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On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with fast-rising music artist and U.S. Soccer C licensed coach Amiko, a dynamic talent blending music, sport, fashion, and beauty into one powerful brand. Born on a U.S. military base in Japan and given a name that means “precious little girl,” Amiko shares how her early love of poetry and performance evolved into a serious music career....
Show Notes
From the Pitch to the Pop Charts: The Multifaceted Rise of Amiko
On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with fast-rising music artist and U.S. Soccer C licensed coach Amiko, a dynamic talent blending music, sport, fashion, and beauty into one powerful brand.
She discusses her single “Principle of Play,” inspired by her soccer coaching certification and produced alongside Grammy-winning hitmaker Carlos Battey, and explains how the song became a love letter to both the game and to life itself.
The conversation also highlights Futsoul, her Dallas-based youth soccer initiative designed to “put the soul back into youth soccer” through community-centered programming.
With the FIFA World Cup coming to Dallas, Amiko reflects on her mission to serve as an ambassador who unites music and soccer on a global stage.
Key topics:
- Principle of Play single
- Collaboration with Carlos Battey
- U.S. Soccer C License certification
- Futsoul youth soccer program
- Music and soccer crossover
- FIFA World Cup Dallas
- Personal branding as a one-name artist
Timestamped highlights:
- 00:00 — Meet Amiko: A One-Name Artist With a Global Story
- 00:26 — The Meaning Behind the Name “Amiko”
- 01:25 — From Poet to Professional Recording Artist
- 02:19 — The Story Behind “Principle of Play”
- 03:36 — Working With Grammy-Winning Producer Carlos Battey
- 04:20 — Launching Futsoul to Transform Youth Soccer
- 05:46 — A Hat Trick Life: Music, Soccer, and Broadcasting
- 06:58 — A Vision for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Dallas
On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with fast-rising music artist and U.S. Soccer C licensed coach Amiko, a dynamic talent blending music, sport, fashion, and beauty into one powerful brand.
She discusses her single “Principle of Play,” inspired by her soccer coaching certification and produced alongside Grammy-winning hitmaker Carlos Battey, and explains how the song became a love letter to both the game and to life itself.
The conversation also highlights Futsoul, her Dallas-based youth soccer initiative designed to “put the soul back into youth soccer” through community-centered programming.
With the FIFA World Cup coming to Dallas, Amiko reflects on her mission to serve as an ambassador who unites music and soccer on a global stage.
Key topics:
- Principle of Play single
- Collaboration with Carlos Battey
- U.S. Soccer C License certification
- Futsoul youth soccer program
- Music and soccer crossover
- FIFA World Cup Dallas
- Personal branding as a one-name artist
Timestamped highlights:
- 00:00 — Meet Amiko: A One-Name Artist With a Global Story
- 00:26 — The Meaning Behind the Name “Amiko”
- 01:25 — From Poet to Professional Recording Artist
- 02:19 — The Story Behind “Principle of Play”
- 03:36 — Working With Grammy-Winning Producer Carlos Battey
- 04:20 — Launching Futsoul to Transform Youth Soccer
- 05:46 — A Hat Trick Life: Music, Soccer, and Broadcasting
- 06:58 — A Vision for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Dallas
Creators and Guests
What is The Jeff Crilley Show?
Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.
Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.
These are those stories.
