Karaoke inventor Shigeichi Negishi dies at 100

Karaoke inventor Shigeichi Negishi dies at 100 Enlarge this image toggle caption Hiroko Yoda Hiroko Yoda Shigeichi Negishi, the inventor of the world's first commercially-available karaoke machine, has died in Japan. According to the Wall Street Journal, Negishi's daughter Atsumi Takano said her father died from natural causes on Jan. 26, after a fall. Negishi was in his 40s when he came up with the idea of prototyping a mass-produced, coin-operated karaoke machine, branded "Sparko Box," after a colleague at the consumer electronics assembly business he ran in Tokyo criticized his singing. Although Negishi was the first to create a karaoke machine, many people attribute the invention of karaoke to nightclub musician Daisuke Inoue, who independently invented his own karaoke machine in 1971.