Micah Yoo Takes the Lead

The singer-songwriter grapples with how to love and be loved on his debut EP “Yellow”. He hopes you see yourself in his stories.

Micah Yoo has spent his youth imagining what the future holds. 

Alone in his room and perched over his guitar, the thoughts can come rapidly: What kind of man will he be when he’s older? Yoo comes from a big family, and one that has influenced him greatly with their love. Will he miss when he was still a kid, once the baby in his family? 

Those emotions have to be directed somewhere, and often Yoo places them into songwriting. Last year Yoo released his first EP “Yellow”, a collection of songs that tracks heartbreak and self-love. “Yellow” is an intimate listen: Yoo is the singular voice heard throughout the record. His raw vocals are what bring to life the lyrics that sprawl across future lives and past loves. 

Yoo wrote the record in the span of a year. There was no cohesive narrative or theme in mind, just a willingness to express himself and go there emotionally. “It was in a very specific period of my life when I was a bit scattered and hyper-emotional,” he told me recently from Boston, where he has been studying music therapy. “I think most of the songs are just me being sad, oops!” 

In conversation, Yoo shrugs off the importance of his songwriting, but “Yellow” stands as an EP that can move you to tears. It’s a quiet storm of grace that is at once heartbreaking and affirming. Yoo went deep to catalog memories of first crushes and then, to look forward to the possibility of a family and adulthood. “In hindsight I was so dramatic,” he said. “But that’s where I was and that was my reality.” 

Yoo is an extraordinarily humble person. He believes that “Yellow” will likely only connect to a small, but devoted base of listeners. But the EP’s done well on streaming. “Arlo”, the first single, has received nearly half a million streams. “With You” and “December Rain”, two ballads, both clock over 100,000 listeners. This is impressive when you consider that Yoo has done no real promotion for the album. This interview stands as Yoo’s first and only to date. 

Listening to “Yellow”, the singer hears where he could have done more to express himself. But when I asked if he could remember when he recorded something he was instantly proud of, he was more sure of himself. “I think there’s been a lot of those moments,” he said, then laughed. “Otherwise I would’ve given up.”

“I think the EP is about me learning to love and be loved as an Asian dude,” Yoo says.

Yoo grew up thirty minutes outside of Chicago in Northbrook, a predominantly white and affluent suburban town. His mother is a teacher for a middle school district and his father is a preacher, which separated the Yoos from the wealthier families in town. “In many ways, it being a suburb in the midwest,” Yoo said, “there’s not a ton going on.” There’s a lot of pockets of quiet and pretty nature though, which I’ve grown to appreciate.   

Yoo was introduced to music early. “I have two older siblings that were already playing violin and cello by the time I was self-aware,” he recalled. By the time he was four, Yoo too was playing violin, although he was quick to assert that this was not because of an Asian parent stereotype of micromanagement. “I think the reason I picked up the violin was out of boredom,” he insisted. “It wasn’t a tiger parent situation where out of the womb I‘m expected to master my instrument.”

As he grew older, Yoo began to pick up other instruments, like the guitar, which he taught himself through YouTube videos. “I just play things on the guitar. I don’t, like, know how to play the guitar. It’s more like a hobby,” he said when I asked how he mastered it. “I don’t have any formal training.” Plus, he added, “YouTube teachers are helpful. 

Looking back, the moments that stick out the most to him are the ones where he was alone in his room practicing guitar. That still holds true today. “I love the intimate and private moments I have with music away from any digital audience. There’s an abundance of  simple joys in  learning a new chord progression or figuring out a new song lyric” he said, “some of my happiest memories with music are of me working through a guitar tutorial on Youtube. .  

As much as Yoo enjoyed music, he was wary of pursuing it professionally. “Having played it so long, music was a very routine part of my life,” he said. “Like, I’m just practicing my violin and keeping it up because I don’t hate it but I’m not in love with my instrument.” 

