. He also wrote Negishi’s obituary in The Wall Street Journal which went to press yesterday.
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Karaoke came to Negishi through an ‘epiphany’, when he was told he was told by a co-worker who heard him singing to himself, that he wasn’t very good.
43 at the time, Negishi told the engineer to ‘give me a break’ before wondering if they thought he’d sound better against a backing track.
He never patented his creation.
His daughter said: “Truly, the patent never bothered him.
“He felt a lot of pride in seeing his idea evolve into a culture of having fun through song around the world. To him, spending a hundred years surrounded by his family was reward enough.”
Karaoke has been credited to being invented by Japanese musician Daisuke Inoue in 1971, with the 8 Juke box. But Negishi’s Sparko Box was the first singalong machine four years before.
He created 8,000 Sparko Boxes and placed them throughout Japan, but grew “tired of the conflict with musicians” as well as door-to-door sales techniques.
Leaving the karaoke business in 1975, his invention inspired other creations. Only one Sparko Box remains and is being kept in the family.
Negishi is survived by three children, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
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