Influence
Crystal Kay is considered a pioneer for interracial acts in Japan. She debuted in 1999 when R&B began to take off in Japan thanks to local acts MISIA, Double and Hikaru Utada. Her success paved the way for the mainstream success of many interracial acts in the mid-00s such as Thelma Aoyama, Anna Tsuchiya, Angela Aki and African-American/Japanese enka singer Jero.
In 2009 Kay stated that "There is still some racial thing going on, people are getting used to it. You can see a lot more mixed people on TV, and even (among) models in magazines." At a summer festival that year half-Japanese half-Papua New Guinean singer Emi Maria left Kay a demo and a note saying "You're my idol, I'm sad I couldn't meet you in person."
Nevertheless Kay has commented, "I consider myself a Japanese artist because I was born and raised here, but nationality-wise I look, and am, foreign."
Read more about this topic: Crystal Kay
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“Just what is the civil law? What neither influence can affect, nor power break, nor money corrupt: were it to be suppressed or even merely ignored or inadequately observed, no one would feel safe about anything, whether his own possessions, the inheritance he expects from his father, or the bequests he makes to his children.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way. But in this water there are countless objects at different depths; and certain influences will give certain kinds of those objects an upward influence which may be intense enough and continue long enough to bring them into the upper visible layer. After the impulse ceases they commence to sink downwards.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“A husband who submits to his wife’s yoke is justly held an object of ridicule. A woman’s influence ought to be entirely concealed.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)