Who would have ever expected that a hip-hop dressed, African-American male would be credited with the revival of a traditional form of folk music called enka that flourished in Japan in the 1940s? His name is Jerome Charles White, Jr. and to be precise, a quarter of his heritage stems from Japan. Born in 1981 on the north side of Pittsburgh, the artist widely known as Jero has emerged as an icon in Japan and has developed a cult like following. The youth scream his name at his soldout concerts and the youth’s parents and grandparents are likely as big of fans of Jero as they are.

His love for the enka genre started when he would visit his grandmother on the weekends. She would listen to enka music as she hummed to it. He admitted that her music and the language appealed to him. “I could see my mother and my grandmother speaking in this different language and I thought that was really, really cool. Like none of my friends can actually say that you know,” he recalled to Talk Asia on CNN. When he viewed the karaoke tapes that his relatives in Japan would send his grandmother, he noticed the passion in the voices of the enka singers that wore kimonos and suits. He continued by explaining that when he was 5 or 6 years old his grandmother taught him the easier alphabets of the Japanese kanji language which eventually led him to be able to read the lyric cards on several of the tapes his grandmother had. Once he had a better understanding of the language, he taught himself a song and sung it to his grandmother which thrilled her.

As he got older, his interest in enka and Japanese culture grew.
The first time he visited Japan was when he was 15 years old as a participant in an international speech competition. During his two week stay, he knew his love for the culture was genuine. After being asked by Kyung Lah of Asia Talk what was the main reason for his love for Japan, he declared that it was the music. “The very first day I came here (Japan), I went to karaoke. The day that I actually landed in Japan, I said that I want to go to karaoke and I stayed at karaoke for about one or two hours just singing songs,” he admitted. “I think for the first two weeks I was here, I went to karaoke about, you know, maybe ten days…everyday.”  The second time he went to Japan, he went as an exchange student for three months in Osaka, Japan while he was attending the University of Pittsburgh with a concentration in computer information sciences. During his tenure in Japan, he finalized his decision that he would move back to Japan after he graduated to pursue is lifelong goal – to be an enka singer.

After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he packed his bags and relocated to Tokyo. He taught English at a school and was an assistant engineer for a period of time. During his first months in Japan, he entered numerous karaoke contests and eventually caught the eye of a record executive and things just took off from there. His first single entitled “Umiyuki” (Ocean Snow) shoot up the charts and was the best single ever for an enka song. The single soared to No. 4 on the Japanese pop charts in under a week in 2008. The music that generally catered to his grandmother’s era which incorporated the love and lost of the period during World War II has now been introduced and packaged in an entirely new way. “I think a lot of young people are starting to look at enka in a new light,” he remarked before proclaiming his dedication to bringing the genre to the younger generation of Japan. Furthermore, he emphasized that he brought his own style to the enka songs he performed by adding a bit more rhythm. “Every time I get on the stage, I want to be me,” he stated. Instead of the traditional kimono or suit that enka singers typically wear, he sports baggy jeans, colorful urban-styled shirts, dangling jewelry, and doo rags that match his sports hats that are tilted to the side. Jero confesses that his roots and appearance adds to his appeal.

His success is evident and for his debut in the states, Jero performed for President Obama at the opening of the National Cherry Blossom festival in Washington D.C. in April of 2009. Earlier this year, the University of California Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies honored him for his contributions to the revival of Japanese enka music. Back in Japan, Jero’s songs have been used in TV commercials for multiple major companies and he is a market instrument himself appearing on TV quite often. Furthermore, he has even performed at the prestigious New Year’s Eve Kôhaku Utagassen concert. After releasing four albums and five singles since his debut, it seems nothing is slowing Jero down and it’s quite possible that nothing will.