is a Japanese

enka is a Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern ''enka'', however, is a relatively recent musical form, which adopts a more traditional musical style in its vocalism than ''ryūkōka'' music, p ...

singer who was born on September 6, 1977 in

Minami-ku, Fukuoka is one of the seven wards of Fukuoka City, Japan. As of 2004, it had a population of 247,913 people and an area of 30.98 km2. As of 2016, the population had increased to 255,000 people with 8,200 per km2. Its name literally means "south ward. ...

, Japan.Hikawa Kiyoshi: Profile
Columbia Music Entertainment. Accessed May 6, 2008. His real name is and he is known as due to his young age and popularity. When he is marketing non-enka music, he goes by the name KIYOSHI, using capitalized letters of the Roman alphabet, instead of ''

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

'' or ''

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

. His record company is

Columbia Music Entertainment , often pronounced ''Korombia'', operating internationally as , is a Japanese record label founded in 1910 as Nipponophone Co., Ltd. It affiliated itself with the Columbia Graphophone Company of the United Kingdom and adopted the standard UK C ...

, and his agency is Nagara Productions. He was given his stage name by

Takeshi Kitano is a Japanese comedian, television presenter, actor, filmmaker, and author. While he is known primarily as a comedian and TV host in his native Japan, he is better known abroad for his work as a filmmaker and actor as well as TV host. With th ...

, who initially supported his career. Today, Hikawa makes frequent appearances on , as well as

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 terrestri ...

's annual ''

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

History

Hikawa was born on September 6, 1977 in

, Japan. As a high school student, Hikawa was a member of the school's and trained to be a singer after graduation from high school in 1995, Hikawa travelled to

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, where he became an apprentice under the supervision of

Hideo Mizumori Hideo (ひでお) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: * Hideo Den (田英夫, 1923–2009), Japanese politician and news presenter * Hideo Fujimoto (藤本英雄, 1918–1997), Japanese baseball player * Hi ...

. He served under Mizumori for three years. In 2000, Hikawa made his professional debut with his single "Hakone Hachiri no Hanjirō."Hikawa Kiyoshi – Oricon Style Music
Oricon, Inc. Accessed May 6, 2008. Hikawa released the single "Hatsukoi Ressha" on February 9, 2005. It became his first number-one single on the Japanese

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

weekly single charts. In 2006, he won the grand prix award by his song "Ikken" at the

48th Japan Record Awards The 48th Annual Japan Record Awards took place at the New National Theatre in Shibuya, Tokyo, on December 30, 2006, starting at 6:30PM JST. The primary ceremonies were televised in Japan on TBS. Awards and nominations Japan Record Award * "Ik ...

. On February 4, 2009, he released single "Rōkyōku Ichidai", which became his second number-one single on the Oricon weekly charts. On May 20, 2009, he released album ''Enka Meikyoku Collection 10: Rōkyōku Ichidai'', which debuted at No. 2 on the Oricon weekly album charts only behind

Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclai ...

's album ''

Relapse In internal medicine, relapse or recidivism is a recurrence of a past (typically medical) condition. For example, multiple sclerosis and malaria often exhibit peaks of activity and sometimes very long periods of dormancy, followed by relapse or r ...

''. He released his second single of the year, "Tokimeki no Rumba", on August 19, 2009. The single debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly charts with the first week sales of about 68,000 copies, making him the first solo enka singer to make three number-one singles in Oricon history. He released album ''Enka Meikyoku Collection 11: Tokimeki no Rumba'' on November 11, 2009. At

Jump Festa is an annual party or exposition in Japan, all about manga and anime, sponsored by Shueisha, publisher of the various ''Jump'' anthologies which are Weekly Shōnen Jump, Jump Square, V Jump, Saikyō Jump and Shōnen Jump+. The exposition was sta ...

2017, it was announced that Hikawa would sing his first anime theme song, which was ''

Dragon Ball Super is a Japanese manga series written by Akira Toriyama and illustrated by Toyotarou. A sequel to Toriyama's original ''Dragon Ball'' manga, it follows the adventures of Goku and friends during the ten-year timeskip after the defeat of Maj ...

