Shoketta

Shoketta is a vocalist and composer from Okinawa, Japan, whose music is rooted in jazz, soul, R&B and gospel. She began singing at the age of 13 in a church on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, where she first encountered gospel and soul and discovered how music could connect people across languages and cultures.

As a young adult, Shoketta began performing professionally as a pianist in hotel lounges in Okinawa. Over time, she made a defining decision to make her voice her primary instrument. At 25, she moved to Tokyo on her own to pursue formal vocal training. Those years of study eventually led to a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston.

During her years in the United States, Shoketta also came to the attention of Bev Getz, daughter of saxophonist Stan Getz. A letter from Getz, later featured in a 2008 Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper profile on Shoketta (Ryukyu Shimpo is one of the major newspapers in her native Okinawa), praised the “depth, warmth and feeling” of her singing and noted her ability to communicate the meaning of English lyrics despite English not being her native language.

While at Berklee, Shoketta already saw New York as the next step in her musical journey. After obtaining an O-1 artist visa, she relocated to New York to continue building her career as a vocalist.

Her connection with bassist Richie Goods became an important part of that New York chapter. In 2011, Shoketta invited Goods to Okinawa to perform with her as part of her ONE NIGHT ONLY concert series. The concert sold out several days in advance, with people still arriving at the venue hoping for cancellations. The response left a lasting impression on Shoketta and demonstrated how strongly audiences in Okinawa could connect with jazz.

Roughly six months later, in 2012, that musical relationship continued in New York with the recording of MY SOUL. Produced and arranged by Richie Goods, the album brought Shoketta together with musicians including Andy Ezrin, Clarence Penn, Stacy Dillard, Daniel Sadownick, Francis Liu and Nozomi Yamaguchi. Goods played a central role in shaping the recording, not only as bassist and producer, but through his arrangements, choice of material and the musical environment he created around Shoketta’s voice. Released in 2014, the album captured a singer still growing into her own musical identity, surrounded by musicians whose experience and musicianship helped give the recording its character.

More than a decade later, Shoketta hears MY SOUL differently than she did when it was made. With the perspective gained through years of performing, writing and developing her own work, she now recognizes more clearly what went into making the album, including the depth of Goods’ contribution to its musical identity. Rather than viewing MY SOUL simply as a release from an earlier chapter, she is bringing the recording back into her present story, documenting it more fully and giving the music another opportunity to be discovered as she moves toward her next body of work.

Following the release of MY SOUL, Shoketta continued performing in Okinawa, including a regular engagement at a local jazz club and performances within the U.S. military community. While based in Okinawa, she continued to look toward the United States and international audiences as part of her musical path.

The pandemic unexpectedly opened another creative chapter through her musical connection with pianist Chip Crawford. Their exchange continued beyond that period, and in 2025 Crawford selected “Ballad,” an unreleased composition Shoketta had written in 2013, for performance by the Chip Crawford Trio at Journey of Jazz 2025.

Today, Shoketta is actively performing as a solo artist and with her band while developing the next chapter of her music. Back in Okinawa, she is exploring how her voice, compositions and international musical experience can connect more deeply with the musical and cultural roots of the island, including the sound of the sanshin. Her direction remains outward-looking: to create music grounded in her own experience and in Okinawa, and to carry that music to audiences in the United States and beyond.

Gear

Sanshin (Okinawan three-stringed instrument)