Joji Trivia: 46 facts about the Japanese singer and former “Filthy Frank”

Joji is a Japanese-born and half Australian musician and singer, widely known for his former online aliases “Filthy Frank” and “Pink Guy”.

So, let’s find out some interesting facts about his early life, youtube career and discography.

1. Joji is a Japanese singer, songwriter, record producer, author (“Francis of the Filth”) and former Internet personality and comedian.

2. His real name is George Kusunoki Miller.

3. Though, his stage name is Joji.

4. He was born on September 18, 1992 in Osaka, Japan.

5. He is half Japanese and half Australian.

6. Joji attended Canadian Academy, where he graduated in 2012.

7. At age 18, he left Japan and traveled to the United States. He was enrolled at New York Institute of Technology.

8. Joji was widely known in Youtube for his two online aliases, the iconic “Filthy Frank” and “Pink Guy.”

9. He created “Filthy Frank” (a character who is described as the anti-vlogger of YouTube) in August 2011, during his time on his “DizastaMusic” YouTube channel.

10. Miller has grown popular there, by posting unconventional comedy – based content, consisting of rap songs, rants, extreme challenges, ukulele performances and a bizzare humor show titled The Filthy Frank Show, with most of the main characters played by him, including the titular character of Filthy Frank.

11. George Miller (aka Joji) made attempts to maintain his privacy, such as deleting the video “Filthy Frank Exposes Himself?”, where he revealed himself to be a college student in Brooklyn, New York, and that he didn’t want to reveal personal information for fear of not being able to get a job later on due to the nature of his show.

12. Joji and his friends are the ones behind the universally known viral challenge, “Harlem Shake” (!!!)

13. In December 2017, he stated he had retired the channel to focus on his music career, under the stage name Joji, producing more nuanced and serious music, releasing the EP 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.

14. Achieving this, Joji became the first Asian-born artist to do so.

15. Joji has a great love for music composition. In an interview he said that: “I’ve always wanted to make normal music. I just started the YouTube channel to kind of bump my music. But then Filthy Frank and the Pink Guy stuff ended up getting way bigger than I thought so I had to kind of roll with it.”

16. Concerning the transition from his YouTube career to his music career as Joji, he has said that “now I get to do stuff that I want to hear.”

17. He specified that “Joji” isn’t a character like Filthy Frank and Pink Guy, stating that, “I guess that’s the difference,” “Joji’s just me.”

18. Joji’s music has been described as trip-hop and lo-fi that blends elements of trap, folk, electronic and R&B.

19. His songs have been characterized as having “down tempo, melancholic themes and soulful vocals” with “minimalistic production”.

20. Joji has been compared to electronic artist James Blake, whom he also names as an influence alongside Radiohead, Shlohmo and Donald Glover.

21. As far as his music inspirations are concerned, Joji once said that his music was inspired by his time growing up in Osaka and furthermore by boom bap instrumentals he listened to while attending Canadian Academy.

22. During his time growing up in Higashinada-ku, Kobe, Japan, Joji began to produce music and sing with friends as a side-hobby and a way to pass the time.

23. After relocating to Manhattan, New York, he expanded upon his music career by starting his Pink Guy persona, which paved the way for his Joji persona.

24. He originally announced his Joji album on 3 May 2014 alongside the first Pink Guy album. 

25. However, Miller subtly cancelled the project until he began releasing music under the name PinkOmega.

26. He released two songs as PinkOmega: “Dumplings” on 4 June 2015 and “wefllagn.ii 5” on 28 August 2015, both of which were later released on the Pink Guy album Pink Season, the latter being re-titled “We Fall Again”.

27. George Miller intended to keep the music made under Joji a secret from his fan base, due to them mainly wanting his comedic music.

28. In late 2015, Joji released two singles, titled “Thom” and “You Suck Charlie”. Both were released under a false alias, but it was quickly leaked that the user behind the account was Miller.

29. This leak 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.

30. In 2017, Joji released several songs via the YouTube channel of Asian music label 88rising, such as “I Don’t Wanna Waste My Time”, “Rain on Me”, “Will He” and “Demons”. Joji was featured in the song “Nomadic” with the Chinese rap group Higher Brothers.

31. His first live performance as Joji was on 18 May 2017 in Los Angeles. The event was streamed by the Boiler Room.

32. On 17 October 2017, Joji released the debut single from his debut commercial project, In Tongues. The single, titled “Will He”, was released on platforms Spotify and iTunes.

33. Miller’s debut project under the moniker Joji, an EP titled In Tongues, was released on 3 November 2017 by Empire Distribution.

34. A deluxe version of the EP was released on 14 February 2018 with 8 remixes of songs from the EP along with the release of “Plastic Taste” and “I Don’t Wanna Waste My Time” as part of the track listing.

35. In May 2018, Joji released the song “Yeah Right”, becoming his first to chart on a Billboard chart and peaking at 23 on the Billboard R&B Songs chart.

36. Miller debuted Ballads 1 under the label 88rising on 26 October 2018, which quickly peaked the Billboard Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums Chart.

37. Shortly after its release, Joji announced a North American tour, spanning 9 dates in early 2019. At that time, he was already on tour for Ballads 1 in Europe.

38. On 4 June 2019, Joji announced his new single titled “Sanctuary” through his Instagram page and released it on 14 June. It was accompanied by a music video, which was uploaded to 88rising’s official YouTube channel.

39. Joji was featured in the song “Where Does the Time Go?” with Indonesian rapper Rich Brian on his second album The Sailor.

39. On 30 January 2020, he announced his new single, “Run”, which was released at midnight on 6 February 2020 with a music video released later that day.

40. On 2 March 2020, Joji performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

41. Although Joji doesn’t reveal much about his personal life, he has mentioned that he suffers from seizures caused by an illness which he doesn’t reveal.

42. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York and often flies to Los Angeles for work, where he has a residence.

43. He frequently travels outside the country (mostly to Australia). As he was born in Japan, he has maintained contacts with his childhood friends and speaks fluent Japanese.

44. Joji has several musical abilities, such as playing the ukulele and singing. 

45. He can also play the recorder with his nose like Salamander Man (hilarious).

46. He can speak fluent English and Japanese and some broken Spanish.

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