Name and age: Fujii Kaze, 27

Bio: Japanese singer and pianist Fujii Kaze was born June 14, 1997, in Satoshō, Okayama. He learned piano as a child and began uploading videos of himself covering pop songs to YouTube from the age of 12. 

He moved to Tokyo, signed to a subsidiary of Universal, and began releasing music in 2019. His debut album went to No. 1 in Japan. One of his tracks, “Shinunoga E-Wa,” went viral on TikTok in 2022, helping Universal achieve bumper profits that same year. His style is a mixture of R&B, jazz, synthpop and rock. 

Producer Matsuo Kiyoshi explained why Kaze is difficult to pigeonhole genre-wise.

“He’s got an R&B feel about him, along with a jazz sensibility, and even elements of classical. And it’s all nicely balanced. Perhaps that’s why?,” he said in 2021. “I wonder if he’s deliberately trying to maintain a certain amount of ambiguity about where he sees his own roots, or if that’s just the kind of person he is.”

 “I like girls, too”

Coming Out: It’s rare for music artists to come out in Japan. The nation remains the only G7 country not to have legalized same-sex marriage. Many performers, whether straight or LGBTQ+, are under pressure from managers and agents not to discuss their private lives or to reveal if they have partners. 

The most high-profile singer to come out is Shinjiro Atae. The 35-year-old took to the stage at a concert in Tokyo in July 2023 and read a letter he’d written to fans, revealing he was gay. The J-Pop idol is well known to music fans in the country, as he’d already spent two decades singing with the band AAA before embarking on a solo career.

After so long in the spotlight, he no longer wanted to keep such a major part of his life a secret. 

However, it’s still hard for queer performers to be their authentic selves, particularly if they’re at an earlier stage in their career. With that in mind, a Q&A that Fujii Kaze conducted with fans on his Instagram (where he has 2.5 million followers) in early February garnered attention. 

One fan asked Kaze, “Are you gay?”

Kaze could have easily ignored the question. However, he reposted it and appeared to imply the answer is… yes!

“I like girls, too,” he replied.

Despite Japan’s conservative leanings, Kaze’s comment hasn’t dented his commercial appeal. He released a single one month later, “Michiteyuku”, which went to the top five in Japan. It also went to No. 139 on the Billboard Global 200. 

Kaze then became the inaugural artist to host a Japanese Tiny Desk concert (inspired by the successful NPR broadcasts in the U.S.) The performance demonstrated his awesome keyboard skills and charm. 

“Feeling Go(o)d”

Over the summer, Kaze performed his first concerts in New York and Los Angeles. Then in July, he released a rainbow-filled video for his next single, “Feeling Go(o)d”. The song is about the liberating joy of feeling love and being loved by someone else.

On Instagram, Kaze posted clips, with an apparent nod to the LGBTQ+ community: “Thank you for everything 🫶 hope U keep having a feelin’ good life 🌈”

Since February, Kaze has not directly spoken about his sexuality in interviews. For now, perhaps he just wants to let his art talk for him.

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