Utada Hikaru or known as hikki by her fans was born in Manhattan , New York in 1983, but she was raised part time in Tokyo. She was known as Hikaru Utada at the western part of the world. Her life revolved around the music industry. Her father, Teruzane Utada, was a music producer and musician, who now runs her management company. Her mother Keiko Fuji was a famous enka singer (Japanese ballad singer). Utada has began to make recordings around the age of seven and began to write at the age of ten. Some would say it was inevitable that she would become such a talent. 

Under the name "Cubic U," Utada made recordings when she was 12 years old, releasing three 12-inch singles for an independent label in New York. In January 1997, she released her single "Close To You" and album "Precious" in the name of "cubic U" in USA. This album was highly valued by Lenny Kravitz. 

Hikaru has earned awards and praise from fellow artists, Japanese media and music bodies. Her career started with the single " time wil tell", which was recorded on numerous FM charts more than a month before her official debut "Automatic". Utada won the "PowerPlay" on dozens of nationwide FM stations. Utada's debut album, "First Love", debut at number one on the Original Confidence (Ori-Con) charts, selling out at record stores even before it's official release date. "First Love", broke all time record sales in Japan, selling over a massive nine-million, five-hundred-thousand copies, making it the best selling record in Japanese history. 

Her new cd album "Distance" is selling just as fast! In the space of five months since her debut with "time will tell", Utada rose to the top of the Japanese pop music scene. At the World Music Awards 2000, Hikaru Utada received the "Best-Selling Asian Artist" award. On 28 March 2001, she released her second album, "Distance". This album has sold about 5 million copies in Japan. At a recent MTV Unplugged concert, Utada surprised her fans by singing a rendition of U2's song, "With or Without You!" With the exception for such occasional covers, Hikaru writes almost all of her songs. 

According to her record label, Toshiba-EMI, Utada plans to work under her own name in Japan, while maintaining "Cubic U" as an international moniker. She started attending Columbia University after graduating from high school, although she is currently taking a break from school to concentrate on her music career. Hikaru Utada features on the new "Rush Hour 2" soundtrack which was released on 31 July 2001. The song is titled "Blow My Whistle" and it features rapper, Foxy Brown. Like her mother, Utada is planning to retire at an early age, maybe even as young as twenty-eight. She also thinks she'll persue neuroscience. "I kind of see myself in a white coat in a lab, working till late evening in front of test tubes." "...Hikaru Utada. (Or is it Utada Hikaru...oh whichever!)" is definitely "THE DIVA OF THE HEISEI PERIOD!" 

 

Source : Hikki Zone ( By David S. )    Edited By : klst

You must know this story when you try to understand Hikaru's roots. 
It is that of her foreign activity as U3/cubic U/Cubic U. Although Hikaru Utada is now appreciated as one of the greatest artists and the ingenious diva in Heisei period, she was not free from much trouble to reach such a celebrity status . There, of course, had been twists and turns. 
Hikaru started her music career by playing an active part in U3/cubic U and then released her solo CD as Cubic U in the US before she made her debut as "Utada Hikaru" in Japan. 


U3 
U3; Their activities are seemingly not well-known among people. 

U3 is the name of a unit which Utada family formed in 1990 to do their musical activities. The main vocal is Keiko. In this unit, each of the members has stage name. Keiko is Ra U, Teruzane is Sking U and Hikaru is , named after a 20th century genius painter, Picasso. "U" is from initial of "Utada", and "3" is a number of the family, then they created the name "U3". 

First, U3 released an album titled "U*STAR" in September 1993, when Hikaru was ten years. The illustration of the jacket was drawn by Hikaru. And the album had two songs, whose lyrics were written by Hikaru. One is "Thank You" (actually collaborated with Teruzane), and another is "Kodomotachi no uta ga kikoeru*1". You can listen to her lovely voice as a 10 years old girl in these songs. 
With writing songs, basically, she learned by herself. Although she got a voice training in New York, she got the skill during one summer. 

In addition, U3 released 12 inches size records from the indies label, titled as "Rainy Day" and "New Life". They contain 6 and 4 songs, respectively. However, these releases did not attract people's attention.


cubic U 
2 years later, in 1995, U3 changed the name into "cubic U".
In June 1996, the unit released "Tsumetai Tsuki*2 /Golden Era" as name of "Keiko Fuji with cubic U", the main vocal was Keiko Fuji. This song was used for the CM song of "Haku Tsuru", a well-known Japanese sake brand name. Hikaru joined in the chorus, and took turns in the vocal parts with Keiko in the coupling song.


Cubic U 
In the following year, 1997, Hikaru changed her stage name to "Cubic U", to distinguish her solo activity from her family's unit "cubic U". 
She made her debut in the US with the release of a maxi single "I'll be stronger" from the label of LiquidSoundLounge. 
In January 1998, Cubic U released a solo debut album "Precious"; all songs were written in English from Toshiba EMI. Regrettably, though "Precious" didn't catch so much listeners' attention in Japan, the oversea reputation was such high as Lenny Kravitz and other musicians praised it.
As a result, the reputation of this work in music scene drove Hikaru Utada to appear in the world of music scene. After that, when Hikaru will be active internationally, she will step forward as Cubic U.

Contributed By : Bjork ( From Hikki Zone )

Hikaru's mother , Keiko Fuji was a famous singer in japan . but since a surgery on her throat ,
her voice changed . she could sell less after that . she met her husband Teruzane Utada , a music producer and got married. They went to new york to pursue music.

Speacial thanks to : Song Hyun Min ( luv_hikki )