Jerome Charles White, Jr.^[1] (born September 4, 1981), better known by his stage name Jero (ジェロ^?), is an American enka singer^[2] of Africanand Japanese descent. He is the first black enka singer in Japanese music history. Jero began singing Enka actively at the age of six and continued to study the Japanese language all throughout high school and college.^[3] He also studied Japanese for some time at the Kansai Gaidai University school of foreign languages.^[4] Jero majored in information science atUniversity of Pittsburgh and graduated in 2003, and moved to Japan in the same year. Two months after arriving in Japan, he entered the NHK Nodo Jiman competition broadcast on TV.

He won Best New Artist Award in 50th Japan Record Awards on December 30, 2008.^[16]

Jero was selected to appear on the 59th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen, NHK New Year’s Eve musical spectacular, on December 31,

2008.^[17] In his participation, he fulfilled a pledge he made to his dying grandmother to appear on the yearly competition.^[18] Jero appeared wearing a black and white shirt bearing the image of his grandmother.^[19] He also appeared on the following year‘s show. Jero made his first major U.S. appearance on March 28, 2009 during the opening ceremony of the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.^[

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,^[22] and at the Aratani Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles on March 31, 2010.^[23] In addition, he also appeared in the 30th Anniversary Gala Celebration of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles on March 30, 2010.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jero