宇多田ヒカル (Utada Hikaru), born January 19, 1983 in New York City, United States, also known by her fan-nickname “ヒッã‚ー†(Hikki), is a third culture singer-songwriter, arranger, and record producer in Japan and the United States. 宇多田ヒカル (Utada Hikaru) is the name she uses for her Japanese releases. Her English releases should be tagged as Utada, as she has stated herself that she wants her Japanese music to be separate from her English releases.Utada Hikaru was born in New York City to Japanese parents who both had roots in the Japanese music industry; her father, Teruzane Utada, was a producer, while her mother, Junko Utada, was an enka singer (she performed under the stage name Keiko Fuji). Utada Hikaru has been recording since 1993. She made her first professional recording at the age of twelve, and recorded her first album, Precious, in 1996 under the pseudonym Cubic U. This album led to her career overseas. In a recent MTV interview (MTV’s You Hear It First, October 2004), Utada said: “Someone in Japan heard it, at a Japanese record company, and he said, ‘Oh, can’t you write in Japanese? You speak Japanese.’ And I didn’t want to say no, so I had to try it.â€Utada Hikaru may be most known in some cultures for her contribution to the Square-Enix & Disney video game series “Kingdom Hearts†where she performed the song “Hikariâ€/â€å…‰â€ (or mostly known as “Simple And Clean†in the English version) for the first game. She also performed “Sanctuary†and “Passion†(English and Japanese versions of the same song, respectively) for the second game.
