..Hidetoshi Oka was born on December 11, 1983 in Yokkaichi city in Mie Prefecture as the elder of two children. Since early childhood, he often found himself taking leadership roles in various situations, due to his active and lively personality, while also attending a music school where he first encountered music and piano.
He became inspired to become a message singer after hearing Tsuyoshi Nagabuchis music during his high school years. At the time, he felt suffocated and ambivalent about his life and expressed these emotions through the poems that he wrote. His reason for picking up music was simply because he did not want to turn his eyes away from the harsh realities in his life. He discovered the intense power behind music and felt as though he could find meaning for his life in song. At the same time, he wanted to create a life worth living from scratch as a means for challenging himself. He began going on expeditions in search of motivation and purpose, repeating long rides on his bike to neighboring prefectures, hitchhiking across Japan carrying only a sleeping bag, and traveling across the world to America.
After graduating from high school, he prepared for his study abroad in Osaka while playing guitar at Osaka Station and doing a variety of street performance in the surrounding neighborhoods. As he added on more and more experience in live performance, he became even more determined to travel to America to study music. He was seeking inspiration and wanted to gain a wider outlook on the world.
In the fall of 2003, he began attending Wacos McLennan Community College in Texas as a commercial music major with a performance option and successfully graduated in May of 2005. He studied music theory, ear training, composition and arrangement, knowledge needed for the music industry, orchestration, and had private lessons in piano and voice. During his study, he also attended open mics at coffee shops and performed in a variety of bands, school performances and bars, where he saw Japan as an outsider for the first time, while continuing to deepen his sense of culture in America.
After graduating, he moved to New York City to actively work on his musical career. He attended many open mics, performed on subway platforms with his guitar and eventually, he was able to receive his first gig as a solo singer in White Plains. Shortly after, he encountered Christopher Young, a producer who has worked with many famous artists including Britney Spears and American Idols William Hung,. Seeing potential in Hidetoshi, Christopher Young worked with him on recording his original songs.
I have a dream that I cannot give up. I have a mission to one day stand on the worlds stage and deliver the truth. Life becomes a song. Songs will forever coexist with life. For this reason, I will sing songs of unhidden truths. I believe that music has the power to change the world. People always seek not deception and disguise, but the answer to life. That is why I will face my life through music in all seriousness.
Through various experiences, I have built up the confidence needed in myself to fulfill this mission. There is no impossible task if one has the will and passion.
No matter what life lies ahead of me, I will never stop singing.
=== SPECIAL THANKS TO MIMI SANADA FOR THE TRANSLATION !!===
A lot of people having been asking us how to get a copy of Voices Travel, I know shipping is really expensive, especially over-seas. The album is on iTunes, you can click the banner below to bring it up.
We have a new song up at our Purevolume and are getting excited and ready to show the others. please keep in touch and let us know what you are up too. love, gracer - ryan/paul
