Hikaru Utada

File:Utada Hikaru - Can You Keep A Secret screencap.png

Utada Hikaru

Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル Utada Hikaru) (born January 19, 1983), or "Hikki" ("Hikky") as she is known to fans, is a Japanese pop music star. In English-speaking countries, her full name is put in Western order, Hikaru Utada. In an interview, she stated that she plans to use the English-order name to separate her "English" and "Japanese" personas.

She was born in New York City, New York to Japanese parents who both had roots in the Japanese music industry: her father, Teruzane Skingg Utada, was a producer, while her mother, Keiko Fuji, was an enka singer. She made her first professional recording at the age of 12, and recorded her first album, Precious, in 1996 under the pseudonym Cubic U.

She moved to Tokyo later that year and attended The American School in Japan while continuing to record on a new contract with Toshiba/EMI. She soon made her mark on Japanese music with her successful single "Automatic", soon followed by the album First Love, which sold over five million copies, internationally, in a month during March and April of 1999 and placed Utada among the 100 wealthiest people in Japan.

Utada returned to New York in 2000 to attend Columbia University as a freshman, but took leave from it within the year. She continued to record, however, and her two subsequent albums, Distance (2001) and DEEP RIVER (2002), also went multi-platinum. Shortly after the release of the latter she announced her marriage to Kiriya Kazuaki, a photographer fifteen years her senior, in September 2002. She is set to make her American debut as an Island Def Jam Music Group artist in the fall of 2004. Her debut American single, "Devil Inside", which was released under just her last name, "Utada", is currently rising the American club charts.

Her 2001 song "Can You Keep A Secret" was not released in the United States as a single. Its music video received some attention as part of International Week, which coincided with the 2001 EMA's, on the American channel MTV2. That video's airplay was likely Utada's first chance at exposure in the United States.

So far she is best known in the western hemisphere for singing "Simple And Clean", the theme to the video game "Kingdom Hearts," which is an English version of her popular song "Hikari". She also performed a well-received duet with Foxy Brown, "Blow My Whistle", which was featured on the Rush Hour 2 soundtrack. Other international hit Utada songs include "First Love", "Automatic", "Wait And See", "Final Distance", "Distance", "Time Limit", "For You", "Traveling", "Colors", and "Sakura Drops."