Background and career
Kina Kasuya Grannis (born August 4, 1985) is an American guitarist, singer and YouTuber. Grannis was the winner of the 2008 Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest, earning a recording contract with Interscope Records and having her music video played during the commercials of Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008. In 2010, Grannis released her album Stairwells and the music video for "In Your Arms", leading to appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Grannis joined the crowdsource funding platform Patreon in 2014 shortly before releasing her album Elements. While touring in support of Elements, Grannis was held in Indonesia for one hundred days. Longtime collaboration with Wong Fu Productions culminated in a starring role in the YouTube Red Original romantic comedy series Single by 30. In 2018 Grannis released In the Waiting, the first album off her listener-supported label, shortly before making a cameo appearance in the Critics' Choice Award-winning film Crazy Rich Asians and embarking on an international concert tour.
Grannis grew up in Mission Viejo, California. She has European heritage on her father's side and Japanese on her mother's, sometimes referred to as hapa, and was mistaken for Latina growing up. She attended Viejo Elementary School, Newhart Middle School and, from 1999 to 2003, Capistrano Valley High School. Her first trip outside of the United States was to Japan at age 12, with her grandmother. 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 society Phi Beta Kappa.
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. Her progress in the competition was covered in the Orange County Register and The Wall Street Journal. and featured on FOX News Los Angeles, Good Day L.A. and Yahoo!. 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. On February 24, 2008, Grannis sang the national anthem for the Auto Club 500 NASCAR race in Fontana, California. In June 2009 her songs "Never Never" and "People" were used in episodes of MTV's reality series College Life. On January 13, 2010, Grannis was the headliner at a sold-out show at The Troubadour club in Los Angeles.
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. The location of her release party for Stairwells, the Dakota Lounge in Santa Monica, was the subject of an article in the Orange Country Register because the venue enabled her to show her gratitude to her fans. On March 13, 2010, her single "Valentine" was played by Paul Gambaccini on BBC Radio 2, a popular radio station in the UK. The music video for "Valentine" directed by a young and talented viral video director Ross Ching has been viewed well over 21 million times on YouTube. Grannis' Stairwells Springtime Tour began in San Francisco on May 24, 2010, and concluded in late June after several stints on the East Coast and in Canada. Her Fall Tour began on September 17, 2010, and concluded on November 17, 2010. On July 10, 2010, she played at Lilith Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2010, Grannis was featured as Judy in a miniseries by Wong Fu Productions entitled "Funemployed". 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. On November 3, 2011, Grannis released a stop-motion music video for the single In Your Arms, using 288,000 Jelly Belly jelly beans. It took about 2 years to complete the project. The video accumulated over 1 million views within the first three days. As of 2024 it has over 14 million views.
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. In March 2013, Grannis gave a talk at TEDx Hollywood titled 'Finding Community Through the Internet'.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
