Kina Grannis
Kina Grannis
Kina Kasuya Grannisis an American guitarist and singer-songwriter. Grannis was the winner of the 2008 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPop Singer
Date of Birth4 August 1985
CityMission Viejo, CA
CountryUnited States of America
The people at the label were great but at the end of the day our visions didn't match up and I knew I had to do it my way. The potential success that could come with signing with a major label didn't quite outweigh how important it was for me to make my music the way I knew it needed to be made. It was a hard decision to make, but I've never regretted it for a second and it's only become more clear to me after making and releasing Stairwells that it was the right one.
I'm kind of feeling like I don't mind being open with the random details of my life, like I'm at a coffee shop or my toe hurts or something, but obviously other more personal areas of life where I will just never really go there.
I went into college undeclared. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew that music was obviously this central big important thing in my life that I was gonna keep doing.
I started teaching myself guitar because I loved singing so much. Then one day kind of out of the blue I found I was writing a song. It just happened organically.
I posted a video a day for almost two months and was hardly sleeping, but I think it really pushed me to give music everything I had in me. I knew it was a chance I couldn't miss. The funny thing is I never saw my music video when it aired during the Super Bowl because as soon as I heard my song start I was in tears for the next 10 minutes! The most amazing thing that came out of all of this, however, was the support that had developed online. Without the people that came back day after day to vote for me, I'd be nowhere, and I really owe it all to them.
Ever since I was really really little, I was just singing all the time. Like one of my favorite games when I was little would be to just have one of my sisters pick a title, and I would impromptu create that song.
The first video I ever made, announcing 'Crash the Super Bowl,' I did about fifty takes and I wanted to die. It was awful.
In finding love, I think it's important to be patient. In being in a relationship, I think it's important to be honest, to communicate, to respect and trust, and to strive to give more than you take.
Since I don't feel like I belong solely to any one of them I find that it makes me even more interested and open to other cultures as well. It's also fun looking ethnically ambiguous because no one can quite put a finger on what I am and it's very entertaining to me!
However, it [singing] wasn't until halfway through high school that it dawned on me that singing wasn't just a hobby, it was something I had a growing need for in my life, and that was about when I adopted the neglected guitar I found under our piano and started singing about all the things I could never say.
I get to travel around the world and meet all of these amazing people, and they're singing my songs! And to me, that's crazy.
I think a lot of singer-songwriters get compared to each other, but I'd like to think that what I'm doing is special and specific to me.
Making a video is one of the most exciting things for artists and fans. It's like a payoff.