Utada Hikaru ( born January 19, 1983), who has also gone by Hikaru Utada and the mononym Utada (English: , Japanese: , is a Japanese-American singer-songwriter and producer. Born in the United States to Japanese parents, record producer Utada Teruzane and enka singer Keiko Fuji, Utada began to write music and lyrics at an early age and often traveled to Tokyo as a result of her father's job. Eventually, a recording contract with Toshiba-EMI was signed and, under the stage name "Cubic U", Utada released her English-language debut album Precious in early 1998, but it was a commercial failure. In the following year, heavily influenced by R&B and dance-pop, her Japanese-language debut First Love was released and became an instant success.