Joji / George Miller

[WIP]

About

Joji is the stage name of Japanese-Australian singer-songwriter and producer George Miller. Formerly known as Youtube personality and comedian Filthy Frank, he garnered notoriety and fame under the alias with skits that employed off-color, surreal, and often offensive humor combined with overarching lore, resulting in millions of subscribers, alongside comedy rap music under the affiliated alias Pink Guy, before switching over to producing lo-fi and R&B music as Joji. Since Miller's switch, he has garnered larger fame with his association with record label 88rising, releasing his debut album BALLADS 1 with the label.

History

Filthy Frank

On June 15th, 2008, Miller launched the DizastaMusic Youtube channel and uploaded his first video "Lil Jon falls off a table" a few days later, on June 19th (shown below, upper right). On this channel, alongside various skits featuring him and his friends as the "Tempura Boyz" (shown below, upper left), would be skits featuring characters such as Filthy Frank and Pink Guy, both of which would see their earliest public appearances on August 5th, 2011 and February 10th, 2012 respectively in the videos "Filthy Shit" and "ME SINGING ADELE".

On January 22nd, 2013, Miller started another channel, TVFilthyFrank, which would serve as the main channel for all future Filthy Frank skits and videos, collectively referred to as The Filthy Frank Show, as Miller feared the old DizastaMusic channel would eventually be taken down due to stricter Youtube guidelines. Since beginning on Youtube, Miller also introduced other characters, such as lycra people, the dark god/lord Chin-Chin whose eyes were shut closed and speaks only the phrase "Ore wa ochinchin ga daisuki nandayo", and other assorted characters such as the muscular Prometheus, the Japanese roommate Safari Man, and the salamander-human hybrid Salamander Man, alongside concepts such as different dimensions, the ever-omnipotent and omniscient peace^lords, and the use of chromosomes. (examples shown below)

Miller also started a sister channel, TooDamnFilthy, on July 1st, 2014, to upload secondary and complementary material such as behind-the-scenes and alternate content that might be too risque for the main channel. Throughout all 3 channels, Miller employs darker, self-deprecating, off-colour, and often, low-brow and offensive humour, with series ranging from the instructional Japanese 101 where he teaches dirty Japanese words, batsu games where a loser must consume an unappetizing meal or worse, and videos containing large amounts of lore regarding the Filthy Frank universe.

Harlem Shake

The Harlem Shake is a viral trend and dance craze featuring a single person dancing to the first few seconds of the song "Harlem Shake" by trap producer Baauer before being joined by a larger group of people dancing wildly to the song. The craze, started by Filthy Frank, originates from a video uploaded to DizastaMusic uploaded originally on January 20th, 2013, titled "DO THE HARLEM SHAKE" before being re-uploaded on February 3rd, 2013 (shown below). The video, featuring Miller and his friends dressed in lycra suits dancing in a crazy manner in the latter half of the video, served as the impetus of the viral craze and derivative works, alongside bringing Baauer to viral success with Harlem Shake becoming a number 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 after the charts began integrating YouTube plays and views for the first time in the chart's history. As of 2018, the video has accumulated over 60 million views.

Retirement of Filthy Frank

On December 29th, 2017, two days after the publishing of his book on the Filthy Frank universe titled Francis of the Filth, Miller made the announcement on the official Filthy Frank Twitter account that he was done with comedic videos, owing to his lack of enjoyment in making them and the damage that the various voices posed to his health (shown below). He also pointed to neurological conditions he did not discuss.

In the statement, Miller refers to an interview he gave with Billboard in which he discussed moving on from the crude humor of his Filthy Frank videos to focusing on his music career as Joji, a lo-fi "trap-n-B" artist, as Billboard describes him.

Pink Guy

Alongside using Filthy Frank as an outlet for comedy, he has also used it as an outlet for comedic rap and hip-hop,
usually under the name Pink Guy. Under this alias, he has released 2 mixtapes and a remix EP, starting with his debut self-titled mixtape on May 23rd, 2014 as a free download. Consisting of various songs put out through the Filthy Frank channels, alongside skits and the like and employing the same type of raunchy and offensive humour as seen throughout the videos on the channel, within 4 years of uploading a small part of the full mixtape, the upload garnered over 11 million views. (shown below, left)

On January 4th, 2017, Miller released his first commercial mixtape/album Pink Season also under Pink Guy. Featuring production from collaborators such as josh pan, ryanjacob, Misogi, and Holder, formerly known as MajorLeagueWobs, alongside with Miller describing the upcoming release as "making the first mixtape sound more like Kidz Bop," within a year of uploading the full mixtape to Youtube, the release has garnered over 7.4 million views as of writing. (shown above, right)

