For Queens-born, Los Angeles-based R&B artist Mai Anna, music has always been a place where reality and imagination meet. Whether she’s drawing from personal experiences, conversations with friends, or scenarios that exist entirely in her head, something deeper always lies beneath the surface of her songs.
Her five-track EP, Baby Blue, has just arrived, and it's no exception.
Featuring “Baby Blue,” “Sugar High,” and “Chameleon,” alongside a stripped-back version of “Baby Blue” and a Japanese reimagining of “Sugar High,” the project offers a glimpse into the emotional and musical world Mai Anna has spent years creating.
But for Mai, finishing a project isn’t necessarily about having all the songs completed. Sometimes, it’s about being ready to share the parts of yourself that exist within them.
“I realized that it wasn’t necessarily about whether the records were done. It was about whether I felt ready to put them out, and I felt ready to put myself out there fully.”
That realization has become especially important as she prepares for her debut album, Sleepy Eyes, expected early next year.
Inspired by dreaming, psychology, and the relationship between imagination and emotion, Sleepy Eyes represents more than Mai Anna’s first full-length body of work. It’s a reflection of the different versions of herself she’s learned to understand through music.
“I studied psychology, and I’m really interested in sleep psychology,” she said. “I think my imagination is also quite cinematic, and I like to imagine worlds and scenarios and people and all these senses in my music.”
The title track, “Baby Blue,” was inspired by the feeling of looking up at the sky and being reminded of the possibilities that come with simply being alive. Mai describes the song as a love letter to herself, encouraging her to appreciate the present rather than become consumed by everything happening around her.
“It’s a love letter to remind myself to remember the joy of life and the happiness that comes with just feeling present and feeling grateful for being alive,” she said.
The song came together following a conversation with a friend about mental health and the role music had played in helping them navigate difficult experiences. Later that night, around 1 a.m., Anna found herself alone in her room writing.
She began pulling from their conversation, but also from an image she had created in her mind: someone sitting on a rooftop, staring into the sky and watching the clouds.
The result was a song that combined real conversations with an imagined moment of freedom. That ability to create entire worlds through music is something Mai has been developing for years.
As a Japanese American, music was always present in her household. Karaoke was a regular part of her family life, and her mother would often encourage her to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in front of relatives. Her brother was initially the more musically inclined sibling, spending time composing on the keyboard while Anna, who was more interested in athletics, watched in fascination.
She also describes herself as a “SoundCloud baby,” growing up around underground artists, DIY music, and experimental remixes. It wasn’t until college that she began seriously creating music herself.
“I wrote my first song on the piano, and then I proceeded to sing that song over and over again, like 200 times for therapeutic reasons,” she said. Soon, she was spending as many as eight hours straight making songs. “That’s when I realized that this is something I can’t stop doing.”
That early relationship with music still influences how she approaches songwriting today. Mai doesn’t necessarily sit down with a specific genre or concept in mind. Instead, she allows whatever she’s feeling to guide the direction of the record.
“I feel like I’m more of a vessel for music,” she said. “Whatever comes, comes, and that’s how I’m feeling that day, and that’s what I want to express.”
That freedom has allowed her to explore sounds beyond traditional R&B, something listeners can expect to hear even more of on Sleepy Eyes. While her released singles lean heavily into R&B and neo-soul, Anna says the album will introduce a different side of her artistry, incorporating indie, folk, punk influences, strings, and layers of guitar.
“I don’t feel limited or confined to one type of music,” she said. “I think it’s necessary for expression.”
Still, her roots in R&B and soul remain central to the way she sings. She credits artists like Lauryn Hill, Donny Hathaway, and Cleo Sol with shaping her understanding of melody, emotion, and vocal delivery. That connection to her influences becomes particularly interesting when Anna begins experimenting with language.
On Baby Blue, she revisits “Sugar High” in Japanese, bringing another part of her identity into a song listeners may already recognize.
For Mai, singing in Japanese changes more than the language itself. It changes the structure, rhythm, and emotional possibilities of the lyrics. Because Japanese uses syllables differently from English, she found herself rewriting certain phrases rather than translating them word for word.
