Contents
Utada Hikaru
First Love and the songs of Kingdom Hearts, including Simple and Clean.
First Love · Hikari
- Born
- 19 January 1983
- Birthplace
- New York City, United States
More people
Utada Hikaru
Utada Hikaru brought R&B influences and personal songwriting into Japanese pop. Their work moves between Japanese and English, intimate ballads and electronic production.
Early life
Recording family
Born to singer Keiko Fuji and producer Teruzane Utada.
Early songwriting
Grew up between the United States and Japan and began writing songs as a child.
Career
- 1998
First releases
Released English-language music as Cubic U before their Japanese debut singles.
- 1999
Breakthrough album
First Love became a defining Japanese pop success.
- 2000s
International connections
Recorded in English and contributed themes to Kingdom Hearts.
- 2016
Return from hiatus
Released Fantôme after several years away from regular album releases.
Selected work
First Love
Debut Japanese-language album combining pop ballads and R&B.
Hikari
Japanese theme song for Kingdom Hearts, later adapted as Simple and Clean.
Bad Mode
Moves between Japanese and English with electronic collaborators.
Beyond music
University
Briefly attended Columbia University in New York.
Identity
Publicly identified as non-binary in 2021.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Official recording biography ↗Photo: Goldnrush Podcast. CC BY 4.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
