1. In 2018, Jero announced that he was taking an indefinite hiatus from his music career to focus on a career in computers.
17 Facts About Jero
1. 2.
Jero began singing Enka at the age of six and continued to study the Japanese language all throughout high school and college.
3.
Jero studied Japanese for some time at the Kansai Gaidai University school of foreign languages.
4.
Jero majored in information science at University of Pittsburgh and graduated in 2003 and moved to Japan in the same year.
5.
Jero first began pursuing his dream to become an Enka artist because of the influence of his Japanese grandmother Takiko, who had met his grandfather, an African-American serviceman, at a dance during World War II.
6.
Jero's parents divorced when he was young and he was reared amid a strong sense of Japanese culture.
7.
Jero, who majored in information technology at the University of Pittsburgh, did not initially imagine himself in a career as an Enka singer.
8.
Jero only began to actively work towards becoming an Enka singer because he had promised his grandmother that one day he would someday perform at the annual Kohaku Uta Gassen song show.
9.
Umi Yuki, references the Sea of Japan, but Jero has admitted that the only ocean he has ever really seen was in California.
10.
From May 21,2008, Jero appeared in a Japanese TV commercial for Kirin "Fire" coffee, the first time he had appeared in a TV commercial.
11.
Jero won Best New Artist Award in 50th Japan Record Awards on December 30,2008.
12.
Jero was selected to appear on the 59th NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen, NHK New Year's Eve musical spectacular, on December 31,2008.
13.
Jero appeared wearing a black and white shirt bearing the image of his grandmother.
14.
Jero made his first major US appearance on March 28,2009 during the opening ceremony of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC Jero's first official US appearance was a live concert to over 500 fans at the University of Pittsburgh, his alma mater, on August 27,2008.
15.
Jero completed his first official US concert tour by singing to a sold-out house at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco on March 28,2010 and at the Aratani Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles on March 31,2010.
16.
Jero held a concert on February 20,2008 in Shibuya, a popular hangout for young people.
17.
However, there is hope for Enka yet as Jero's fanbase is not limited to older women who grew up with the genre but a new and emerging younger fanbase who before would never have been thought of as potential fans for the genre.