chay

As a child, the youngest of three sisters, chay learnt piano, English, gymnastics and ballet, and with her goal to become a singer, she started to compose works for piano at primary school.

With the ambition to be a singer chay attended university and at the same time the music school Voice Tokyo that produced artists such as YUI, ayaka and Leo leiri. After her graduation from Gakushuin Women’s University she practised playing the guitar for six to eight hours every day for five years.

For a long time she kept her capability secret by playing cover songs of various artists, from Carol King to Avril Lavigne on the guitar. With the desire to hear works she wrote herself she started busking with an acoustic guitar. It’s from this period that her style of performing her songs in dresses, high heels and the guitar originates.

From January 2011 chay was contracted with talent management agency TOP COAT.

2012

In February her song LOOP was used as the theme for a fashion-commercial. In April, her song together was taken as theme song by a TV station for broadcasts of the Japanese women’s football Nadeshiko League 2012. On June 27th a Nakahara Meiko cover, Kimitachi Kiwi Papaya Mango da ne, reached sixth place in the Oricon Daily Charts. On October 24th she made her major debut with the song Hajimete no Kimochi as a CD single release, actually a commercial song for Lotte.

2013

On January 23rd chay released the mini-album make up 80’s featuring songs that were used as themes for 1980s cosmetics commercials. One of the album tracks, WOMAN became the title song of a Nippon TV drama. On March 13th a limited edition of the song You tell me was released, which was chosen by WOWOW network as the ending theme for their CLAMP TV drama series "xxxHOLIC". From October 14th chay participated in the reality TV show “Terrace House” under her real name Mai Nagatani. These TV appearances lead to a break as a model.

2014

On March 31st chay quit the reality show "Terrace House". In April her commercial song for Pantene, Twinkle Days, was released as single, which set a sales record at the time. She was chosen as an exclusive model for the fashion magazine "CanCam".

2015

On February 18th her single Anata ni Koi wo Shitemimashita was released. The song was used as the title theme of Fuji TV drama “Dēto 〜 Koi to wa Donna Mono Kashira” and became a hit with 500,000 downloads. It was labelled as "New charisma of Women" in the TV show "Music Station". On April 15th chay’s first regular album, Heart Couture was released and her first tour, titled the Heart Couture tour, ran from May to July. There was also a Christmas tour in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.

2017

After a couple of CD single releases in 2016, her single Koi no Hajimari wa Itsumo Totsuzen ni was released on March 29th. On June 14th her new album chayTEA was released.