Karen Aoki

Karen Aoki (青木 カレン, born January 13, 1982) is a Japanese singer, jazz vocalist, lyricist, composer, and solo performer from Tokyo whose work draws on jazz and pop influences. She spent much of her childhood through high school in Hong Kong and Detroit. Later, while pursuing music more seriously, she divided her school years between Thailand, London, and Japan. During that period, she sang commercial songs, released two solo works through an independent label, and had a demo by her band used as the opening theme for a J-WAVE program. After graduating from the Faculty of Economics at Keio University, she began her jazz career under the name 青木 カレン in 2003. She performed regularly at jazz clubs in Tokyo before releasing her first album, "TOKYO Jz TRIPPIN’", on January 16, 2006. She later released albums including "KAREN", "SHINING", "KAREN's SWINGIN' PARTY", "THE CLUB JAZZ DIVA", "BY MY SIDE", "voyage", "Twilight Jazz", and "Tranquility". Her recordings were also released in France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. In anime, she performed "Great Days", the OP of "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", and she has also contributed songs to film and television productions.