Crystal Kay to release her first new single in over a year

A promotional image of Crystal Kay for her single “Only One”. Featuring Crystal sat on some steps in knee high snakeskin boots and a trench coat.

Crystal Kay is FINALLY releasing a new single. We got 0 singles in 2025. And 2 singles in 2024 — one at the start of the year and one at the very end. And I swear to God, if Universal do not have Crystal put out a new album this year, I’mma…do nothing. But it’s long overdue. It is beyond ridiculous that Crystal Kay’s last studio album of original material was released in 2018.

Girl. Fire the whole management and marketing team.

Crystal’s single first single of 2026 is titled “Only One” and features American Korean artist Yoonmirae. The song also features Korean songwriters, including rapper / producer Keebomb — who co-composed the song “Cloud” from BoA’s Better album and my favourite song from BoA’s Crazier album, “It Takes Two”. And Ashley Alisha — who has credits on songs by Loona, Itzy and Red Velvet.

Crystal Kay is not beating the ‘Does she read Random J’s posts?’ allegations.

I’ve been saying for a while that it would be great to see Crystal Kay really lean into her Koreaness in her music. And I don’t mean do K-pop and start wearing Hanboks. But to maybe record a song in Korean or start tapping more Korean talent to collaborate with. She’s always done so here and there, perhaps unintentionally and subconsciously — recording a couple of songs with BoA, having a song on one of her albums be produced by JYP and recording a duet with Sung Si-kyung. But there seems to have been a more conscious and concerted effort to connect more with her Koreanness over the past few years, as seen by her making appearances on South Korean variety shows. Crystal Kay is in a pretty unique position in that she was raised in Japan and by this admission, is Japanese — but she isn’t Japanese by blood. Her father is a Black American and her mother is Korean.

Something which has been really beautiful to see as a Crystal Kay fan over the past 3 years is Crystal openly embracing these parts of who she is. Wearing her hair in braids and sporting her natural hair texture. And then hitting up a Korean variety show and singing in Korean. Not that she ever seemed to be shying from these things. But you can see there’s been an energy shift in Crystal in terms of how she wants to move through the world and be seen by it. So it’s been really frustrating to see Crystal go through this period of losing her musical identity, as Universal seemingly has no clue what to do with her music. So I’m really keen to see how this renewed sense of self is poured back into her music. I’m hoping it’ll help her find her musical identity again and a renewed sense of confidence that she IS that bitch that many of us fans have always seen her as — because I am so tired of the music not hitting and matching the talent and Crystal not getting the due she deserves.

I don’t want to get my hopes up for this new song. But it is co-produced by T. Kura, who is a HUGE part of Crystal Kay’s musical legacy. This guy has produced songs across Crystal Kay’s career since the days of 637 -Always and Forever-. “Girl’s Night”, “Girl U Love”, “I Wanna Be”, “Forever” — just to name a couple. T. Kura is also known for producing some of Namie Amuro’s singles too, such as “Girl Talk”, “Can’t Sleep, Can’t Eat, I’m Sick”, “Funky Town” and “Wild”. There is no Michico unfortunately, who always wrote and vocal produced on T. Kura’s productions. But seeing an OG CK producer in the mix is really cool. As much as I was all for Crystal trying new things with new producers, the output after her 2012 album Vivid was not great. And to just divorce Crystal from the writers and producers who helped shape her sound and create some of her best songs seemed like such a strange move. So, to have had her first single of 2024 “That Girl” be produced by DJ Taku of M-Flo, and her second single of 2024 “Love Myself” be written by Misako Sakazume who wrote “Koi ni Ochitara”, and to now have her 2026 single feature production from T. Kura are steps in the right direction.

We might be back y’all.

“Only One” releases digitally on 8th May.

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Crystal Kay to release her first new single in over a year — “Only One” featuring Yoonmirae

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