Hikaru Utada or Hikki as she is known to her fans, is an arranger, singer-songwriter and record producer in Japan.

Her international claim to fame comes from her having two songs in the video game "Kingdom Hearts". "Simple and Clean" and "Sanctuary"

Utada's debut album First Love became the biggest selling album of all time in Japan with over 7.65 million copies sold.

Her single "Flavor of Life" reached number 2 in worldwide digital downloads with over 7.2 million downloads in 2007.

She was born in New York on January 19, 1983 to a Japanese couple, Teruzane and Junko Utada. Both parents were in the entertainment field, with her father Teruzane a record producer and her mother Junko a singer.

Hikki has released albums in Japan, First Love, Distance, Deep River, Ultra Blue and Heart Station. She has released two albums in America, Precious (as Cubic U) and Exodus. She is currently working on a third US album.

Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories has a remix of Hikaru's single Hikari, or Simple and Clean at the beginning.

Utada Hikaru was Japanese magazine Oricon Style’s annual Favourite Artist for the second year in a row.

Hikaru Utada is now offically listed as an EMI artist, and with EMI now pushing it's international business, you can expect to see more of Utada.