From Japanprobe:


Meet Jero (ジェロ), who is being described by the press as the “first black enka singer in history:”



Believe it or not, this 26-year-old American in hip hop clothing is actually about to become a professional enka singer in Japan!

According to the biographical information on his JVC Music site, Jero’s Japanese grandmother exposed him to enka music, building a great love in him for traditional Japanese music. Jero hadn’t planned on becoming a musician, and had actually graduated from the University of Pittsburg as a computer engineer, but a chance runner-up victory in a karaoke contest led JVC Music to scout him. He’s been in Japan for two years for vocal training and he will be releasing his first CD later this month.

Here are some videos of appearances he has made on Japanese TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqtgJ5TJi8M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwTFJ-Vwbgs


Jero is a 1/4 Japanese and 3/4 African American Enka singer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who will be a professional Enka singer in Japan this month.

Enka is a Japanese traditional and melodramatic song style, that was mostly popular for the older generations. Most Enka singers used to be 50, 60 year old, but recently that trend is changing dramatically in the Enka industry with the popularity of new young and good looking Enka singers.

Jero’s Japanese grandmother exposed him to enka music, building a great love in him for traditional Japanese music. I am not a big fan of Enka, but he does sing good, better than regular Enka singers out there in Japan. It’s the matter of if older Japanese people accept the fact that he looks different.

i saw him on tv, and his song sounds pretty good.
i think there are some younger people that listen to enka too, i mean it gets pretty high rankings.

and since he's part japanese, that's probably going to be a plus for him.

some one made a topic in the humor section about him..guess they didnt know where to put it?

but man, i love this guy. hes so bomb.
his voice is really good as well. i've only heard an enka song once awhile ago but i kinda forgot about it until now.

That's interesting. I'm very curious to see how well he does.

What does enka mean?

Edit: Okay, nevermind! Got it!
Thanks for the answer, YUNA!

He is such a good singer and his proununciation is GREAT! I can't wait to hear more of his songs and his singing.

His song Umi Yuki is currently #4 on the Oricon Chart!

http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/js/d/

Hope that answered your question.


Good luck to him! I'm eager to hear more productions from him in the future.

thats awesome that his song is already in the top 5 in the oricon charts.
i hope he has more success and has a great career. and i cant wait to hear more stuff from him.

He will be the next Akikawa Masafumi

Holy cow, that's awesome! <3 How multicultural

His single's doing really well. #2 on the Oricon daily chart.

does anybody know how long he's been in Japan for to learn all that Japanese?

I saw this on the humor thread and he's extremely good *0* I love his voice. And he's very unique. It's a good change

#2 on oricon!

I found this:



credit: jpopkpop blogspot


Does anyone have his single? I would like to dl before I buy it. Thank you.

i like enka and i'm 16. i like kitajima saburo. he's amazing!

wow that's really cool. i wanna hear some
of his music (but the internet's restricting
me at the moment). It's really cool he went
back to his roots.

oh dear.
i kept seeing threads like this and i thought that jero was a girl. my bad :x
when i think enka, i usually think of a women singing. *cough*
good luck to him though. it'd really be something if he made it big.

he's sooo good... I've been watching clips of his interviews and stuff... his Japanese is really fluent.. and it's amazing to see fans of all ages supporting him...
good luck to Jero..

I love Jero! He is freaking amazing and such an inspiration. In fact, he got me into other more traditional styles of Enka. =D

I find it so cool that he is still in the Oricon charts. Though I think its a its lowest though, but still top 15 .

I wished he went #1 but the Johnny's keep releasing a new single every 2 weeks or so.

Still cool

I love his music. XD

he has that classic voice mixed with modern-ness!

His voice and style are very refreshing for me. Something different from everything else I listen to.

His first album Yakusoku comes out on the 25th of this month. Definitely going to have to buy this one.


PHOTO CREDIT:cdjapan

YA Sales Link || CD Japan Sales Link

oh my, he's really cool. [x his voice is amazing. <3

jero's only been in japan for a few years, but he learned japanese from his grandmother and he took japanese classes throughout high school (which was a while back considering he's 20-something). so he's been learning for a while now.

i'm glad to see his new single is doing so well on the charts! awesome. :]