From Houston, Fujii Kaze Portrays a Radical Pop Star

For his first sold-out performance in Houston, Texas, Fujii Kaze presented himself as a pop star unconcerned with mainstream conventions.

Credit: Fujii Kaze’s Instagram

In September, the Japanese musician Fujii Kaze released Prema, his first English-language album. The album, Fujii said in various interviews, is not necessarily a crack at mainstream superstardom, but rather is an opportunity to engage with his fans in the West. Plus, as he explained to NME, “A part of me feels like I’ve already written all of my Japanese songs already or something.” 

Prema is also not an record concerned with being palatable to a broad, mainstream audience. Instead, the lyrical content explores Fujii's curiosity about spirituality and manifestation. Last month, I saw this firsthand when I attended Fujii’s Houston concert at Bayou Music Center, an offshoot of his appearance at the Austin City Limits festival two hours to the West in Texas. (It is also one of just a handful of North American dates Fujii will perform this year.)

The title track, he explained to a sold-out crowd, “is about how god is inside each of us.” Fujii's interest in god is something the singer has been excited to discuss in interviews. “I don’t see many people who are spiritual [in Japan],” Fujii said in a recently, “But spirituality is a very, very important part of my life.” 

Throughout the show, the album’s themes became more concrete, both in Fujii’s commitment to a damn good performance and in his embodiment of spirituality. 

In Japan, he performs in stadiums, but his set in Houston was for only 1,000 fans – even though he could likely have filled a much larger venue. Fujii approaches his stage shows in a highly theatrical manner. He positions himself more as a pop star than a rock star, even with a full band behind him and no set or elaborate costume changes. Instead, he relies on his body to create tension; he stands still for entire verses of songs, then moves erratically as if divinely inspired or moved by the music. The show is a tightly, expertly choreographed production that highlights Fujii’s commitment to embodying a performer not of this world. 

When Fujii did speak to the crowd it was in short, clipped intervals. His speeches, often funny and direct, sounded rehearsed and as if he had scripted them into his set so that nothing, not even a line, would alter the mood. His voice would often languish into a long drawl as he purred and stretched out words. “Is he drunk?” my friend asked me at one point, but this is part of his performance, both as a showman and as an experience. Fujii has contended that he never drinks or smokes. “I stay high all the time,” he said recently in an interview, but he maintains it’s on energy. 

When he was most thrilling on stage, Fujii leaned into the unexpected. Before introducing his talented band, Fujii picked up his saxophone and played the iconic opening notes of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” then broke into the cover, owning it as if it were his own song. Later on “Workin’ Hard”, the sax came out again, adding real levity to an already brilliant song. 

The set comprised a mix of Fujii’s biggest songs, as well as plenty of new tracks from Prema. Sometimes, this gave the new music more gravity and weight. I didn’t enjoy the album’s opener, “Casket Girl”, but the live performance made it more energetic, and Fujii’s commitment to embodying a song made it weirder and more interesting to witness live. Other tracks like “Nan Nan” lifted off the ground to thrilling heights when performed live. 

I would liken Fujii’s Prema to Hikaru Utada’s first English-language album, Exodus. Though two decades separate them, both albums are uncompromising in their visions. Crucially, both artists are unafraid to be seen as radical in their art. Utada, who was a superstar in Japan before attempting to crossover to the U.S., wrote music about sex workers, the fetishization of Asian women, and her interest in crossing borders, both in love and in music. Fujii has a similar taste for highly ambitious music: His ideas are not meant to be absorbed and understood immediately. If that makes him ahead of his time, as it often did in Houston, Fujii is fine with us waiting to catch up.