Singing Japan’s heart and soul: A discourse on the black enka singer Jero and race politics in Japan

摘要: This article analyses a discourse around the ascendancy of Jero, an ‘African-American’ male dressed in hip-hop attire singing enka, genre music that has been dubbed ‘the heart and soul Japan.’ Since his debut Japan February 2008, Jero attracted much media attention. prominent discourse, ‘Jero is almost Japanese because he sings enka well.’ While many argue to challenge stereotypes racism introduce alternative role models, we show such models can also reinforce existing regime difference vs. Other perpetuate related racism. We suggest instead need for various cultural arrangements stop capitalizing on between races start noticing differences (and similarities) other regimes (e.g. taste, style) order stereotypes.