Karaoke is a form of entertainment in which amateur singers perform along with recorded music using a microphone. The name comes from the Japanese words for “empty” and “orchestra”. It usually involves a well-known song with the original vocal either absent or reduced in volume, while lyrics are displayed to guide the performance, sometimes with colour changes matched to the music video.

Karaoke becomes especially popular in Japan and then across East Asia from the 1980s onwards, and later spreads to other parts of the world. It is a social performance format rather than a single musician or group.