Early life, M-Flo (pictured). Lisa was born in Tokyo on October 26, 1974, As a child, Lisa was often bullied due to her mixed race heritage. At the age of 18, Lisa debuted as a singer, In 1994, Lisa collaborated with former
Mute Beat keyboardist and producer Hiroyuki Asamoto's project Ram Jam World under the moniker Chica Colombiana, releasing an album of Latin and reggae inspired music in English, Spanish and Japanese. Later in 1994, Lisa changed labels for her solo career to
Kitty Enterprises and released the single "Sea of the Stars", which was used as the third opening theme song for the anime
Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Lisa continued to work with Ram Jam World, and
extended play Sekai (1998). Between 1993 and 1998, Lisa changed management companies and music labels 10 times, and found that the companies were more interested in providing her songs written by veteran songwriters than showing any interest in the music she wrote, which Lisa found disheartening. In 1998, Takahashi began professionally working as a producer and a remixer, after being pushed towards making music by entering a TV music competition. One of the group's early songs was "Been So Long", which included Lisa as a featured vocalist, was highly praised by Masaji Asakawa from the DJ group GTS, which lead to the formation of M-Flo as a three-person group. "The Way We Were" was released as an independent single and sold out almost immediately. Songs from the sessions of these albums featured vocals by Lisa on most songs, including three songs featuring Lisa alone without rap from Verbal ("Come Back to Me" (1999), "One Sugar Dream" (2000) and "Yours Only," (2001)).
Solo debut for her single "
Babylon no Kiseki" (2003). In January 2002, Lisa released her solo debut single "Move On", which reached number seven on
Oricon's single charts, In April of the same year she announced that she was leaving M-Flo to focus on herself as an artist and as a singer-songwriter, In late May, Lisa released her first single away from M-Flo, "
Babylon no Kiseki", a rock collaboration with
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Koda, alongside pop/rap group
Heartsdales, was also featured on Lisa's single "
Switch", which was the leading single from Lisa's second album
Gratitude (2004). M-Flo's albums subsequent to Lisa's departure were inspired by American hip-hop group
The Neptunes' method of collaborating with vocalists, while continuing to release music under their own name. Lisa agreed to sing on the album due to a gap in her schedule, and recorded the song together with Takahashi and Verbal in June 2005, two months before the album's release. For the song, Verbal stated that they had wanted to recapture the "groove" of working together as a three-person band. In 2006, Lisa released an R&B concept album
God Sista (2006), as well as her third original album
Elizabeth (2006). Neither release charted in the top 40 in Japan. In 2007, Lisa's first greatest hits album
Lisabest: Mission on Earth 9307 reached number 28 - her first top 40 release since 2004. Between 2008 and 2009, Lisa released the
luxury disco series: two
extended plays and one studio album of primarily dance music, culminating in her fourth original album
Disco Volante. During this period, Lisa collaborated with the members of M-Flo often: "Bad Men!" (2008) and "Falling for You..." (2009) from the
luxury disco series was co-written with M-Flo member, and Lisa featured on M-Flo's songs "Love Comes and Goes" from
Award Supernova: Loves Best (2008) and "Sound Boy Thriller" from
MF10: 10th Anniversary Best (2009). Lisa was a featured vocalist for a song the
Ravex project (a dance music project collaboration between
Shinichi Osawa,
Tomoyuki Tanaka and Takahashi), and Lisa and Takahashi worked together co-writing music: "Sweet Rishi Boy" (2009) for rock musician
Anna Tsuchiya, and two songs from the 2010 anime
Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt's soundtrack. In 2012, Lisa released her studio album
Family, which featured collaborations with Jamosa and
Kotaro Oshio, however the release did not chart in the top 300 albums. ==Artistry==