CHAI - SURPRISE - Official Music Video

What this video is

Released May 3, 2022, 'SURPRISE' arrived as CHAI consolidated their international profile following their 2021 Sub Pop debut WINK. The video transforms a genuinely distressing real-world event — the theft of the band's tour trailer during their North American run — into a jubilant, community-affirming visual narrative, embodying CHAI's philosophy of radical positivity and 'neo-kawaii' self-expression. Shot under…

Why it matters

CHAI's 'SURPRISE' represents a key document of 2020s neo-kawaii J-indie pop reaching mainstream Western independent music channels. The song's house-inflected piano and horn-laden indie-pop production, paired with a high-saturation narrative video, demonstrates how Japanese acts were consciously…

The director

Yoshio Nakaiso is a music video director credited across multiple international music press outlets for directing CHAI's 'SURPRISE' (2022), shot on location in Los Angeles. He is documented working within the Japanese indie and international Sub Pop Records…