Hikaru Utada

Hikaru Utada
宇多田ヒカル
Utada performing in 2006
Born	Hikaru Utada (宇多田 光)[1] (1983-01-19) January 19, 1983 (age 41) New York City, U.S.
Nationality	Japanese (jus sanguinis) American (jus soli, expatriate)
Other names	Utada Hikki Cubic U
Alma mater	Columbia University[2]
Occupations	Singer songwriter producer
Spouses	Kazuaki Kiriya ​ ​ (m. 2002; div. 2007)​ Francesco Calianno ​ ​ (m. 2014; div. 2018)​
Children	1
Musical career
Origin	Japan
Genres	J-pop R&B dance pop electronica
Years active	1996–2012 2016–present
Labels	EMI Music Japan Virgin Island Mercury Epic
Musical artist

Hikaru Utada (宇多田 ヒカル, Utada Hikaru, born January 19, 1983), also known by the mononym Utada,^[3] is a Japanese singer, songwriter and producer. Utada is one of the most influential and best-selling musical artists in Japan.

Utada was born in the United States to Japanese parents, record producer Teruzane Utada and enka singer Keiko Fuji. She began to write music and lyrics at an early age and often traveled to Tokyo as a result of her^[a] father's job. After signing to Toshiba-EMI, she released her debut English-language debut album Precious as Cubic U in 1998, which was a commercial failure. In the following year, heavily influenced by R&B and dance-pop, Utada released her Japanese-language debut, First Love, which was an immediate success. Backed by the success of singles "Automatic", "Time Will Tell", and "Movin' On Without You", the album sold two million copies in its first week in Japan, topped the Oricon charts for six non-consecutive weeks and went on to sell six million more throughout the rest of 1999. First Love eventually became Japan's best-selling album of all time.

Utada's album Distance was released in early 2001 and spawned her biggest singles—"Addicted to You", "Wait & See (Risk)" and "Can You Keep a Secret?"—which became million-sellers. The album broke several sales records after three million copies were sold in its first week, instantly becoming Japan's fastest-selling album. In 2002, backed by chart-topping singles such as Traveling, Hikari and Sakura Drops, Deep River, which incorporates elements of pop folk, was released and became become one of Japan's top-selling records of all time. The albums Exodus, Ultra Blue and Heart Station also sold millions of copies. After a prolonged hiatus, Utada released the acoustic-driven albums Fantôme (2016) and Hatsukoi (2018), which reached number one on the Oricon albums chart. She topped the charts again with 2022's Bad Mode, her first Japanese/English album.

By the end of the 2000s, Utada was deemed "the most influential artist of the decade" in the Japanese music landscape by The Japan Times. She is one of Japan's top-selling recording artists of all time with over 40 million records sold.^[5] Twelve of her singles have reached number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, while ten albums have become chart-toppers. Six of her full-length releases are among Japan's highest-selling albums, including First Love, Distance and Deep River, which are among the top ten best-selling records of Japan's music history. She is best known by international audiences for writing and producing four theme-song contributions to Square Enix and Disney's collaborative video game series Kingdom Hearts: "Simple and Clean", "Sanctuary", "Don't Think Twice", and "Face My Fears". In 2021, Utada became one of the first Japanese figures to identify as non-binary.^[6]

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