On May 24th, Miller released an EDM remix EP of 4 songs titled Pink Season: The Prophecy, through record label 88rising. The EP consists of remixes from producers Borgore, Getter, TastyTreat, and Axel Boy, of the songs "Dumplings", "Fried Noodles", "STFU", and "Are You Serious," respectively. A mixed version was released alongside the EP. (shown below)

On December 29th, Miller announced that he would be retiring from his comedy persona and work as Filthy Frank to focus on his more serious music project Joji and to focus more on his physical and mental well-being and health, as in a previous reveal video from years prior he suffered from seizures brought on by stress. This is also assumed to include his music as Pink Guy.

Joji

Under his Joji alias, he produces what could be described as under the genres of lo-fi, R&B and trip hop, similar to that of the late hip-hop producer Nujabes, with elements of folk. One example of a notable track from Joji would be "Medicine," or "medicine beat," a lo-fi hip-hop remix of the song "Medicine" by English folk band Daughter.

Joji in Filthy Frank

In May 2014, after revealing himself to the world, Miller, in a video where he alternates between his actual self and his personas Filthy Frank and Pink Guy, makes announcements regarding upcoming content for the channel. One such announcement made in this video also included the fact that a "serious music" album under the name of Joji was in progress. alongside another Pink Guy album. However the albums were shelved. In its place, he released music as PinkOmega, described as a more serious alternative to Pink Guy, with tracks such as "Dumplings" and "Wefllagn.ii ５", later released as part of the Pink Season album, as "Dumplings" and "We Fall Again." A reference to people wanting Miller to make serious music again can be seen in the track "Rice Balls", with the lyric "Uh, we want real music, We want real music, we want Joji music."

Chloe Burbank

In late 2015, a Soundcloud account under the name of Chloe Burbank was discovered by users on Reddit with two songs uploaded to the account: "Thom" and "you suck charlie". (shown below) Though initially speculated to be Joji, it was later confirmed by him through an Instagram post and after his identity was leaked. The two songs posted would later be revealed as part of a new commercial project titled Chloe Burbank: Volume 1. As time went on, songs such as "old yeller", "plastic taste" and "unsaved info" to collaborations such as "Visa" with ryanjacob, Indica, and Floyd, and "BESIDJU" with Shamana would be uploaded or reposted to the account.

88rising

In 2016, Miller signed with record label and media company 88rising to start uploading his music to their channel. Starting with previously released tracks such as "Thom" and "WORLD$TAR MONEY", his first new track uploaded to their channel would be "i don't wanna waste my time" released on April 27th, 2017. Within a year since being uploaded, the official audio video for the song on Youtube has received over 16 million views. He would also release the track "rain on me." after the upload of "i don't wanna waste my time".

On October 18th, 2017, 88rising uploaded a new music video for the song "will he" by Joji. Within a little under a year, the music video garnered over 29 million views as of writing. 88rising would later upload a teaser showcasing a new project by Joji to be released through them. Titled In Tongues, the project, revealed to be Joji's debut EP, would be his first ever release on a label, including releasing with a major record. 88rising would also upload music videos for "Demons" and "Window" as part of promotion for this EP. On February 14th, 2018, a deluxe version of the album would be released, featuring 2 previously released tracks and remixes from artists such as Medasin, SwuM, and Lunice.

BALLADS 1

On September 12th, 2016, Joji released the song "Slow Dancing in the Dark," as the lead single off of his debut album as Joji BALLADS 1. In the following 2 weeks since its release, the music video (shown below), uploaded by 88rising, has garnered over 12 million views. The music video follows the release of his previous single, "Yeah Right." On October 2nd, Joji released the next single from the album "Can't Get Over You" featuring hip-hop producer Clams Casino. The release was also accompanied by a tracklisting, showing 12 tracks and other features from rapper Trippie Redd, and producers D33J and Shlohmo,

Reputation

Since his reveal as George Miller in May 2014, many people were amazed at how what many considered a shy and soft-spoken person could initiate such a raunchy trend in the form of various characters. Miller has also seen praise for the universe, characters, and world-building during the days of Filthy Frank.

Online Relevance

On Twitter, both his Filthy Frank and @sushitrash accounts have accumulated over 765,000 followers and 554,000 likes respectively. On Facebook,

Miller also two Soundcloud accounts, the aforementioned Chloe Burbank account, now his main account, and the account for Pink Guy, with over 434,000 and 164,000 followers respectively .

Search Interest

External References