is a Japanese

singer-songwriter A singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. In the United States, the category is built on the folk- acoustic tradition with a guitar, although this role has ...

. He became popular during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

among Zoomers due to his song " Gyutto". He is well known for his style of singing from a female perspective.

History

Mosawo was originally a member of a baseball club and wanted to become a professional baseball player. He was forced to give up due to an injury. Mosawo stated that

Shota Shimizu is a Japanese singer-songwriter and musician from Yao, Osaka, Japan, who debuted in 2008. On June 1, 2008, Shimizu performed at Central Park in New York City during the annual Japan Day Festival. Shota Shimizu went to a local Christian school in ...

inspired him to be a singer when he saw him on TV when he was in his first year in middle school, In an interview with PIA, he admires Shota's "way of having his own worldview that isn't influenced by the people around him". He founded a music club and played guitar and vocals where they played cover songs of

Radwimps is a Japanese rock band who debuted independently in 2003 and signed with Toshiba EMI in 2005. The band's name, Radwimps, was formed from two English slang terms, " rad" and "wimp". According to the band, the coined word had several meanings, ...

and One Ok Rock. In 2017, Mosawo started uploading song covers on

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

with him singing and playing guitars. At the same time, he also uploaded it on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

and began collaborating with other users on the

karaoke is a type of interactive entertainment system usually offered in nightclubs and bars, where people sing along to pre-recorded accompaniment using a microphone. Its musical content is an instrumental rendition of a well-known popular song. I ...

app named nana. In March 2020, Mosawo posted a single phrase of " Gyutto" on

TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...

. The song grew in popularity, the original video accumulated more than 200,000 likes, and comments, and many people commented that they wanted to see Mosawo become a singer. It was used in more than 30,000 videos and accumulated 300 million views on TikTok. Mosawo released his first single, "Gyutto", digitally in July 2020. Mosawo's single "Aitai" was released in October 2020. In September 2021, he release another single "Koiiro", and inspired by the

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

'' A Sign of Affection''. In November of the same year, his song "Caramel" was used as the opening theme for the Japanese drama ''

My Beautiful Man is a Japanese light novel series by Yuu Nagira. It is published by Tokuma Shoten with illustrations by Rikako Kasai. ''My Beautiful Man'' was published as Nagira's debut work, and since 2014, there have been four volumes published, as well ...

''. In October 2022, Mosawo performed the theme song of the

Japanese drama Japanese drama may refer to: *Noh, a major form of classical Japanese musical drama that has been performed since the 14th century *Japanese television drama, referred to in Japanese as *Radio drama in Japan Radio drama (or audio drama, audio ...

series ''Piece of Cake'' entitled "Halleluyah". In December of the same year, he releases his first album ''"Koi no Uta''" containing his previous songs. On January 16, 2023, Mosawo held his first ever live performance at WWW in Tokyo, following that he also held performances in Nagoya and Osaka in May of that year. In March of the same year, he performed the song "Brownie" for the commercial for Nōkō Choco Brownies.

Style

Mosawo stated that he sang mainly love songs with lyrics from a female perspective. In an interview with PIA, he said he writes songs such as "Kira Kira" "imagining the feelings of a woman with unrequited love" and often uses feminine terms and

pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not con ...

such as when singing about "my feelings for him." Ayaka Sakai of ''

Billboard Japan ''Billboard Japan'' is a sister organization of the U.S.-based music magazine '' Billboard''. It is operated by the Japanese Osaka-based company Hanshin Contents Link (a subsidiary of Hanshin Electric Railway), holding an exclusive licence fr ...

'' described his style as "easier to remember."

Reception

Mosawo became popular among Zoomers during the

COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

because of the lyrics to his song " Gyutto", and noted that he is a "talent that suddenly appeared during the COVID-19 pandemic". He charted 39 times in the ''

s "Artist 100" peaking at 27th place on December 16, 2020. Mosawo also charted twice for the "Artist 100 Year End" peaking at 63rd in 2021.

Discography

Albums

Singles

Notes

References

External links

* {{Authority control 21st-century Japanese singer-songwriters J-pop musicians Living people Japanese YouTubers