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 BIOGRAPHY
PROFILE
Angela Aki
(アンジェラ・アキ Anjera Aki), was born on the 15th of September of
1977 in a town
(Itano) of the
Tokushima prefecture,
in Shikoku island, Japan.
Mix of a Japanese father and a italo-american mother. She’s a singer
and her real name is Aki Kiyomi (安芸 聖世美 Aki
Kiyomi). Her father is Aki Kiyoshi (安藝清 Aki
Kiyoshi), founder and president of Aeon, a big Eikawa in
Japan.
Angela has a sister, Kyla Aki, a year younger than her. Angela is
1.66m tall and her blood type is A.
EARLY LIFE
Angela is completely bilingual, she
speaks English and Japanese, she was born in Japan
where she began to take piano lessons when she was three years old, and she even studied
violin, guitar, and drums. In 1992 at 15 years old she moved to
Hawaii
, where she graduated from
Iolani
School
. There she changed her
name to Angela, leaving Kiyomi as a second name. She got a grant of
2500$ for university.
From there she moved to George Washington
University in Washington
were she combined international relations studies with Jazz. After
seeing Sarah McLachlan in concert she decided to be a singer like
her. While she was studying she was active musically, she use to play
in a coffee shop called Jam'n Jave. It was there where the musical
producer Tony Alany worked and collaborated with Angela producing her
Indies
album, These Words, which was
out in January 2000. The album consisted in English songs with
guitar, something different of what Angela usually does. Alany and
Angela were married after the producing process of the album.
 While she was staying in Washington
,
she was the support act of artists like Ricky Martin, Judy Collins
and Sixpence None the Richer. Also she sang at the Christmas party of
Al Gore. She graduated from University in May 2000. Angela showed her
music on a live at the Luna Park Grille in
Arlington, Virginia,
on the 29th of November 2001 and was called "Angela and her
Band". Later still on 2001 she made another live at Washington D.C.
and a Japanese producer from the CM "K" heard her, he asked
her if she wanted to sing commercially, she said yes and at the
beginning of 2002 she cover a Jimmy Scott, New Day for Yakult 400
commercial. In 2002 she composed two songs for "Let it
Fall" of Dianne Eclar a young pop singer from Philippines.
JAPANESE DEBUT
In 2005 she started making music
again. In that time her marriage with Tony Alany was over. She
re-debuted in
Japan
with Virgo Music, with a mini-album called ONE. It had two singles"Rain" and "We're all Alone". This album was number 2 on the HMV Indies Chart.
This album drew the attention of the
composer Nobuo Uematsu, who proposed Angela the opportunity of
singing the theme song of the videogame Final Fantasy XII. She was
announced like the singer of the song "Kiss Me Good-Bye" at
the Square Enix 2005 Stage Show at the end of July 2005, where she
made a performance alone in the stage singing and playing the piano. Angela
wrote the lyrics for both versions of the song, English and Japanese,
for the international release of the videogame, but Nobuo Uematsu was
the composer of the melody.
HOME ERA
 During the second half of 2005
Angela debuted with her first non-indie release, her first single
under Sony Japan,
HOME (was out one day after her birthday). Even if the single was
only at (#38) on the ORICON chart it was charting for 15 weeks.
After this single there were no news
of her until the end of November, her next single, Kokoro no Senshi
was going to be out at the end of January. Kokoro no Senshi was
released in two editions, a limited edition with an exclusive DVD
featuring Kokoro no Senshi music video and the first Final Fantasy
XII released images with Kiss Me Good-Bye as music background, and
the normal edition. Thanks to the special edition the single got a
good position in the charts, the number 13th.
Her 3rd single, Kiss Me Good-Bye,
was out the 15th of March 2006. The single, thanks to the nearer
release of the videogame, debuted at number 6th of the ORICON chart. This
is the highest position of Final Fantasy theme songs like Eyes
on me of Faye Wong or Suteki da ne of Rikki, but not as highest as
Koda Kumi's Real Emotion/1000 no Kotoba.
On 1st May of 2006 it was announced
that Angela signed a contract with Tofu Records in EE.UU (a Sony’s
label that promotes Japanese singers in the
United States).
Her first single released under this label was a modified version of
Kiss Me Good Bye the 16th of May, in which Aoi Kage was changed for a
version of Eyes On Me. This announcement was followed by Angela's
performance at the concert PLAY! A Video Game Symphony at Chicago on May
27th.
 Despite the rumours about the
release of her first album after Kiss MeGood-Bye, Angela announced her 4th single, This Love. This song replaced Mika Nakashima's song
"CRY NO MORE" as the ending of the anime BLOOD+. This single got the same position as its predecessor, number 6th, and
selling about 60000 copies.