Alright. When you think about one name artists, if you think about people like Cher, Madonna, Beyonce, I'm gonna add one more name to that list. Amiko. She's in the studio right now. She is a beauty naven, fashion expert, soccer guru, and musical artist. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you, Jeff. It's great to be here. Well, you do so many things, and I wanna get into all of it. How did first of all, tell us the origin of me. The origin of the name, well, my parents were on a US military base in Japan. And so I was born in Japan, and my mother taught kindergarten. She was enlisted to teach kindergarten, a very small base. And so I had a Japanese caregiver who gave me the name Amiko, which means precious little girl in Japan and very much part of the Japanese culture. And my dad promptly decided I was Amiko. So I've had that nickname since I was buried. Tell us about your multifaceted career. Well, I decided to work with some latent talents, and I never really gave an opportunity to flourish as a young person. I certainly enjoyed playing the flute and singing in choir and things like that as a young person. But I repeatedly what people would tell me when I was whistling while I work, but I was singing while I work, that I had a beautiful voice. And I thought, let me know. I know I'm really good at writing. I was a poet. This time I was seven. So I cert I I just always had in the back of my mind, someday, my dream would be to write songs for famous artists, And that's where I left myself. And then when I actually decided to go for it, I was told, no. You have to sing. True. Because you have to present really high level demo reels now. Gone are the days when you have to have a very polished demo to send to another artist. And then I shared with Micro Motor also how I'd like to implement music into my soccer program that we have here in Dallas in two schools. And he said, well, yeah, definitely, you're gonna need to go into the industry if you wanna make anything of either of those. So here I am, writing songs, and it is probably one of the most joyful things I've ever done in my life. Alright. We're gonna pull up your latest release on, Spotify. You know, I want you to talk about this this, amazing song that you created. Well, principal play is something that I learned as a US soccer c licensed coach, and and actually before that, but more more fully as c licensed coach. And I got my certification completed in 2023 here at North Texas soccer at the training fields of FC Dallas. And I've done a lot of the crew there for a long time. They've been they've been mentoring me for since 2017. And so that sea license, you know, the big overarching principle play was on every piece of paper we had to read on every document and really was the overarching framework for how we were gonna teach soccer as c licensed coaches. And for me, it meant some more things, just like Shakespeare. It had more than one meeting. So I decided to use that. And how I fell in love with my coursework and getting my C license and how challenging that was, that the principle of play is who I am. I have a sense of a playfulness and a sense principle about how important that is for human health and wellness and just to enjoy life because life is hard, as we all know. And we we do have to add that that a playfulness, I think, to our everyday lives in order to through all the other very big challenges and the small ones too. So I ended up dreaming up a love song, and we didn't know it was gonna be a love song until my co writer producer, whose name was Carlos Beatty, who has 40 platinum records, 13 of them were hits. He has a Grammy with David Geta with Don and Lil Wayne. Quite accomplished. And we got through that process, and it just kept turning into this love sign. So we just went with it. We tried to rewrite a few times, and we just went with But it's really an expression of my love of the game, a personal love of relationship, and sharing that with someone who loves the game as much as I do, and then also about the importance of play and the principle of it and how it should be in everybody's life. Well As far as possible. Let's talk more about your soccer journey because you have this amazing organization you started called Foot Soul. So Yes. As we put this on screen, tell us about Foot Soul. Footsoul is a passion project. I found myself after, just, you know, not really able to find a job that I really wanted. And I had been doing doing quite a bit of high level volunteering in pediatric cancer and education and the schools. And so I really decided that I had to do something that I really cared about, and I read something in Harvard about doing something that you were really good at when you were young. So I played all the way through into college as a soccer player. And so I decided I must start a community based soccer program. And we worked with a fellow friend of ours who gave my business partner and I some free advice on how to brand, and we came up with this name called Foot Soul. And we said, that's perfect because we wanna put the soul back into the youth soccer experience. And so we started an after school program in 2018 and did really well up until the pandemic. And then after the pandemic, we had to recover, and we reinvented ourselves and delivered it directly to schools. Well and nothing could be hotter right now than, soccer. And we're hosting, several of the World Cup games here in Dallas, so congratulations for that. We're gonna pull up your Instagram page. And as we scroll down your Instagram page, you do so many things. I can I can see that you're a broadcaster? How do you chuckle all these balls? You know, I'm a hat trick woman for a reason. Right? Not only is it a necessity to have a lot more skills these days to bring to the table. I've learned that just in my experience getting into all these industries that they do require a lot of skills. So I think it just has to do with the fact of my personality. I tend to be able to adapt quickly, and I'd attribute it to two things primarily that give me the capacity to do this. Being a student athlete, you had to juggle a lot. And so I learned early on in my early days. I needed to be a balanced person, but I needed to juggle a lot of responsibilities as an athlete, as a student, as a friend, all of those things. So I've always lived my life juggling the balls, I guess, more than some other people. But I I really just am following the path that's opening up for me. So I have an opportunity with a big soccer group, and they they really wanted to push me into that more of the broadcasting area after they saw my electronic press kit. And so I'm following that where he denied that it's important. Well, you were so blessed, and you're blessing so many other people. We have about two minutes left, so let me get to the camera on the left and and give us some final thoughts. Well, I am really excited to have the World Cup come here, and I think one of my greatest wishes is to be an ambassador of the sport, no matter what level it is. If it's my next door neighbor, if it's the World Cup Committee, if it's, you know, all the different soccer groups out there, Major League Soccer, United Soccer League, all of them, to be able to influence that process and add music to it. We're gonna end with her Instagram page so you can get in touch with her and follow, all her latest releases. It's a great thing. Yep. Thanks for coming out. Thank you, Jeff. It was a pleasure. That's it for now. We'll see you next time.