JUJU

Top Hits Song Highlights Intro

An aspiring jazz singer since the tender age of 12, JUJU moved to the US at age 18, all by herself. There she absorbed all kinds of New York-style music from jazz to R&B, hip-hop, soul, Latin, and house to name a few, and established her distinctive musicality.
JUJU began participating in other musicians’ projects in 2001, and made her own major debut in 2004 with single “Hikarino Nakae”. In 2006, single “Kisekiwo Nozomunara…” became a long-time seller, ranking at #1 on the 2007 Annual USEN Comprehensive Chart. The success was followed by another smash hit, namely “Sunao Ni Naretara”, which helped her breaking into stardom. The 2009 single “Ashitaga Kurunara JUJU with JAY’ED”, theme song of movie Yomei Ikkagetsuno Hanayome, swept the tears and attentions from Japanese women across the nation.
JUJU released her self-titled album JUJU in 2010, which the songbird describes, “a culmination of my honest feeling at this time.” The album won the Excellent Album category of the 52th annual Japan Record Award. Request, her first all-cover album whose songs were selected by a fans’ poll, became the first cover album by a female singer to mark #1 on the Oricon chart two weeks in a row. In July 2011 she released her fourth studio album YOU which became another album of hers to mark #1 on the Oricon chart for two weeks in a row. Her first jazz album DELICIOUS was released in November that year, and became the first jazz album in chart history to come in the top 5 of the consolidated chart.
In 2012, JUJU became the first Japanese female artist to perform on MTV Unplugged in New York where she calls her second home. The year also saw the simultaneous release of two greatest hits albums, her first and second, entitled BEST STORY ~Love stories~ and BEST STORY ~Life Stories~ in November. She became the third female artist to dominate #1 and #2 on the Oricon weekly album chart.
Starting from February 2013, she went on her biggest tour in her career to date, entitled JUJU BEST STORY HALL & ARENA TOUR 2013, on which she performed 40 shows in 33 cities and mobilizing a total of 120,000 people. In addition, she released a followup to her highly acclaimed jazz album, entitled DELICIOUS ~JUJU’s Jazz 2nd Dish. She wrapped up the year 2013 with GIFT, her “premium classic album” that captured her joint performance with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra (conductor: Naoto Otomo) entitled JUJU PREMIUM CLASSIC CONCERT 2013, which had taken place on October 10 (“JUJU Day”, since 10/10 can be pronounced “ju-ju” in Japanese).