The decision came from a process of elimination as he decided on a college major. “I ran down the list of academic subjects and thought, Do I like math? Noo. Can I see myself majoring in it? No.” Music, he thought, was really the only thing that made sense. 

For a while, though, Yoo did what thousands of other creatives do: He moved to Los Angeles for college and gave music a decent shot. (Although, Yoo will be the first to tell you that he’s never made a concerted effort to succeed as a musician.) He found a church and a community in LA, but the idea of being a struggling artist in LA never suited him. After three years, he left for Boston to study music therapy. 

“It’s hard to pinpoint an exact reason for why those ambitions have been subdued a little bit,” he told me candidly. “I think it’s about sorting out my values, being real with myself that I’m not a great singer.” He laughed but then grew serious. “No, but I’m serious.” He can’t do this alone. He knows his voice isn’t astonishing. (I would define it as intimate and warm.) “My last project was largely collaborative with a producer,” he added. “I don’t have that sort of agency where if I wanted to I could do everything by myself.” 

But Yoo finds freedom in not making music his primary source of income. “I experience such a luxury because I can do things at whatever pace I want. There’s no pressure to push out content or to write this much music in this much time,” he reflected. “I still get to preserve the integrity of my relationship with my music.” 

Perhaps most important is that by focusing on a career as a music therapist, he can still nourish a connection to music that isn’t dependent on streams or gigs. “Writing songs is something that is therapeutic and it’s a very loving relationship,” he said. “It’s not like I have to do this or I starve.”

It wasn't until Yoo began working on “Yellow” that he really reflected on his adolescence in Northbrook.  “I think the EP is about me learning to love and be loved as an Asian dude,” he said. But this was something that took years for Yoo to learn. 

Yoo knows firsthand how challenging it is for Asian boys to feel safe enough to open up about their emotions. Yoo wondered if he could show that it’s important for other Asian guys to be open about their feelings. So, he set a goal to lead by example. “It’s such an Asian guy thing to not be in tune with your emotions,” he said before he added a little self-consciously, “Not that I’m a master of it myself.” 

But Yoo understands what it feels like to be misunderstood and sense no one sees you for who you are. He knows what it feels like to not measure up.  “In some ways, I’m such an oddball,” Yoo told me almost as a joke. But then he grew more contemplative. “I think for a lot of reasons, socially speaking, I was very stunted. I had a hard time building friendships.” 

In school, Yoo remembered how most of his crushes were white girls. Who else was there to like? He would ask himself. There was barely anyone who looked like him and no one he could identify with. By second or third grade, he said softly, he understood that the girls would never see him in the same way they saw his white peers. “I just felt incredibly insecure and had no footing in who I wanted to be.” He continued, “There’s something kinda tragic about a second grader thinking his crushes would never like him back because of his ethnicity. There was so much that I’d already internalized even by the age of seven.” 

At his father’s multicultural church, Yoo at least saw others like him in congregants who were Korean, Asian and Hispanic.The unifying factor, Yoo said, was the community’s faith in the religion. In a strange way, they were united in being “othered” by white people. Back at school, Yoo tried his best to fit in or to form friendships with people who were different from him, but it never worked. 

“It wasn’t until maybe high school or late junior high that I decided to stop trying to pursue friendships with the white athletic guys,” he said. By high school, Yoo began to grow closer to his Asian classmates and finally found acceptance. “By then, I’m involved in orchestra which is like the hub of all things Asian in my school,” he laughed. “So I think naturally getting more in tune with that part of my identity helped.” 

Perhaps what underlies “Yellow” is the heartbreak of alienation. Sometimes, like on “December Rain”, Yoo tries to hold in the emotions. “Won’t you pitter patter through the night,” he sings, “cause I’m not brave enough to let rain fall from my eyes.” On other tracks, he takes a longer look at life. “Did you know that I’ve cried? He asks on the opening track “Arlo”. “Ask your mother, it's true.” That track, which almost reads like a letter to Yoo’s younger self, is actually one that he wrote for his future daughter. 