“The lyrics almost came out more poetic in Japanese because we kind of had to rewrite a lot of it,” she said. One of the new phrases describes an experience as being ‘as fleeting as a dream’, an image that feels especially fitting within the larger world she’s creating.
“I’m not saying exactly what I’m saying in the English version, but I have the same sentiment,” Anna said “It breathes a whole new life to the song.”
It’s also a way for Anna to reconnect with the Japanese side of her upbringing, from hearing her mother speak the language at home to spending time visiting Japan. And she’s not stopping there.
Mai revealed that Sleepy Eyes will include a fully Japanese-language song, with plans to eventually create an entire Japanese-language album. That cultural exploration also reflects the different environments that have shaped her.
New York taught her to embrace creativity and take risks. From musicians performing in subway stations to actors on Broadway, she grew up surrounded by people who were constantly expressing themselves. Los Angeles, on the other hand, gave her the space to develop her craft. Each city contributed something different to the artist she’s becoming.
Without a car, Anna spent more time at home, learning guitar, practicing, and finishing songs. Tokyo introduced her to an entirely different musical landscape, including sounds influenced by hyperpop and anime culture.
“Music had allowed me a vocabulary to express what I was going through without having to give anyone specific details,” she said.
Creating the upcoming Sleepy Eyes required more than experimenting with different emotions or genres. It also meant confronting a period when Anna nearly walked away from music entirely. After moving to Los Angeles to pursue her career, she spent her first year working multiple jobs and taking buses between them.
Despite moving across the country specifically to make music, she found herself barely creating anything. As time passed, that frustration turned into self-doubt. Mai began questioning whether she had lost her ability to create and even considered attending graduate school instead.
“I started to give up on myself,” she said, “I think that led to like the team around me not having direction, and you know, I don’t think they gave up on me, but they were like, 'Whenever you’re ready, you let me know,’ and I wasn’t ready, and so I started to really question.”
As she lacked motivation, the team around her lost direction. Eventually, a personal spiritual experience changed the way she viewed her relationship with music. She realized that nobody was forcing her to pursue it. She created because it mattered to her.
That realization encouraged her to return to the basics and finally commit to creating the album she’d always imagined. After nearly four years of writing hundreds of songs without putting them together into one cohesive project, Anna and her producer, Solomon Fox, headed to the mountains to finish the record.
“I basically kidnapped my producer,” she said. “We’re going to the mountains, and we’re making this.”
What initially felt overwhelming eventually became one of the most rewarding parts of the process. As the songs began fitting into the same world, Anna could finally hear the connections between them. Small production details, lyrical parallels, and emotional themes transformed individual records into a complete body of work.
Once she committed to finishing it, the album came together in a month. Fox fully produced the album, whom Anna describes as a close friend, and she emphasized that the entire project was created alongside people who genuinely understood her.
Now, with the Baby Blue EP out and the Sleepy Eyes album on the horizon, Mai feels more confident about sharing her work than she has in years. She’s no longer waiting for the perfect moment or wondering whether she’s ready to be seen.
“I feel like I am ready for everyone to hear the music and find my music because I don’t feel indecisive about how to portray myself,” she said.
Anna recalls receiving messages from listeners who said her songs helped them through difficult periods. One person even told her they played her music while giving birth.
For Anna, those moments are reminders that music can become part of someone’s life in ways an artist could never anticipate. “Music is a gift. Music is an offering,” she said. “That’s all I could possibly ask for from people who listen to my music: to listen to it deeply.”
As she prepares for her next chapter, Anna will also join GIVĒON for two special performances, including November 17 in Los Angeles and November 19 in New York.
But beyond the upcoming releases and performances, her biggest hope is that listeners finish Sleepy Eyes feeling a little closer to themselves. Making the album helped Mai become more self-aware, more present, and more comfortable with the complicated emotions she once struggled to understand.
Now, she hopes it can offer someone else that same experience.