Ringo Shiina

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Ringo Shiina was born in November of 1978 in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. When she was born, she had an illness in her esophagus. The illness causes the esophagus to narrow the closer it gets to the stomach. Because of this illness, Shiina had to have a number of surgeries. The surgeries left her with scars on her shoulder blades. Many say that these scars look like angel wings were removed from her back, a fact which she later played on in her music.

Shiina’s mother had attended college to study dance and ballet, while her father was a music fan. Because of this she was surrounded by music and began playing the piano and studying dance when she was five. When she entered into Junior high school she discovered that she could not become a ballet dancer due to the operations she had undergone when she was young. At that point she also chose to stop playing the piano and she started listening to some of the newer music that was being produced instead of the classical music her parents listened to. She began singing in the drama club and discovered that she enjoyed it. She joined a band and soon began working on becoming a professional singer.

During senior high school she began singing live shows with different bands. In 1995 she was able to compete in a music festival and won a prize. She quit high school the next year and once again competed in a music festival. She won that as well and was asked to sign with Yamaha Corporation. Shiina, however, believed that Yamaha could not use her talent correctly and refused their offer. A year later she released a CD with Toshiba-EMI and quickly climbed the charts. When she was 24 she got married and had a son, and after a short hiatus, began working on her career again.

She formed a band that she called Tokyo Jihen in 2004, but after a in 2006 she became a solo artist again and continues to perform and record albums.