Two weeks after the release of This
Love, Angela’s debut album was released, HOME. The recording of this
album ended on April 19th.The album reached the 2nd position at the
album chart (just behind Ultrablue of Utada Hikaru) selling 120000
copies in the first week. The album sold so much that if it was
released one or two weeks before Utada’s album it would reach the
number one.
TODAY ERA
 On August 2006, JFL announced the
song they were going to use for their 5th campaign, a reissue of Angela's
song MUSIC, which was released in HOME album, the new song it would
be called Power of MUSIC. The song was a dance version with new
lyrics made by Angela. In previous years the song of this campaign
was made by bands like Def Tech and MISIA. Also, a new song, On &
On was announced for November, it will be the song for the remake of
the movie Inugami-ke no Ichizoku. The song was a piano-rock style,
different from HOME material.
On December Angela made a special
live called My Keys at Budokan. Make a live at the Budokan is one of
the most achievements as a Japanese singer and to commemorate the
occasion she wrote a new song, Sakura iro and the concert was
recorded in DVD. Soon after that in New Year's Eve Angela performed
for the first time at Kouhaku Utagassen with a piano solo version of
HOME.
Those four songs would be the ones
that would appear in her 5th single, Sakura iro; On & On and
Power of MUSIC would be b-sides and HOME piano version a bonus track.
This was one of her most commercially successful single, selling more
than 100000 copies. Two days after the release of the single, Angela
announced on her official blog that she got married with the musical
producer Hide Sanjougi.
The first Angela song featured on a
dorama was released on May and was named Kodoku no Kakera. It was
used for the dorama Kodoku no Kake ~Itoshiki Hito yo~. But the show
didn't get good ratings and the single had a moderated success. At
the same time she was promoting this single, Angela sang a new song
called Again in Mezamashi Terebi, this song was the show's song for a
few months.
 On July 11th she released her 7th
single, Tashika ni, this song was used as the featuring song of
"LISMO!"commercials and the sales were very limited.
On the 19th of September of 2007
Angela released her 2nd album, TODAY, with this album she reached her
first ORICON number one.
After this, Angela started a new
tour called: Concert Tour- 2007-2998 "TODAY", from the 10th
of October of 2007 until the 31st of January 2008, she finished this
tour with a double live in Tokyo, after 41 concerts, this live was
recorded and released the 1st of October 2008. While she was touring
she made her second live at the Nippon Budokan, on the 25th of
December with a Christmas theme, and was broadcasted on TV on 28th
March. There she sang a new song ONE, dedicated to all her fans.
ANSWER ERA
 After the tour there were no
news of her until March when it was announced that she was going to
write a song for the NHK contest, Oncon, a contest where students
chorus sing songs that famous composer write for them. The song will
be called Tegami and will be about a 15 years old Angela writing a
letter to her future self.
On April Angela was going to make
another piano solo live at the Osakajo Hall in Osaka on September 7th of 2008
calls Naniwa no MY KEYS. She was the first artist to make a piano
solo live there and the first artist from Tokushima Prefecture
to do it too. The tickets were out on May for the members of her fan
club and on June for the rest, the tickets were sold out on the ending
of July. This live had lots of promotion on radio, TV and Japanese
magazines.
Until that live she had a summer
full of festivals, FM802 [MEET THE WORLD BEAT 2008], Special Live
Summer Time in Bonaza, Music Mashroom, ...
After the Osakajo live, on the 17th
of September her 9th single was released,Tegami ~ Haikei Jyugo no
Kimi e ~, the song she wrote for the Oncon contest, this was one of
the three featured songs for kids show Minna no Uta for the months of
August and September, because of this, an animated video for the song
was being released.
After all of this, Angela would sing
a cover of Bob Dylan's song Knockin' on Heaven's Door for the
Japanese movie"Heaven's Door" that was going to be
released on February 7th of 2009.
On the 26th of December, like every
year, she made a live at the Budokan, where she announced the release
date ofher 3rd album with Sony Music Japan, ANSWER, for the 25th of
February, and at the same time, she announced the beginning of
another tour "Angela Aki Concert Tour 2009 ANSWER" where
she made lives from April until September 2009.
To promote the album a live version
of Knockin' on Heaven's Door was used and a new video for Tegami
renamed "Graduation". The album was number one at the
charts on its first week, being the second Angela album getting it.
NOWADAYS
 Only a few days after ANSWER was
released it was known that Angela would sing the theme song of the
new morning show of the NHK, "Tsubasa". The song was called
"Ai no Kisetsu", and on 1st July 2009 this song was
announced on Angela’s official website as the next single from
the singer, being released on September 16th, only a year after the
big success of Tegami. At the same time a double DVD will be released
with the Osakajo Hall and Budokan lives.
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