In 1997, she went to a Sarah McLachlan concert at age 20 and felt that she wanted to go into the music world and decided to become a singer-songwriter. In 2000, she originally released an indie's album in the United States, called "These Words," which received much critical acclaim. After graduation from university, she found a job in Washington, D.C. and worked as a secretary. She could not give up her dream of being a singer, however, and quit her job in 2001. She worked as a waitress for 2 dollars 13 cents during the day, and she played songs at night at a nightclub. Aki was briefly married to her first album’s engineer and the co-producer of her first album in Vienna, VA. In 2002, she composed two tracks for "Let It Fall" by Dianne Eclar, a teenage pop singer from the Philippines.
