Japanese pop singer Koda Kumi was born on November 13, 1982 in Kyoto, Japan.
She debuted in 2000 with the single Take Back.
Koda is the older sister of pop singer Misono (the former lead singer of the J-pop group day after tomorrow).
She did not achieve major success until the release of her seventh single, Real Emotion / 1000 no Kotoba. Her songs were featured on the Final Fantasy X-2 video game.
Koda also did the voice of "Lenne" in the Japanese version of the game.
Her popularity peaked in 2005 after the release of her sixteenth single, Butterfly.
Later that year Koda became one of 2005's best-selling artists with the success of Best ~first things~.
She released her 41st single on October 8th, 2008. It sold 66,569 copies the first week.
In 2006, she was the most searched person on Yahoo! Japan.
On December 24, 2008 her 42nd single, "Stay With Me" was released.
Kumi released her 43rd single, "It's All Love!" on March 31, 2009. The song is an collaboration with her younger sister, Misono.
"Faraway", the second song from the single was used for the theme song of a manga based movie called Subaru.
She also released two albums on March 25th, "Out Works & Collaboration Best" (her fourth best-of album) and "Koda Kumi Driving Hit's" (her first Remix album).

Koda has released seven Studio albums, four Compilation albums, one Remix albums and had seven singles hit number one.

In 2006, she starred in the J-Drama (Japanese television drama) Cherry Girl, kinda of a Japanese Charlie's Angels.

In 2009, Koda Kumi, along with Ayumi Hamasaki and Ai Otsuka all had to cancel major concerts in Japan because of the threat of Swine Flu.

UPDATE: Koda Kumi will be releasing a new single  "Can We Go Back" ( which is a cover of a bonus track on Kelly Clarkson's fourth album) on Jan 20, 2010.
And on February 3, 2010, she will release a new greatest hit album, Best: Third Universe and her eighth studio album, Universe.
The two albums are set to be packaged together.