Kina Grannis

Kina Grannis is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. She is half Japanese and half European American. Grannis was the winner of the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. As a result of winning, she earned a recording contract with Interscope Records and had her music video played during the commercials of Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008. She won Best Web-Born Artist at the 2011 MTV O Music Awards.

Her progress in the competition was covered in The Orange County Register and The Wall Street Journal. Grannis has also been featured on FOX News Los Angeles, Good Day L.A. and Yahoo!.

Grannis grew up in Mission Viejo, California, and it was here where her love for music began. In elementary school, she composed and submitted piano compositions to district art competitions. Soon afterwards, she began playing the violin, an instrument she would play throughout high school. By age 15, she started teaching herself the guitar and it was this instrument with which she fell in love.

She attended Viejo Elementary School, Newhart Middle School and, from 1999 to 2003, Capistrano Valley High School.

Grannis enrolled at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles in 2003. Two years later, staff members of the University's Thornton School of Music asked her to produce an album in their music and music industry departments. That album, Sincerely, Me., was released the same year. In 2007, she graduated summa cum laude in social science with an emphasis on psychology. While attending USC, she was inducted into academic societies Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi.

In 2006, Grannis recorded and self-released two more albums, One More in the Attic and In Memory of the Singing Bridge. In early 2007, she recorded "Ours to Keep" written by Rachael Lawrence and Deborah Ellen. This song would be featured regularly on "General Hospital" and was in an episode of the ABC Family's mini-series "Samurai Girl" in September 2008.

On November 14, 2007, she created her YouTube account and began posting videos of her songs online. Her first video, "Message from Your Heart," was entered into Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. The contest, which she won, landed her a contract with Interscope Records. Her YouTube videos have received more than 99 million views and have propelled her to become one of YouTube's most popular personalities. Grannis planned to work with Interscope Records to produce a new album, but in January 2009, she announced that she was leaving the label to be an independent artist.

In March 2013 Grannis gave a talk at TEDx Hollywood titled Finding Community Through the Internet.

Grannis has also been a part of several Wong Fu Productions short films, including The Last, and the series Funemployed, as well as other YouTube stars videos. One of the bands Grannis has performed with in YouTube videos is Boyce Avenue. They have recorded many cover songs together such as Fast Car, originally by Tracy Chapman and the song With or Without You by U2.

Stairwells was released on February 23, 2010 and included many original songs already appearing on YouTube, as well as three previously unreleased songs: "World in Front of Me," "In Your Arms" and "Mr. Sun." Stairwells debuted at No. 139 on the Billboard 200, No. 5 on the Billboard Top Internet Albums chart, No. 2 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and No. 18 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart.

In early 2011, Grannis was awarded the title of Sirius/XM CoffeeHouse's 2010 Singer-Songwriter Discovery of the Year after a months-long online voting period. Her song "Heart and Mind" was used for the German TV series Anna und die Liebe.

In April 2011, Grannis launched her first world tour. She performed in the eastern regions of Canada and in the eastern and southern regions of the United States. She continued in May through the northwest region of North America which included stops in Vancouver British Columbia and Los Angeles. Shows in Europe and southeast Asia followed into the fall of 2011.

In late 2011 and into 2012, Grannis launched her In Your Arms Tour in Europe, Asia (Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong), Australia, and North America.

Elements was released on May 6, 2014 and was produced by Matt Hales, aka Aqualung. On its release day, Elements hit No. 2 on iTunes Singer Songwriter Chart and No.1 on iTunes Canada.

An avid supporter of cancer research, Grannis has performed at several Southern California Relay For Life functions over the years.

In late 2007, she contributed her music to the Band Together: To Fight Measles benefit album. In October 2008, she participated in the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco to support the Leukemia Lymphoma Society in honor of her mother, raising $6,000 for the organization.

In 2009, the philanthropic organization Sister to Sisters adopted her song "Message from Your Heart."

In 2012 she launched a charity project called Run Team Kina dedicated to the promotion of personal health and wellness and to raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. In 2012, Run Team Kina raised $71,886 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.