Kobayashi Takeshi is a Japanese musician. He started his professional career in the late 1970s. After working in the backing bands for singers such as Yosui Inoue, Misato Watanabe, and Anri, he came into prominence as a musical collaborator for the Southern All Stars frontman Keisuke Kuwata's eponymous 1988 solo album.

Although his own leader albums failed to receive public attention, Kobayashi garnered commercial success in collaboration as a producer or songwriter with other artists. As an arranger of his own composition, "Anata ni Aete Yokatta", co-written and performed by Kyoko Koizumi in 1991, Kobayashi won the 33rd Japan Record Awards for Best Arrangement category. In 1992, he undertook production work with the Japanese pop-rock band Mr. Children on their debut album entitled Everything. The producer and the band have gone on to record together to date, achieving mainstream success with cumulative sales of over 58 million copies of albums and singles as of March 2013. In 1995, Kobayashi formed another multi-million-selling pop group, My Little Lover, fronted by his then-girlfriend and first spouse Akko and remained a full-time member of the band until the couple's marriage broke up in the mid-2000s.

Kobayashi has written several film scores, including "Swallowtail" (1996) and "All About Lily Chou-Chou" (2001). Not only composed music, but he also directed the film "Bandage" (2010).

In addition to his career as a musician, Kobayashi has also worked as a social activist and a philanthropist. Along with Grammy-winning producer Ryuichi Sakamoto and Mr.Children's chief singer-songwriter Kazutoshi Sakurai, he established a non-profit organization called AP Bank in 2003. Kobayashi and Sakurai formed the charity supergroup Bank Band in 2004 and have released three albums and two singles to date.

(Source: Wikipedia) Edit Biography