Sense of Place: How American singer Davina Robinson found the blues in Osaka

The United States may be the birthplace of the blues, but Philadelphia-born blues singer Davina Robinson found them somewhere far, far away from the U.S., in Japan.

Robinson launched her music career after moving to Osaka, where she found an unexpected community of jazz and blues musicians. Since then, she’s released an album, several singles, and won the U.K. Songwriting Contest in the blues category in 2020.

In this installment of our Sense of Place: Japan series, Robinson talks about finding that community and her voice in Osaka; about her experience performing and living there as a Black American woman; and how she has navigated the music scene in a country so different from where she grew up.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.