MISIA

Misaki Ito (born July 7, 1978), known by her stage name, MISIA, is Japanese rnb/pop singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and philanthropist. She is one of most successful Japanese recording artists of all time, selling over 30 million records since her 1998 debut. She has released twenty albums, of which eight have reached number one on the Oricon charts. Her song Everything was the best-selling single by a female artist of the last decade. She is one of the top-touring artists in Japan, becoming the first female artist to play all five of Japan's largest stadiums in 2004. Misia is famed for her five-octave vocal range and is widely recognized as the first Japanese R&B superstar. Born and raised in Nagasaki, MISIA moved to Fukuoka at the age of 14 to pursue a recording career. There, she continued her secondary education and briefly attended Seinan Gakuin University before withdrawing to focus on her musical career. She was signed to BMG Japan in 1997, after auditioning for record producer Haruo Yoda. Since 2001, she has been engaging in environmental and human rights activism. In 2008, she founded Child AFRICA, an organization aimed at supporting education and creating sustainable societies. In 2010, she was named Honorary Ambassador of the 10th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity. For the Portuguese fado singer, see Mísia. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.