VICTOR KINJO

Victor Kinjo is an Asian-Brazilian singer, composer and researcher, nominated for Best Singer (regional music) at the 2018 Brazilian Music Awards. Born in São Paulo with Uchinanchu roots (one of the Indigenous Peoples of Ryukyu Islands/Okinawa), he started to sing in childhood: Japanese music. Being initiated to the piano at the age of 7, he was influenced by the Latin, North-American and European music of his father’s record player and the 90’s pop songs. In youth, he studied acoustic guitar, piano and singing, composed his first songs and performed in Festivals and Cultural Meetings. PhD in Social Science at the University of Campinas, his dissertation “Songs of Diasporic Memory: representation, (dis)identification and performance from Mishima to Okinawa” presents a creative dialogue between social sciences, performing arts and cultural studies. Kinjo is also a master in environmental sociology at the University of Campinas, bachelor in Economics at the University of São Paulo and Social Science at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo. In 2015, he co-founded the SAMAUMA Rural Arts Residency, a space for research and creation in the middle of the Atlantic forest, in the metropoliutan region of São Paulo. In this place, he recorded his first album KINJO (Matraca Records/YB Music, 2017), considered a "a new look to Brazilian Music" (Revista Arte Brasileira, 2017). Elected as the 20th Best Album of the Year (Embrulhador), Kinjo was also nominated as Best Singer (Regional) in the Brazilian Music Awards 2018.

 

In 2019, he translated, recorded and released "Flores para o Coração da Gente", a Brazilian Version of the song "Subete no Kokoro ni Hana wo", written by Okinawan Composer Shoukichi Kina. The project was supported by São Paulo Japan Foundation.

The artist has performed in several cultural centers and universities of Brazil, Netherlands, Spain, USA and Japan, including VI Uchinanchu Worldiwide Uchinanchu Festival, Virada Cultural, Boston Green Fest, Okinawa Music Lane Festival, Harvard University, NYU and the UN.

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In September 2021, he produced the music video VEM PRO RIO (Come to the river), recorded in an artistic-scientific expedition from the source to the mouth of Tietê River in São Paulo. The video, the first of his upcoming album TERRÁQUEOS, was released in the I NAVEGA SP Festival, organized by him in a boat moored in the margins of the polluted Tietê river in São Paulo. The action integrates his post-doc research on culture and river regeneration at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the University of São Paulo  

Currently, he is visiting scholar at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts with the support of São Paulo Research Foundation.

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In May 06h 2022, he launches his second album TERRÁQUEOS (YB Music), with the music production of João Antunes, Ivan Banho e Guilherme Kastrup.