Some rappers work hard to separate themselves from the group they came up with. KEIJU went the other way: he built a solid solo career while staying one of the most active members of KANDYTOWN, the sixteen-person crew out of Setagaya, Tokyo. Ten years on, both paths run in parallel, neither swallowing the other.
KEIJU started out as YOUNG JUJU. His first solo album, Juzzy 92′, came out in 2016 through independent channels. The following year, he became one of Japan’s most in-demand feature artists, a status Sony Music’s official biography confirmed by describing him as essentially the “king of guest appearances” for that period. He appeared on tofubeats’ “Lonely Nights“, Awich’s “Remember“, and Shimizu Shota’s “Drippin’“. Each of those features confirmed the same thing: his mellow voice, that placement somewhere between rapping and singing, fits almost any context.
In 2018, he signed with Sony Music Labels, fully committed to the name KEIJU, and released the single “Let Me Know“, followed by a BACHLOGIC remix. The transition was clean, with no shift in style. In 2019, his collaboration with singer RIRI on “Summertime“, produced by composer Nobunaga Kobukuro and used as a Shiseido Anessa commercial theme, carried him beyond the core hip-hop audience. The track played across several Asian markets, and in September of that year, KEIJU performed in Taipei alongside Taiwanese singer Julia Wu for a local remix.
The album T.A.T.O. (Tiny Anthem, Tiny Oracle) came out in July 2020, after a four-year process marked by doubt, abandoned material, and a creative crisis KEIJU didn’t try to hide. Real Sound noted in its analysis published in August 2020 that as early as 2018, at an event celebrating his major label signing, KEIJU had played demos of tracks that wouldn’t surface for two more years, including “Remy Up feat. IO.” Some of those songs had nearly disappeared permanently. Co-producer and mixer Illicit Tsuboi described the album, in a tweet cited by Real Sound in August 2020, as a piece that required absolute honesty: one less track would have broken the whole. The album reached number 4 on Apple Music’s overall chart.
Talking about KEIJU without talking about KANDYTOWN doesn’t hold up. And talking about KANDYTOWN without talking about YUSHI doesn’t either. YUSHI, a central member of the group, died on February 14, 2016. That date became the one around which the group chose to release its most significant collective projects: LOCAL SERVICE in 2019, then LOCAL SERVICE 2 on February 14, 2021.
KEIJU explained to Eyescream in February 2021 why the group continues: “YUSHI had that lyric, ‘I can’t die without having left something behind’. You feel that in every member. Whatever happens in the world, not stopping, continuing to create, that’s our way of saying something.” In the FNMNL interview in March 2021, he went further: “If YUSHI were still here, the group would probably have blown up. He was that kind of person. His absence keeps us from hating that time. Everything stays like it was that night”.
2022 and 2023 mark a shift in his relationship with labels. After the Sony chapter, KEIJU took back control of his distribution. The EP Speed Tape, released in September 2023, hit number one on Apple Music Japan’s overall chart, a rare achievement for such a short project. Six tracks, including “Wind Rise feat. JJJ,” were made with the freedom KEIJU had long worked toward. Kohjiya, then still emerging, contributed to the writing on several tracks, a collaboration that helped launch the young Nagasaki rapper’s career.
In 2024, the features kept coming at pace: “Mama’s Boy feat. LEX & 7“, “Money Baby feat. Awich“, “backseat feat. Kvi Baba & tofubeats“. In May 2025, the album N.I.T.O. came out through his own label, Cashcade Entertainment. The tracklist includes “SAYSUM feat. KID FRESINO” and “Local Area pt. 2 feat. Gottz & Neetz“, a return to KANDYTOWN roots that didn’t need announcing. In 2026, the collaboration with OKAMOTO’S on “Seasons feat. KEIJU” placed him once again in a context that reaches beyond hip-hop’s usual boundaries. Ten years after Juzzy 92′, KEIJU remains someone whose voice adapts to almost anything, without ever sounding like anyone else.
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