Mitski Miyawaki (born Mitsuki Laycock) is a Japanese-American singer and songwriter. Born in Mie Prefecture, Japan to an American father and a Japanese mother, she moved frequently while growing up due to her father's job at the United States Department of State, living in Turkey, China, Malaysia, the Czech Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo before settling in the United States. She sang in a choir in high school and was 18 when she wrote her first song on the piano. She self-released her first two albums, Lush and Retired from Sad, New Career in Business, while studying studio composition at Purchase College's Conservatory of Music. The albums were originally made as her senior project. Her third studio album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, was released in 2014 on the label Double Double Whammy. Mitski signed with Dead Oceans in 2015 and released Puberty 2, Be the Cowboy and Laurel Hell , the last of which made the top ten in several countries. In 2022, The Guardian dubbed her the "best young songwriter" in the United States. That same year, she co-wrote "This Is a Life" for the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Her seventh studio album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, was released in 2023. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.