“I got trolled so hard by my family for that,” he said, before imitating what his family would tell him, 'Who is this teenager thinkin’ about his kids. This guy thinks he’s grown.” But “Arlo” came from a darker place. What he really wanted was to accept himself, to see his differences and faults not as defects but as human. “I think I just felt really bad about myself, really insecure, really ashamed,” he said quietly. “I was thinking ahead, like, how can I expect to be someone’s father in the future?” 

“Yellow” doesn’t try to answer those questions so much as just consider the possibilities. Yoo is blunt that he doesn’t have it all figured out. Even the vocals, Yoo explained, were recorded to project intimacy. “I think even the fact that there is one main vocal, a detail like that - being self aware that I can’t sing - I would love to hide behind stacking my vocals or more harmonies but I think the charm and the appeal of having one vocal is that sense of I’m out in the open,” he said. This kind of raw detail is about one thing, Yoo said: vulnerability. 

Yoo is humble when he thinks about how others can interpret his work. “I have taken myself off the pedestal as a songwriter,” he said with a smile. “I understand that people are going to have different experiences with my music and that’s what's cool about it.” It’s less important to him that you understand all of his intentions. Instead, he is just grateful that you're listening. 

When he was based in LA, Yoo found a community of faith at church. Many of those people, he told me, are still his closest friends. But it was a unique time in his life, a transitional period that brought him to where he is today: Someone who is not actively trying to be “someone” in the music industry. He is now a person who understands his limits and what his gifts as a musician can do to help others. 

Thousands of miles away from California, Yoo is beginning to immerse himself in studying music therapy. “When it comes to music therapy, a lot of people have the notion that I’m just playing my instrument to make them feel better, which is definitely a method,” Yoo explained. “There’s a lot more variety in the way music is used in a therapeutic context though.” 

Recently, Yoo read about a songwriting program run for teenagers dealing with grief. This kind of work excites Yoo, and provides a solid example for how music can be transformational. “Music therapy is everywhere:  schools, hospitals, senior living homes, private practice,” he said. “It’s a multifaceted practice that uses music for people’s healing.”

I believe, though, that Yoo’s vulnerability can be a tool for healing for his listeners. Yoo is willing to admit that sometimes he wishes he had a more curated social media presence. His feed, though, is entirely accessible and relatable. There he is in his room playing guitar, or at home with his family and his cute dogs. There is nothing about Yoo that feels artificial because Yoo can only be himself. “As much as I’d love to present myself as a polished, capable musician… Being real?” he said, his voice rising as if to ask if I’d like to know the truth. “I’m still a work in progress in so many ways. 

I can hear this best on the tracks that imagine Yoo’s relationship with his family. There is “Arlo”, the song written for his future daughter, but there is also “35mm”, the debut single that features Yoo’s brother who records under the name aweful. Yoo wrote the track before he left for college.``I honestly think that’s the most meaningful song for me,” he said. “Most of the other songs are in reference to a romantic person, some girl, but that one was written directly about my family.”

“I’ve been trying to make a moment last forever/ cause I don’t know if I’ll remember all of the things that brought us together,” Yoo’s brother Josiah wrote as he recalled the smell of their mother’s cooking or the sound of his family’s laughter. He worries, “I won’t know the blessings were here until they’re gone.” 

“The song was a premonition that I’m going to be missing my family and I was kind of paranoid that I won't be able to cherish them until I have to leave,” he said. The title and theme came from an actual 35mm roll of film that Yoo had developed that captured moments with his family. He added, “I was stressed as I felt I couldn't capture their essence and my love for them in the pictures I took.” 

Months after he wrote the song, Yoo was alone in his college dorm when he took out his guitar and began to play the song. He surprised himself when he started to cry, but he didn’t stop. The words needed to find their way out.