Vancouver’s yung kai is still wrapping his head around being a full time musician. The Chinese Canadian singer-songwriter was focusing on his studies at the University of British Columbia, when his single “blue” started blowing up online.
The dreamy ballad feels right out of a romantic drama series. And since its release in August 2024, “blue” has been featured more than 895,000 times on TikTok, with many using the song as the backdrop of vlogs, fan edits and dreamy landscape videos featuring the sky and ocean.
When kai, 23, connected with me in late April, he was in the midst of wrapping up his final two classes as a creative writing major at UBC, where he is set to graduate in November. But living a double life as a student and musician means he’s hardly been able to go to campus.
The handful of times he does go to class though, it doesn’t take long for people to recognize him.
“Last year, I would just go to campus and no one knows me,” kai tells RepresentASIAN Project.
“But now, when I go to campus, I get stopped every 30 seconds, every minute. I’m still not used to it, but I’m very grateful. My heart feels very warm when that happens.”
2025 is set to be a busy year for kai. In June, he played a set at 88Rising’s Head in the Clouds festival in Los Angeles. And later this summer and in the fall, he will go on a headlining tour across Asia, Europe and North America, hitting cities including Jakarta, Singapore, Paris, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver.
“Honestly, I feel like I’m still soaking it all in,” kai says, reflecting on how quickly his career has progressed in the last year. “Life is so different now than it was last year at this time. I was just a student. Now I’m going on tour, doing shows in Asia. It’s so crazy.”
Born Max Aloyious Zhang in Canada, kai spent his childhood in Shanghai and moved back to Vancouver for university. His early beginnings in music began in middle school, where he started experimenting with instruments like the drums, guitar and piano. In high school, he wrote songs and posted them on YouTube. But it was only in university that kai challenged himself to post a cover song every day on TikTok—helping him grow a cult following on social media. “That really helped with my guitar playing and singing, and find my voice and sound,” he says.
It didn’t take long for kai’s covers to make the rounds on the internet. When he reached 200,000 followers, he realized he had to start posting original songs. In April 2024, he released his first single “wildflower”.
Kai’s music often revolves around themes like love and longing, and he counts artists like Laufey and wave to earth as his favourite artists. However, his biggest inspirations are Korean and Chinese dramas—noting his favourite genres to watch include coming of age and high school romance.
“Most of my songs are actually just based off of K-dramas and C-dramas,” he says. “Songs like ‘wildflower’ or ‘Do you think you could love me?’ were written during a time when I was just binge watching K-dramas every day like Twenty-Five Twenty-One and 20th Century Girl.”
In fact, kai’s biggest hit thus far, “blue”, also stemmed from a situation that feels right out of a romantic series.
“My favourite drama of all time is When I Fly Towards You,” he says. “I watched it on Discord with this girl I liked at that time. The feelings added all together allowed me to make ‘blue.’”
While “blue” has found success across social media, it didn’t happen right away. A self-described “doomscroller”, kai says he only realized he had a hit on his hands when he started hearing his voice and song being used on social media videos.
“I’m still processing it right now, but it’s just so wild that every few scrolls on TikTok, I just hear my own voice and then sometimes I get jump scared. I’m like, ‘Wait, that sounds like me. It literally is me!’”
This April, kai collaborated on a remix of “blue” with MINNIE from the K-pop girl group i-dle. Their voices melding together adds to the nostalgic and hopeful mood of the romantic track. But for kai, who describes MINNIE as his K-pop “bias”, getting to work with his idol was a dream come true.
“Her voice, her tone, the way she sings is so dreamy. It fits so well with the vibe that I was initially going for,” kai says. “I think she was just the perfect fit for the song.”
These days, kai says he is still inspired to write songs about love, but would eventually like to try writing about his family or his cat, who is lovingly named Stinky. He also lights up when talking about his hometown of Vancouver.
“There’s so much nature, everywhere you turn there’s mountains. And if you ever want some city, you go downtown. It’s a nice blend. And mostly, because my friends are there, it just feels like home.”
Kai says he envisions he might write a song called “Vancouver” one day, and dreams of playing a show at the city’s Rogers Arena in the future.
But for now, he’s enjoying the ride of his rapidly growing career as a musician, and hopes to inspire other Chinese Canadian artists to do the same.
“I am very grateful for social media and how it’s changed my life,” kai says. “This is the life I always dreamed of.”
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