Kuraki Mai

Kuraki Mai is an artist who creates simple yet meaningful songs. Kuraki's musical influences include Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, creating music with an R&B flair. Her biggest hit, Winter Bells, was used as an opening theme for the anime "Detective Conan". Most recently, Kuraki has changed her style from R&B to mainstream pop.

At a young age Kuraki Mai was influenced by the dancing of Micheal Jackson and the sounds of Whitney Houston, and set out to start her own musical career. In junior high she created demo tape in hopes of being signed to a record label. In 1999 Kuraki was signed to GIZA Studio recording label and made her first debut in the USA with the release of Baby I Like under the stage name Mai K; today Mai K is a nickname used by her fans.

One year later she made her Japanese debut with the release of her first single entitled Love, Day After Tomorrow. Her success was followed by three more singles that same year. After these releases, Kuraki Mai finally released her debut album entitled Delicious Way, which became the highest selling album in 2000 with 3,451,660 copies sold.

With the success of of her debut album, Kuraki started releasing new material for her anticipated second album. Her releases were in a similar fashion to the previous year: four singles and a full-length album.

2002 was marked as the biggest career breakthrough for Kuraki Mai with the release of her January single, Winter Bells, which became the tenth opening theme song for the anime "Detective Conan."

Kuraki Mai graduated from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in March 2005. In August, she continued with various releases throughout the next few years.

There was much outside of Japan activity in 2007 from Kuraki. In June, she performed Born to be Free at the A3 Champions Cup in China. She also performed Secret of my heart at Taiwan's Golden Melody Award.

In June 2007, she left GIZA Studio and joined Northern Music recording label. She performed her debut single on the new label, Silent love ~open my heart~, at the Asian Song Festival in Korea. She also had her first overseas concert in Taiwan.

Kuraki quickly pleased her fans by releasing a full-length album in January and a couple months later a new single.

By switching recording labels and starting to become more active overseas, she has become busy in her musical career. Kuraki Mai fans can continue to anticipate more releases from this talented artist. She continues to create lyrics to all her songs and continues to pursue a greater fan base outside of Japan; showing her fans that more great things are to be expected from her!