Born in Zushim, Kanagawa Prefecture on 15 March 1994, the genre-defying Japanese
singer-songwriter known as iri began learning guitar and singing in high school
while she built up her confidence at live gigs in a jazz bar during her time at
university. She got the J-pop ball rolling with a spot on Victor Entertainment's
roster and her debut studio album Groove It arrived in 2016, which soared to
number one on the iTunes Store Japan hip-hop/rap chart. She spent the next few
years experimenting with her sound, equally adept at rolling out acoustic tracks
like “Aitaiwa” from 2017's ...