Crystal Kay sits with YouTuber Max D. Capo and discusses race, how she got checked in New York and how Japanese people should be more turnt

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A screenshot from Max D. Capo’s interview with Crystal Kay. Featuring Max D. Capo and Kay sat at a table with podcast microphones in Tencups, a cafe & cocktail bar in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Crystal Kay did an interview with YouTuber Max D. Capo, which was a cool colliding of worlds, as I’ve watched quite a few of Max D. Capo’s videos over the years.
Kay discussing her experience of being mixed in Japan is a well worn topic which Kay has been asked about and discussed ad nauseam over the past few years. But given who she was being interviewed by, the topic made sense, as Max D. Capo is mixed himself and his entire YouTube channel is geared towards interviews with people who are of a mixed heritage / race or ‘non-Japanese’ and living in Japan. Also, he’s hardly going to sit and discuss music with Kay for an hour, when the only song of hers he knows is “Koi ni Ochitara”. And despite Kay having discussed being mixed in Japan at length already, she does offer some new insights and thoughts, which is probably a result of her not only becoming more comfortable with speaking on the topic, but how much more open the discussion has become around being mixed or ‘non-Japanese’ in Japan, largely because of YouTube.

This is a genuinely great interview and a cool primer on Crystal Kay for those new to her. So be sure to watch it if you haven’t already. 

The real tea of this interview however, is when Kay talks about her time in New York. As fans are aware, Kay spent a considerable amount of time in New York back in 2013–2014 which seemed to be in preparation for a big North American debut, which did not go to plan. But what Kay discloses in this interview is that she had a reality check whilst she was there, when somebody said to her ‘Oh, just because you got a career in Japan, you think you can make it here?’ which was the catalyst for Kay taking acting classes and also being recommended for social anxiety classes. 

This was INCREDIBLY illuminating to me as a fan. Because not only does this explain Kay’s occasional Broadway and acting stints — neither of which are as regular as they should been — but it sheds light on why Kay’s career is where it’s at right now. When Kay returned to Japan, there was a significant shift in Kay’s sound and the pace at which her career moved…or rather didn’t move. And her lack of confidence in herself, her career at that point and her North American debut not coming to fruition was likely responsible for that.

Kay had mentioned in a previous interview that she doesn’t have the ‘hustle mentality’ and that she isn’t great at putting herself out there and selling herself. But her experience in New York didn’t switch this on for her, it seemed to do the exact opposite. Kay moved further from the artist many of us knew. Her sound became more generic. The R&B essence of her sound started to get diluted more and more. Her professional image began to shift and conflict massively with what we saw of her on her Instagram and during her off time. Kay seemed to lose a sense of herself. It seems only very recently that Kay seems to have had a bit of a ‘Wait a fucking minute’ moment. Rocking her natural hair texture on the cover art for “Love Myself” and getting her hair braided for the first time in years. YES BITCH. LET THE BLACKNESS CONSUME YOU. 

Kay speaks of her love of R&B and that she’s been moving back to that. But as we all know, this isn’t what has been happening with her music at all. Her sound is becoming more pop than it’s ever been. “Koi ni Ochitara” sounds like a hood soul classic compared to the likes of “Beautiful” and “Love Myself”. So her team really are not helping Kay remember that she is the bad bitch who was pivotal in the J-R&B movement. That Kay was in the studio with American writers and producers before it started to become a trend among artists in Japan. That — to this day — Kay STILL has one of the best voices in Japanese music. And Kay’s team also isn’t helping Kay find her sound again. Nor are they trying to repackage and position her within Japanese music and the global music scene in a way which makes sense for her now — which is crazy given that Kay was always global ready, and the way she was packaged during her Sony days was so right for where music is right now. It’s becoming very clear that Kay’s confidence has been knocked and nobody in her team is doing the work to build it back. And that nobody in her team is doing post mortems on her commercial failures, so that Kay knows where things went wrong and that it’s not just ‘Shit failed because of you’. Kay needs people around her who want the best for her well-being and will advocate for better choices for her career, and right now she doesn’t seem to have them.

Girl. Fire the whole management and marketing team.

A screenshot from Max D. Capo’s interview with Crystal Kay. Featuring Crystal Kay sat at a table with a podcast microphone, as she gestures and smiles.
How I Became Japan’s Biggest Half Korean Black J-POP Singer | Max D. Capo / YouTube

It annoys me how Kay’s team are playing her, because she deserves so much better. She’s too damn talented to not have better music out. Too damn talented to not be releasing music regularly. Too damn talented to not be performing on television regularly. Too damn talented to not have albums on the Oricon. And she is too damn fine to not be on magazine covers, in commercials and part of global brand campaigns. Kay’s career being where it is just does not make sense. And when Max D. Capo was telling Kay that she would work with a K-pop or American artist, I was yelling at the screen like ‘SHE PUT OUT SONGS WITH BOA AND LIONEL RICHIE’. Just as was the case with her sound, Kay was already doing the crossover thing somewhat, but it was before K-pop and American artist collabs were a hot trend. And yes, I’m cheating a little with BoA, as her Japanese career was so big that people forgot she was also a K-pop artist. And so many people’s introduction to BoA was through J-pop, not K-pop. And at the time “Girlfriend” had come out, BoA hadn’t done anything in K-pop for a GOOD minute.

It’s a shame that Kay isn’t putting out better music and doesn’t have better visibility. Because if more American acts knew of her, they would absolutely be wanting to work with her.

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