AI's official biography explains her success as follows: "genuine singing skills derived from gospel choir, a perfect bilingual ability from being born in Los Angeles, and a dance technique cultivated from art school studies in LA.” In the end her capability to combine soul, R&B, hip-hop, while adding a special flair to this mixture with her unique voice, is the reason for her great career.
AI was born in Los Angeles on November 2, 1981 to a Japanese father and half-Japanese, half-Italian-American mother. She moved to Kagoshima, Japan due to her father's business. Since then, she has been traveling back and forth between Japan and the United States. AI learned to sing in Los Angeles at the professional level and she also studied dance, which she had a great passion for. In 1999 she was featured on Janet Jackson's promotional video of GO DEEP as one of the backup dancers, and this was the beginning of her impressive development.
In 2000 AI went back to Japan and made a major label debut as a singer. From the very beginning, her name became known throughout Japan, but her comet-like impact wasn't realized until 2003 when she switched to DefJam Japan. In May the following year, she released her third album, 2004 A.I., which ranked number three on the album charts and received a Gold Record.
As her career went on, her ballad single Story was released in May 2005. The song ranked number eight on the single sales chart and sold a total of 300 thousand copies, had 3.5 million downloads, and became a song to represent 2005. MIC-A-HOLIC A.I., an album released that same year, was ranked number four on the first week and sold over 500 thousand copies; it was a huge success, as were her following releases.
2006 was a very successful year for AI with the release of her single Believe and her album What's goin' on A.I.. Her single ranked number two on the single charts, selling 200 thousand copies and reaching 1.2 million downloads, and her album ranked number two on the album charts the first week it was released. At the MTV JAPAN's VIDEO MUSIC AWARD JAPAN 2006, both her promotional videos, Story and Believe were nominated for the BEST R&B VIDEO award. After the release of her 2006 album, AI toured in eleven cities in Japan, and 50,000 people came to see her performances. All tickets of her first auditorium tour, including Nippon Budokan, were sold out on the day of the ticket sale release.
AI made appearances on stages at popular summer music festivals such as Rock In Japan Festival and Summer Sonic in August and September. Her November single, ONE, was used as the theme song for the FUJI-TV drama series "IRYU 2 Team Medical Dragon 2".
AI's DON'T STOP A.I. followed in December, and after that she toured through Japan. She performed 32 shows and gave a spontaneous concert in LA in January 2008. After her collaborations with artists such as Trey Songz and Shaggy it was just the right time to address the international audience.
On March 4th, 2009 AI released the album VIVA AI which has among others the theme song for the Academy Award winning film "Okuribito" (Departures) from Yōjirō Takita. The album has a limited edition that comes with a DVD containing YOU ARE MY STAR's PV and the making of VIVA AI. In September, a "Best of" was released in four versions: regular, an edition with two more songs All For You -Movie Short Ver. and Story [Re-born, and two versions with DVDs containing different PVs.
The album THE LAST A.I was released in 2010, with many special collaborations, including Snoop Dog in two versions, one of them with a DVD containing 3 PVs and a making of video.
Collaborations with artists such as m-flo, SUITE CHIC, Heartsdales, DOUBLE, MICHICO, BOY-KEN and others are an elementary part of AI's career and there's one thing for sure: working with this powerful woman is somehow a formula for success.
AI shines with originality and independence. You can't twist her and it's difficult to categorize her music. All these aspects make her something special. Maybe one day AI will get the attention she deserves from an overseas audience, but until that day hopefully she will remain true to herself and her music.
