Kenjiro Yamashita

Kenjiro Yamashita (山下 健二郎) is a Japanese dancer, actor and radio personality.

He is a performer of J-Pop dance and vocal group Sandaime J Soul Brothers and a former member of Gekidan Exile.

As a member of Sandaime J Soul Brothers, he has received the Japan Record Awards twice.

Kenjiro Yamashita was born on 24 May 1985, in Kyoto Prefecture.

His family moved to Nara Prefecture when he was still in pre-school for his father's job, but they moved back to Kyoto Prefecture in his second grade.

At Nagaokakyo Municipal Nagaoka Daishi Junior High School, he began to play basketball after joining the basketball club with his friends, and he became so obsessed with basketball that he chose to enrol in Kyoto Prefectural Koyo High School because it had one of the basketball teams in Kyoto Prefecture.

He was the captain of the school basketball team in his final year.

With an ambition to win the favour of girls, Yamashita began dancing in his second year of high school.

His friend taught him breaking, and they performed at the cultural festival of his high school that year.

Being so fond of dancing, he quit university ten days after his enrolment and then spent his time practicing dancing and doing part-time jobs.

He also switched from breaking to Hip-Hop because with the limit of his height(187 cm), it would be harder for him to perform classic breaking dance moves like the windmill.

Seeing his love for dancing, his mother suggested him to go to a proper dancing school to make a living out of it.

As a result, he enrolled in the street dancing department at Cat Music College in Osaka.

Upon graduation, Yamashita was offered the job of a parade dancer at Universal Studio Japan.

He worked there for two years and participated in many shows and parades.

In 2007, Yamashita got an opportunity to serve as a backup dancer in Exile's tour Exile Live Tour 2007 'Exile Evolution'.

He was shocked and impressed after seeing the performance of Exile in close distance, and the seed of dreaming to become an artist just like Exile took root in his heart.

He enrolled in EXPG Osaka(a talent school run by Exile's management company LDH) as soon as it opened and he became an instructor there later.

His students included Yuta Nakatsuka, Mio Nakajima, Shūka Fujii, Karen Fujii, Zin, Shogo Iwaya, Masahiro Sunada and Rikiya Okuda.

Then he quit his steady job at Universal Studio Japan to focus on his dream, much to the surprise of the management team of USJ since it seems insane to give up such a well-paid job.

His resignation was accepted after he showed his determination to try his best to pursue his dream, and he got blessings from his former bosses and colleagues.

During his time at EXPG Osaka, he did more backup dancers jobs for Exile and other LDH's artists.

He met Naoto and Naoki, his future Sandaime J Soul Brothers' groupmate and Nidaime J Soul Brothers' members at that time, when he served as a backup dancer for Nidaime J Soul Brothers' shows in Osaka.

In 2009, he took part in the audition for Gekidan Exile,the actor group produced by LDH.

Though he is one of the finalists，he was not chosen as a formal member of Gekidan Exile.

Anyway, he was invited to take lessons in Tokyo together with the winners as a backup candidate.

Taking this opportunity, he moves to Tokyo from Osaka.

After a year of lessons in the days and part-time jobs at nights in Tokyo, Yamashita was chosen to debut as an actor and a member of the actor group Gekidan Exile Kazegumi (the team of wind) in April 2010.

He performed in Gekidan Exile's play NIGHT BALLET and was in charge of the choreography for the final all-in dance scene.

In May 2010, he performed in Gekidan Exile's 4th play DANCE EARTH ~Negai~.

In September 2010, Yamashita passed the audition for performers of the new Sandaime J Soul Brothers.

The life changing announcement for Yamashita was announced at the rehearsal for Exile's Exile Live Tour 2010 'Fantasy' in Noevir Stadium Kobe by Hiro, producer of Sandaime J Soul Brothers, and he was thrilled to finally saw his dream coming true.

In fact, he had considered giving up his dream and going back to Kyoto to become a dance instructor or a professional angler if he failed this audition.

On 27 September, He appeared and performed for the first time as a member of Sandaime J Soul Brothers on the stage of Exile's Live FANTASY After Night Festival ～EXILE Soul～.

On 10 November, he debuted in Sandaime J Soul Brothers with the single, "Best Friend's Girl".

In December, he performed in Gekidan Exile's play Rokudenashi BLUES playing Hamada, a strong fighter of the boxing club.

He has appeared in a few TV dramas and films, and he held starring roles in the film Pan to Bus to Nidome no Hatsukoi ("Our Blue Moment") and dramas Fukuyadou Honpo - KYOTO LOVE STORY -, Love or Not, Manga Mitai ni Ikanai, Game Mitai ni Ikanai. He is also the Tuesday host for NTV's morning information program "ZIP!" He was the Friday host for the famous Japanese radio program All Night Nippon before he moved to his new radio program Sandaime J Soul Brothers Yamashita Kenjiro's Zero Base in 2019.

Yamashita is known for having various hobbies.

One of his enthusiasms is fishing, for which he has won awards like the Cool Anglers Award 2019.

He also became a Youtuber in 2019 to share his hobbies (mainly fishing) with the world.