was a Japanese

ryūkōka is a Japanese music genre, musical genre. The term originally denoted any kind of "popular music" in Japanese, and is the East Asian cultural sphere, sinic reading of ''hayariuta'', used for commercial music of Edo period, Edo Period. Therefore, ...

singer from the early

Shōwa era The was the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Shōwa ( Hirohito) from December 25, 1926, until his death on January 7, 1989. It was preceded by the Taishō era. The pre-1945 and post-war Shōwa periods are almos ...

Life and career

Kita was born in

Tsuruoka is a city in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 125,389 in 49,024 households, and a population density of 95.74 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Tsuruoka is the biggest city in Tōhoku region ...

Yamagata Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. Yamagata Prefecture has a population of 1,079,950 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 9,325 km² (3,600 sq mi). Yamagata Prefecture borders Akita Prefecture to the north, ...

as . He made his debut in 1936 with the song on Taihei Records. In 1937 he moved to

Polydor Records Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...

where he assumed the professional name ''Rentarō Kita'', a name chosen for its play of sound on the name of composer Rentaro Taki. During this period Kita enjoyed the peak of his fame, but his career abruptly ended with his sudden death from leukemia in 1940 at the age of 20. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kita, Rentaro Musicians from Yamagata Prefecture 1920 births 1940 deaths 20th-century Japanese male singers 20th-century Japanese singers Deaths from leukemia Deaths from cancer in Japan