''s second opening theme, "Genkai Toppa x Survivor". It was composed by

Takafumi Iwasaki is a Japanese guitarist, lyricist, music arranger, and musical artist from Kumamoto Prefecture. He is signed to Columbia Music Entertainment, for which he is known for writing and performing various anime and tokusatsu theme songs. He is known fo ...

and the lyrics were written by

Yukinojo Mori , better known by his stage name , is a Japanese lyricist, composer and poet who is affiliated with Amuse, Inc. He has written over 2,000 songs for numerous artists such as Kyosuke Himuro, Takuro Yoshida and Junichi Inagaki and theme songs for ...

. On January 21, 2022, kiyoshi glacier announced through his firm's website that he would indefinitely suspend his singer activities from December 31 this year.

Characteristics

Hikawa is popular with young and old people alike. Although enka is in a downward trend in Japan, Hikawa is responsible for popularizing enka amongst the 20s demographic, who traditionally do not listen to it. Hikawa usually dresses in trendy casual clothes, sometimes appearing in the more traditional

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...

normally worn by enka singers. Since 2019, Hikawa has begun dressing in both masculine and feminine fashion on-stage and off, coming out as "genderless" in 2020. That same year, they made history by performing on Kouhaku without being assigned to either the Red (female) or White (male) team.

World-wide exposure

Hikawa has traveled around the world, including to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In 2003, he was the guest of honor at Hawaii's week-long

Aloha Festival The Aloha Festivals are an annual series of free cultural celebrations observed in the state of Hawaii in the United States. It is the only statewide cultural festival in the nation. Highlights include the presentation of the Royal Court, a ho'o ...

, where he participated in a parade with various Japan-based hula halau, and ended the week with a concert.

Discography

*''Enka Meikyoku Collection Ōi Okkake Otojirō: Seishunhen'' (2001) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 2: Kiyoshi no Zundoko Bushi'' (2002) *''Ginga: Hoshizora no Akiko'' (2002) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 3: Hakkun no Shiro'' (2003) *''Otokogi'' (2003) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 4 Banba no Chūtarō'' (2004) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 5 Hatsukoi Ressha'' (2005) *''Enka Jūniban Shōbu!: Omokoge no Miyako'' (2005) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 6: Ikken'' (2006) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 7: Abayo, Kiyoshi no Sōran Bushi'' (2007) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 8: Genkai Funauta'' (2008) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 9: Aishū no Mizuumi'' (2008) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 10: Rōkyōku Ichidai'' (2009) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 11: Tokimeki no Rumba'' (2009) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 12: Shamisen Tabigarasu'' (2010) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 13: Niji-iro no Bayon'' (2010) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 14: Ano ko to Nogiku to Watashi Bune'' (2011) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 15: Jōnetsu no Mariachi'' (2011) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 16: Sakura'' (2012) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 17: Saigo to Kimeta Hito Dakara'' (2012) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 18: Shigure no Minato'' (2013) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 19: Manten no Hitomi'' (2013) *''Hikawa Kiyoshi Shōwa no Enka Meikyokushū'' (2014) *''Enka Meikyoku Collection 20: Choi to Kimagure Wataridori'' (2014) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection: Sasurai Bojō'' (2015) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 2: Itoshi no Te Quiero/Otokobana'' (2015) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 3: Miren Gokoro'' (2016) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 4: Kiyoshi no Nippon Zenkoku Utano Wataridori'' (2016) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 5: Otoko no Zekka'' (2017) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 6: Aoshi'' (2017) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 7: Shōbu no Hanamichi'' (2018) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 8: Fuyu no Pegasus Shōbu no Hanamichi: Orchestra'' (2018) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 9: Daijōbu/Mogami no Sendō'' (2019) *''Shin Enka Meikyoku Collection 10: Ryūshō Hōbu'' (2019) *''Papillon -Bohemian Rhapsody-'' (2020) *''Seisei Ruten'' (2020) *''Minamikaze Fukeba'' (2021) *''You Are You'' (2021)

References

External links

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Instagram
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hikawa, Kiyoshi Japanese male pop singers Enka singers People from Fukuoka 1977 births Living people Nippon Columbia artists Musicians from Fukuoka Prefecture 21st-century Japanese singers 21st-century Japanese male singers