Utada Hikaru
Hikaru Utadais well known by her fans as Hikki, this third culture singer-songwriter wasborn onJanuary 19, 1983 in Japan. She is well-known internationally for her two theme song contributions to Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts video game series.
Utada's first official Japanese album First Love became the best-selling album of all time in Japan with over 7.65 million copies sold to date in Japan alone (10.056 million worldwide to date), cementing her status in the music industry in Japan.
In addition, Utada has won the Nihon Golden Disk "Song of the Year" award for fourteen of her singles since 2000 and has won the Golden Disc "Pop/Rock Album of the Year" award for all four of her Japanese studio albums. In 2003, Utada was ranked the #24 Japanese pop artist in its survey of "Top 100 Japanese Pop Artists of All Time" by HMV, and #10 in HMV's "Top 30 Best Japanese Singers of All Time" in 2006.
In 2007, her single "Flavor of Life" reached #2 in worldwide digital download single sales with over 7.2 million downloads (the only non-American artist to hold such a distinction), and she sold a total of 12 million digital ringtones and songs in that same year, making her the first artist ever to have this many digital sales in a year's time.