What awful news! Poor Utada!! Keiko Fuji, famed 1970s enka singer and

What awful news! Poor Utada!!

Keiko Fuji, famed 1970s enka singer and mother of pop-artist Hikaru Utada, died on Thursday morning after falling from her apartment building in Nishi Shinjuku, Tokyo. She was immediately brought to a nearby hospital but no intervention was able to save Fuji. The police suspects suicide as the cause of her death.

It was around 7AM when the body of Fuji was found on the street where she lived. She was living with a male friend, who claimed to be sleeping at the time of incident. Only a pair of slippers was left on the railing of her apartment’s balcony. As no suicide note was left, the police haven’t ruled out the possibility of foul play and are still making investigations.

The 62-year old Keiko Fuji, whose real name was Junko Utada, was a famous enka singer and actress in the 1970s. She made her singing debut in 1969 and had her debut album titled Shinjuku no Onna (“Woman in Shinjuku”) a year later. The album spent 20 weeks at the Oricon chart. Fuji, a native of Iwate Prefecture, ended her singing career in 1979 and went to the United States, where she lived for a time. She gave birth to her only child, Hikaru, in 1983 in New York.

We interviewed Hikaru Utada in 2009, while she was in New York promoting her new album.