(born February 14, 1976) is a Japanese

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

and

jpop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

singer. She is represented by Sony Music Associated Records

Biography

She currently resides in New York City. She dreamed of being a

singer while growing up in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, and participated in all sorts of music-related activities. At age 18, she left for the US alone. While in New York, she was very taken with the "New York sound," including

, R&B, hip-hop,

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

Latin music Latin music (Portuguese language, Portuguese and es, música latina) is a term used by the music industry as a catch-all category for various styles of music from Ibero-America (including Music of Spain, Spain and Portuguese music, Portugal) ...

, and

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

. Around 2001, Juju began to be featured in a number of works by other artists. In 2002, she provided music for the film ''Kyōki no Sakura''. In 2004, she debuted with her first single "Hikaru no Naka e". The same year, concurrent with her musical activities in New York, she started performing live in Japan. When her third single, "Kiseki o Nozomu nara", was released, it topped the USEN charts and remained on the chart for a record length of 22 weeks. At this point, while she received support from a small group of listeners, she remained mostly unknown. On August 23, 2008, with the release of "Kimi no Subete ni", a

collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. Most ...

between Spontania and Juju, she broke out onto the Japanese

popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

scene, with the single receiving over 2.5 million

downloads In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

. Again, on November 26, 2008, another collaboration with Spontania named "Sunao ni Naretara" earned her even more fame, with the song receiving 2.2 million downloads. In 2010, Juju released her third album called '' Juju'' and it won the Excellence Album Award at the 52nd Japan Record Awards. On November 16, 2020,

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

announced that Juju would take part in the 71st NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen of

New Year's Eve In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Eve, also known as Old Year's Day or Saint Sylvester's Day in many countries, is the evening or the entire day of the last day of the year, on 31 December. The last day of the year is commonly referred to ...

. It was Juju's first time appearing on the show. For her performance, she chose her song "Yasashisa de Afureru You ni" (やさしさで溢れるように; Like It's Overflowing with Kindness).

Discography

* ''Wonderful Life'' (2007) * '' What's Love?'' (2009) * '' Juju'' (2010) * '' Request'' (2010) * ''

You In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from the Proto- ...

'' (2011) * ''Delicious'' (2011) * ''Delicious: Juju's Jazz 2nd Dish'' (2013) * ''Door'' (2014) * ''Request II'' (2014) * ''What You Want'' (2015) * ''Delicious - Juju's Jazz 3rd Dish'' (2018) * ''Your Story'' (2020)

References

External links

Official website

Japanese women pop singers Japanese women jazz singers 1976 births Living people Musicians from Hiroshima Prefecture 21st-century Japanese women singers {{singer-stub