Nujabes

Real name: Jun Seba. An extremely talented Hiphop musician, perhaps best known for Samurai Champloo's opening "battlecry" (performed along with Shing02).

Here's a list of some his famous tracks:
 * "battlecry"
 * "luv(sic)"
 * "FILO"

Being a private person, not much is known about his personal life.

In Febuary 26, 2010, Nujabes was involved in a late night traffic accident, he was confirmed dead by March 17, 2010 in a hospital at Shibuya, Tokyo.

His personal website.

A documentary on his music is set to be released some time in the near future.

Associated Tropes:

 * Author Existence Failure
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: The video for "luv(sic)".
 * Crowning Moment of Heartwarming/Tear Jerker: After his death, fans around the world grieved over him. There is also Shing02's tribute.
 * Five Deez, a Cincinnati, Ohio based hip-hop outfit and frequent collaborators with Nujabes re-recorded the remix Jun did for them on "Metaphorical Music" with a new tribute that commemorates his life and legacy.
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: "Battlecry" wasn't put in Number 2 in Suede's Top Openings for nothing.
 * Pretty much his own style will probably count as this.
 * Dead Artists Are Better: Averted. He was already acclaimed as an artist long before the accident, and his death didn't really gain him more publicity.
 * Epic Rocking: "Peaceland" is over 8 minutes long.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Nujabes collaborated with numerous performers on his albums: Substantial, Pase Rock, Shing02, Cise Starr, Fat Jon and many, many others.
 * Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: While his music is usually categorized as Hip Hop, his style is actually pretty unique, combining Jazz, Hip Hop, Ambient, Chill and even some Electronica.
 * Misattributed Song: A lot of people are under the impression that Nujabes did the entire Samurai Champloo soundtrack on his own. While he did do most of it, it would be unfair to ignore the contributions that Fat Jon, Tsutchie, and Force of Nature made.
 * The compilation album Modal Soul Classics also gets hit with this a lot(none of it is by him, actually), but given that it's an album of music that inspired his sound, mastered by him, and released on his label, the confusion is a little bit more understandable.
 * Sdrawkcab Name: Seba, Jun to Nujabes.
 * The Reason You Suck Speech: delivered by Substantial in "Think Different"

Rest In Beats.