Jero
album: covers
single: Umiyuki
out February 2008
Big in Japan
By Talitha Linehan
No one knows Jerome Charles White in his home town Pittsburgh, USA – but in Tokyo, Japan, people ever recognize him in the street! With traditional Japanese folk music Jero became a star in Japan!
Imagine hip-hop stars Jay-Z or Kanye West singing country music – in Japanese. Does that sound funny … or impossible? Then you haven’t heard of Jero! This young American is Japan's newest star. He looks like a rapper but Jero, 27, is famous for singing a very different style of music – Japanese folk music, called enka, which he first learned from his Japanese grandmother. And most amazing of all, he’s making it cool. Jero told me, “When I walk down the street in Tokyo now, everyone knows who I am. That’s something new for me.”
Six years ago Jero was studying for a career in computers in the US. On a trip to Japan, he started singing in karaoke competitions and his life changed forever. Instead of working with computers, Jero decided to be an enka singer in Japan. “Enka songs are very deep and poetic, like American blues," he says. "When I sing, I think of my grandmother. She’s the reason why I love this music so much and why I’m in Japan today.”
Jero grew up in Pittsburgh, in the US state of Pennsylvania. He often sang enka songs for his grandmother, who comes from the city of Yokohama in Japan. After finishing university in 2003, Jero went to Japan and started winning one karaoke competition after another. Someone at the record company Japan Victor heard him sing and decided to work with him.
While Jero was working on his first album, he asked his fans what they wanted to hear. “Via my website, we asked fans to send us three songs they wanted me to sing on the album,” says Jero. “I chose my fans’ favourite songs and my own favourite songs for the album. I changed the music a bit so the songs would sound good to young and older people.” The album is a collection of seven cover songs. Jero’s first single, “Umiyuki”, which means “the ocean snow”, got to Number Four in Japan last year.
Jero says that African-American culture is very popular in Japan. “I’m happy to be Japan’s first African-American enka singer but I don’t want people to talk only about this. My biggest dream is to introduce enka music to more young people. Many kids think enka is just for older people, but that’s not true. It has a lot of great musical qualities.”
Today Jero lives in Tokyo, where he studies enka, hip-hop dance and Japanese. He says he loves living in Japan but misses the US sometimes and goes home once a year. Since Jero grew up studying Japanese, he speaks the language fluently. He says many Japanese people don’t understand American culture and vice versa. “Many Japanese find it hard to speak to Americans, who are often loud and use their hands a lot when they talk. Americans often think Japanese people are like all other Asians, but actually they have their own culture and it’s very special. I love both cultures and both countries.”
Most of the time, Jero is travelling around Japan playing concerts and giving interviews. He has only one day off a month but sometimes has to spend that day working too. “I never thought I’d be so busy,” says Jero. “I don’t have much time for family and friends, but if I work hard now, I’ll have more time to spend with them in the future.”
If you want to know more about "enka" music, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enka
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