Akiko Wada is a Japanese singer, voice actress, and television personality. Though ethnically Korean, she was born on April 10, 1950, in the city of Osaka. Her birth name is Kim Bok-ja, but she changed her name to Akiko Wada (and Akiko Iizuka after her marriage). She is known by nicknames such as "Akko" or "Jotei." She is also known as the "Japanese Aretha Franklin." At age 17, she started performing in clubs as a singer. She signed with the Horipro entertainment agency and released her first single "Hoshizora no Kodoku" in 1968. Shortly after this, she obtained her first hit with the song "Doshaburi no Ame no Naka de." Akiko Wada started performing a live music show broadcast every New Year's Eve, a tradition that started in 1970 and has happened over 30 times. In 1972, her song "Ano Kane wo Narasu no wa Anata" received the award for Best Song at the Japan Record Awards. Over the course of the following decades, she cemented her popularity in the Japanese pop music scene through albums such as Dynamite a Go Go (1999) and Raga Akiko (2005). She has also developed a career as a voice actress, voicing characters such as Bowser on the 1986 film Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! and Marge Simpson in the Japanese version of The Simpsons Movie. In 2005, Akiko Wada collaborated with the group M-Flo on the song "Hey!" In 2008, to celebrate 40 years in entertainment, she performed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, becoming the first solo Japanese artist to headline a show there. In 2023, she released the single "KANPAI FUNK," an energetic rave-up that combines J-pop, disco, and contemporary production sounds.
