(中島みゆき in Japanese)
A Japanese pop singer with an amazingly long and consistent career. She was born on February 23 1952 in Sapporo, had her debut as a professional singer in 1975, her first No. 1 hit in 1977, and has been a more or less constant presence in the Japanese (and sometimes also foreign) charts ever since.
Nakajimas's lyrics (which she writes herself) usually deal with love, pain and loss, like pop lyrics tend to, but they're more powerful than most. However, more distinctive than her lyrics is her voice, which is strong, vibrant and relatively low.
I'm not sure if the analogy holds all though, but I tend to think of her as Japan's Tina Turner.