Thelma Aoyama

Thelma Aoyama (青山 テルマ, Aoyama Teruma), born October 27, 1987, is a Japanese pop and R&B singer. She is part Afro-Trinidadian and Japanese.

She is probably best known for her collaboration song with SoulJa, "Koko ni Iru yo", and her answer song "Soba ni Iru ne". In September 2008, the Guinness World Records certified that "Soba ni Iru ne" became the best-selling digital download single in Japan with over two million "full-track" downloads (Chaku Uta Full).^[1] However, the record of the Guinness World Records was replaced by Greeeen's song "Kiseki" in June 2009.^[2][3] Including various forms of digital downloads, it sold over 8.7 million downloads by November 2008.^[4]

Life and career

She spent six years at Osaka International School as an elementary school student. At age 12, her family moved to Torrance, California, where she lived for two years and attended Calle Mayor Middle School. She returned to Japan in the winter of 2002, settling in Tokyo. Aoyama attended the American School in Japan. As of 2010, she is a student at Sophia University.

Aoyama's first release in the music world was a collaboration on DS455's single "Summer Paradise: Risin' To Tha Sun, feat. Aoyama Thelma". The single reached #46 on the Oricon charts. On September 9, 2007, Aoyama made her solo debut with the single "One Way". This single debuted at #98 on the Oricon charts. Two weeks later, Aoyama was featured on the hit single "Koko ni Iru yo" with fellow J-Soul artist SoulJa. The single stayed on the charts for many weeks. Despite only reaching up to #6 on the charts, the single has sold over 100,000 copies.

In early 2008, Aoyama released an answer song to the single "Koko ni Iru yo" by SoulJa with her own single titled: "Soba ni Iru ne" which also featured SoulJa. Both of the songs are similar, and both share the same chorus. However, the song "Soba ni Iru ne" proved to be more popular than the song "Koko ni Iru yo", debuting at #3 in its first week on the Oricon charts, and in its second week, reaching #1 on the charts. "Soba ni Iru ne" stayed in the Top 5 ranking for 7 consecutive weeks. It became the highest-selling female single (strictly a duet song) on the Oricon 2008 yearly charts.^[5]

Her debut album, Diary, was released in Japan on March 26, 2008.

On February 11, 2009, she released album Love!: Thelma Love Song Collection, which debuted at the number-one position on the Oricon weekly charts. The latest album with a title name of Emotions was released in September, 2009.

In late December, it was announced that Aoyama will collaborate with Big Bang's Taeyang for her single, "Fall in Love", which will be released on January 27, 2010.^[6]

In early February, right after the release of her new single "Fall in Love", Aoyama announced on her official blog that a new single called "Kaeru Basho" will be out on March 3, 2010.The first song called "Kaeru basho" is the ending song in the movie Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King. This single will be featuring SoulJa, once again, as they have before with Soba ni Iru ne and will have a B side called "Anata ga Kiechaisode". Summer Love!! ft. Red Rice came out the summer of 2010.

In 2010, she also sang with the Taiwan pop group, Da Mouth in a duet with the female lead singer, Aisa in the song, 'Secret Life' within the album, 'Da First Episode'.

In late April, it was announced that Aoyama will collaborate with Korean girl group 4Minute for her single, "Without U", which will be released on May 25, 2011. The English Version was released on May 7, 2011.

She contributed a cover of hide's "Tell Me" to the Tribute VI -Female Spirits- tribute album, which was released on December 18, 2013.^[7]

Discography

References

External links

• Official Site (Japanese)
• Thelma Aoyama's's channel on YouTube
• Universal Label Site (Japanese)
• Oricon Profile (Japanese)
• Official Blog (Japanese)