Megumi Hinata

Megumi Hinata began learning to play the piano at the age of four, and said she first became interested in music in the latter half of elementary school, which she spent in the United States. After returning to Japan, she began writing lyrics and music, and participated in band activities at school.[1]

Hinata is considerably fluent in English. Her lyrics often contain whole verses or choruses in English, and she has even written a few songs entirely in English. She has also translated lyrics for other artists from English to Japanese (Hilary Duff's song "I Can't Wait", for example) as well as from Japanese to English.

Throughout her career, she has operated under many names. Under the direction of Kohmi Hirose, Megumi Hinata had her singing debut in 1998 as GUMI (グミ) and sang the theme song and several insert songs for the immensely popular Card Captor Sakura anime. She changed her solo stage name to meg rock in 2004.

In addition to her solo career, she had a side project with Akimitsu Honma from 2000 to 2001 called g.e.m., and another with Ritsuko Okazaki started in April 2002 called Melocure, which ended abruptly due to Okazaki's death in 2004. Melocure created music for a number of anime series including UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie, Stratos 4, and Oku-sama wa Mahō Shōjo: Bewitched Agnes.

As a producer and lyricist, she is known either as meg rock, meg hinata or Megumi Hinata. She has produced songs for a great number of singers, the most famous of which include Chieko Kawabe, Nami Tamaki, and Shoko Nakagawa.

• (in Japanese) official website