Chai

When you think of all things Pink, a sound that fuses the likings of Basement Jaxx, the Gorillaz, CSS, and Tom Tom Club, with lyrics focused on “women empowerment” and re-defining the definition of “kawaii” or cute in Japanese, you think of CHAI.

Formed in 2012, in the Nagoya region of Japan, identical twins Mana (voc/keys) and Kana (gt./cho.) would ask fellow high school classmate, Yuna (dr./cho.), and later Yuki (ba./cho.), a college acquaintance, to join what we now know as CHAI. Both independent releases, “Hottaraka Series” which translates to “irresponsible series”, was the title of CHAI’s 1st EP released in December of 2016, soon followed by “Homegoro Series”, their 2nd EP, released in April of the following year.

CHAI scored their first US performance at SXSW 2017, followed by a series of performance dates in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, a mini American tour titled “Japan Nite.”