Ken Hirai

Biography

Ken Hirai’s regular, competent falsetto, visual appearance, and — most of all — predilection for basic R&B and spirit, which he mixes with jazz, funk, and hip-hop, produced him a top-league feature on japan picture and throughout East Asia, with the quantity of CDs he’s marketed being near 14 million. His profession began in the first ’90s: in 1993, Hirai, still students, earned an audition at Sony and got a cope with the label. He began big — his initial two singles, “Precious Rubbish” and “Katahou Zutsu No Earphone” (both 1995), had been used in Television dramas — however the product sales of his two albums, Un-Balanced (1995) and Stare At (1996), had been modest, therefore Hirai proceeded with extreme care, dropping just two singles from 1997 to 1999. He came back in glory in 2000, when his third studio room record, The Changing Same, marketed 1.26 million copies (that year’s “Rakuen” single added 500,000 more), getting him gigs at MTV Summertime Summit in Taiwan and also the R&B mecca from the Apollo Theater in NY, with Hirai being the very first Japanese performer to try out the venue. The one “Kiss of Lifestyle” (2001) was found in the effective Television series Love Trend, and the recording Gaining Through Dropping offered 1.5 million copies in every of Asia. Hirai also wooed the golf club crowd along with his remix Compact disc KH Re-mixed Up 1 (2001), and continuing to progress internationally in 2002-2003, showing up in LA with Babyface (he also published the track “Missin’ You: IT’LL Break My Center” for Hirai); liberating “Ooki Na Furudokei” (2002), japan cover of “My Grandfather’s Time clock,” which became a smash strike (772,000 copies offered); posting the stage with Lauryn Hill in the FIFA Globe Glass concert; and playing an MTV Unplugged in NY in 2003. He also experienced a prolific streak within the studio room, releasing Life Is usually… and Ken’s Pub in 2003 and Sentimental Enthusiasts in 2004 (Ken’s Pub consisted of addresses of traditional jazz and blues figures). Sentimental Enthusiasts offered 1.66 million copies and spawned the super-hit “Hitomi Wo Tojite,” which hit number 1 on japan yearly singles chart. Nevertheless, that was accompanied by a thorough break: Hirai just released two singles in 2005 and 2006, although his Utabaka collection (November 2005) offered 2.1 million copies, becoming the top-selling recording of 2006. Hirai came back to active setting in 2007, although his singles “Elegy” and “Kimi No Suki Na Toko,” unsurprisingly, didn’t graph up to their predecessors, even though still controlling to change about 100,000 models each. In 2008 Hirai released his 1st dual A-side, Canvas/Kimi Wa Su.te.ki, which “Canvas” was featured within the live actions adaptation from the strike manga series Honey and Clover. The recording Fakin’ Pop, his 1st in four years, arrived in 2008, achieving number 2 and offering 330,000 copies.

Quick Facts