Hikaru Utada

Utada performing in 2006

Hikaru Utada (宇多田ヒカル Utada Hikaru, born January 19, 1983, in New York City) is a Japanese and American singer-songwriter. Utada was born in the United States and can speak English fluently. She is the only child of the 1970s Enka singer Keiko Fuji. Her first Japanese album, First Love, was very popular. It sold more copies than any other Japanese singer ever. She is also known in Western countries for singing the theme songs for Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II: "Simple and Clean" and "Sanctuary".

Early life

Hikaru Utada was born on January 19, 1983, in New York City to Japanese parents. Her mother, Keiko Fuji, was an enka singer, while her father, Teruzane Utada, is a record producer. Utada grew up in Upper East Side, New York and moved to Tokyo, Japan, at age 11 due to her parents' work. When Utada was little, she did not want to become a singer. She saw how busy her parents' lives were, and did not want that for herself. When she was 10 years old, her parents asked her if she wanted to write songs. She did not want to, but tried doing it, and wrote a song called I'll Be Stronger. During this time, Utada went to school in New York. Her classmates were not able to say her name (Hikaru) right, so she shortened it to 'Hikki', which became her nickname. Utada is still given this nickname by fans in Japan.

Utada studied at Columbia University in New York City starting in 2001, but left after less than a year.

Early career

As a child, Utada recorded music with her mother and father, releasing songs as a band named "U3." In 1996, when she was only 13 years old, Utada started a solo project under the name Cubic U and recorded an album in English. This album was in the R&B style and was written all by herself. The album was going to be released by EMI, but due to problems within the record company, it was never sold in the United States. A producer called Akira Miyake from Japan heard the album and wanted to release it there. Utada agreed, and the album (named Precious) was released in Japan in 1998.

Rise to fame

The album sold okay, but it was not until later when Utada started to sing Japanese songs that she became famous. Her earlier music had sounded very R&B, but at this point, it sounded more like pop. Her first single, Automatic / Time Will Tell, reached #2 on the single charts in Japan. A while later, after another single, she released her first Japanese album, First Love. This sold a very large amount (over 9 million copies) and became the most sold album by a Japanese singer.

Utada went on to release two more albums: Distance (2001), and Deep River (2002). In each album, her style changed slightly. Each album was less R&B, and more pop. In 2004, she released an album made up of all her old single songs. She then released an album in English called Exodus. Exodus was released under the record label Island Def-Jam. It was sold in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. She sang, wrote, and made the music for the whole album herself (except for when she got hip-hop producer Timbaland to help her). The album sold many copies in Japan, but it did not sell that well in the United States. However, many famous people and music critics thought that the album was good (for example, Elton John thought it was interesting).

Utada has started to make new Japanese music again, but continued on making all the music herself. Usually, a singer/songwriter will only write the music and the lyrics, but Utada decided she wanted to arrange her songs all by herself as well. She released her new album, Ultra Blue, in mid-2006. Soon after, she went on a tour all across Japan. This is the second time she had ever done this (despite having sung for eight years).

Personal life

In 2002, Utada had surgery after being diagnosed with an ovarian tumor.

On June 26, 2021, Utada came out as non-binary in an Instagram livestream. Utada uses both she/her and they/them pronouns. Utada also spoke about her feelings on the English language honorifics Ms. and Mrs., "It makes me uncomfortable to be identified so markedly by my marital status or sex, and I don't relate to any of those prefixes. Every time, I feel like I'm forced to misrepresent myself." Utada showed support for such alternatives as Mx.

On September 7, 2002, Utada married Kazuaki Kiriya, a photographer and film director who had directed several of her music videos. On March 2, 2007, the couple announced their divorce.

On February 3, 2014, Utada announced her engagement to a private citizen, asking for fans and the media to view their personal lives from a "respectable distance". The couple were married on May 23, 2014, and divorced in April 2018. In 2015, Utada gave birth to their son.

Albums

• Precious (1998)
• First Love (1999)
• Distance (2001)
• Deep River (2002)
• Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 1 (2004)
• Exodus (2004)
• Ultra Blue (2006)
• Heart Station (2008)
• This Is The One (2009)
• Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 2 (2010)

Hikaru Utada Media

• 

  Hikaru Utada

• 

  Utada performing during their Utada United 2006 tour

• 

  Hikaru Utada at a listening party/interview event at Sephora in New York on March 25, 2009.

• 

  Picture from "Hikaru Utada Laughter in the Dark Tour 2018"

• 

  The stage for the Laughter in the Dark tour (2018)

Other websites

• Hikki's Website Archived 2008-11-18 at the Wayback Machine — Official Japanese Website