joji

Entertainment career

George Kusunoki Miller (born on 18 september 1992, in Osaka, Japan) better known by his stage name Joji and formerly by his online aliases Filthy Frank and Pink Guy, is a Japanese singer-songwriter, record producer, author, and former Internet personality, YouTuber, and comedian.Miller began his career as an entertainer through his three now defunct YouTube channels. They consisted of rap songs, extreme challenges, ukulele performances and a shock humor show with most of the main characters played by Miller, including the titular character of Filthy Frank. To complement his channel, Miller produced comedy hip hop music under his Pink Guy alias, who is also a character of his show.

Music career

On 29 December 2017, Miller released a statement on Twitter explaining that he had stopped producing comedy, including his show, due to both "serious health conditions" and his personal lack of interest in continuing the series and to focus on his music under the name Joji, producing more nuanced and serious music, releasing the album In Tongues, which peaked at number 58 on the Billboard 200, and his debut studio album Ballads 1, which reached number 1 on Billboard's top R&B and hip-hop chart in November 2018. With this, Miller became the first Asian-born artist to do so. Miller's music has been described as a mix between R&B, lo-fi and trip hop.

At first Miller intended to keep the music made under Joji a secret from his fanbase due to them mainly wanting his comedic music. In late 2015, two singles were released, both were released under a false alias, but it was quickly leaked that the user behind the account was Miller, which prompted him in January 2016 to publicly announce on Instagram that he was releasing a full-length commercial project titled Chloe Burbank: Volume 1. In the same post, he linked his SoundCloud account.In 2017, Joji released several songs via the YouTube channel of Asian music label 88rising, the songs "I Don't Wanna Waste My Time", released on 26 April 2017, "Rain on Me", released on 19 July 2017 and "Will He", released on 17 October 2017. Miller performed live as Joji for the first time on 18 May 2017 in Los Angeles. On 17 October 2017, Miller released the debut single from his debut commercial project, In Tongues.The single, titled "Will He", was released on platforms Spotify and iTunes.

Musical Style

Joji's music has been described as trip hop and lo-fi that blends elements of trap, folk, electronic, and R&B. His songs have been characterized as having "down tempo, melancholic themes and soulful vocals" with "minimalistic production".Joji himself classifies his work as dark love songs, with his 2020 album, Nectar, dissecting cliche tropes and topics. He has been compared to electronic artist James Blake, whom he also names as an influence alongside Radiohead, Shlohmo and Donald Glover. In an interview with Pigeons and Planes, Miller said that his music was inspired by his time growing up in Osaka and by boom bap instrumentals he listened to while attending Canadian Academy.