Eugene of Boston Progress Radio put up a neat post called “Intergenerational Love” (it’s not what it sounds like!). Read it
here.
It was this bit that caught my interest:
Getting this kind of e-mail makes me think about why this blog and radio station got started. Initially, I wanted the radio station for selfish reasons. I wanted to be able to tune into a station and find awesome Asian American music. With the help of friends, we just did it. That’s it. Today, maybe BPR has a larger purpose. Maybe we’re here to spread the word about Asian American music to communities across this country. Maybe we’re here to make connections to Asian Americans who came before us… And to those who will come after us.
Ninja Pants was born of a similar gut (”selfish”) reaction; we wanted to have a space to talk about new Asian American music, and if other peple wanted to join in, so much the better. It wasn’t until we started the project in earnest that we had to start thinking about what it meant to look for “Asian American music”. After years of throwing events for our college API community, which inevitably included digging up API artists for concerts and such, we just kind of got used to thinking about the race of the musicians that we were listening to. Then we realized, roughly a month after Ninja Pants’ beginning, that we had created a new genre. Oops.
Thinking about “Asian American music” as a genre is a little bit unusual because it isn’t organized around a particular set of musical instruments or techniques, or even a general unifying style. Rather, it is a genre we have asserted into existence, through projects like Ninja Pants and Boston Progress Radio, and its central organizing theme seems, at first glance, to be the racial identity of its artists. It is “interdisciplinary”, since Asian American artists can participate in any genre or combination of genres. We have our Hip Hop artists, our indie rockers, plenty of singer-songwriters (…), jazz musicians, etc. Aside from perhaps an occasional reference to yellow fever or the model minority myth, there’s really no musical consistency that we could expect from browsing a hypothetical “Asian American music” section at our local Amoeba Records. Deborah Wong is careful to dismiss the discussion of “Asian American music” for precisely this reason in her book, Speak It Louder: Asian Americans Making Music; the idea of Asian American music as a musical genre implies that the definition of the genre is located in music (beat, lyrical structure, etc.) or possibly the myriad practices of an identifiable geographic region (a la Hip Hop and its origins in the Bronx), and it isn’t, so she instead opts to study the music that Asian Americans make. Since it seems unclear exactly how an all-white band, for example, could participate in Asian American music in the way that they could participate in rock and roll.
On the other hand, simply being an artist who is Asian American doesn’t seem to be sufficient to participate in Asian American music. Editing a publication like Ninja Pants involves deciding who we let into our own definition of “Asian American music” on a daily basis, and we come across artists all the time who appear to identify as Asian American but aren’t really all that interested in making overtures to explicitly race-based music communities like ours – generally, I imagine, for the same reasons that people who check the “Asian” box might still be reluctant about participating in explicitly race-based non-profits, or student groups, or what have you. Putting your music out into an Asian American space says more than simply “My folks came from Asia” because the term “Asian American” is still an inherently political one. We expect a modicum of social responsibility from artists who participate in Asian American music, that they are somewhat literate with issues of power and privilege and how those play out in issues of race.
This, to me, is the reason we declare particular works, like Bayani by the Blue Scholars, or Sung Kang’s latest movie, The Motel, as “Asian American” works. It seems that denoting a subset of a medium as Asian American describes more of the thought process behind the art rather than a characteristic of the art itself. It’s like food that’s labeled “organic”; while an organic Fuji apple is essentially the same thing, materially, as a not-organic Fuji apple, the “organic” label (at least, ideally) specifies something about where the apple came from, and the process it went through to make its way into your stomach. Those who are drawn to Asian American music are drawn to it not necessarily because we’re drawn to a certain set of musical properties, but rather because we’re conscious not just of what music we’re consuming but who is making it and how. Presenting these artists in the context of an Asian American identity isn’t just a matter of convenience; that we care about the identities and processes of our musicians is a highly political statement.
pat m.
4 comments
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July 1, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Eugene
Good post Pat. Lots of things to think about. Good to see that we aren’t the only ones who struggle with the idea of “Asian American”.
July 1, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Brian
I agree… there are some big issues posed here. I’m wondering though if “Asian American music” can also be something more concrete than a “consciousness.” I’m thinking of the debates over “world music” as a “genre”: obviously there’s no unified aesthetic, but there isn’t necessarily a unified consciousness (political or otherwise) either. Instead, “world music” (like “alternative music”) is a marketing category invented by labels, and then appropriated by aspiring artists from around the world seeking to enter the mainstream (read: Western) market. Is there anything to be gained by us critics and programmers promoting “Asian American music” as a way of gaining access to mainstream markets? Or would that simply (as in Latino music) create a new ethnic ghetto separate and unequal from the real mainstream?
July 2, 2007 at 11:10 am
giles
Interesting topic. Much thanks to Ninja Pants for all the support, we over at BPR owe you guys.
I think this is precisely where it gets tough. As much as we all might want to consider ourselves part of an “Asian American Music” club, we don’t get to decide who gets membership. It would be presumptuous – so all we can do is stick to as broad a definition that we can still accept without feeling compromised. Right?
For example, there are artists played on BPR with whom I don’t necessarily share the same political views; I’ll admit there could even be one or some I straight up dislike as people. But I can’t let my personal feelings get in the way of the effort to build some kind of resource or virtual community through BPR. Because it definitely ain’t about me – or Eugene or Delia or anyone over here; nor is it about Artist X or Artist Y or Ninja Pants. We all are just trying to do what we can to put a little bit of positivity into a world that pushes negativity in our faces. Nobody is under any illusion that their individual actions will liberate the Global South, or that a simple website is the next step toward the revolution that will eliminate the gap between the ultra-rich and the working poor.
If anything, we can only hope to do work to remind each other that we have worth, regardless of what those in power would like us to believe. That we may be able to use one another as sources of strength when that time comes. That a collective interest in “Asian American Music” can be a precursor for a collective understanding around “Asian American Arts” or “Asian American Civic Engagement” or “Asian American Movement” or “Asian American Progress” – or “Progress” or “Equality” – or whatever the case may be.
So as much as the whole topic is convoluted and blah blah blah, I still feel like it’s very solidly and specifically defined in my own head – although I know other people’s understandings may be very different, in the end it doesn’t matter, as long as we aren’t beefing, and so far, being involved with BPR has led to nothing but love and support and understanding across the board.
I have no real point, but I just like to type. My views on community have changed over the past 5-7 years a lot, and I’m still trying to figure it out – so I fully exploit any opportunity to talk it out. Thanks for not barrig me from commenting. As of yet.
July 2, 2007 at 1:44 pm
tokenminorities
Thanks for all the comments!
re: Brian, I haven’t seen a whole lot of efforts by any corporate music outlets to reach out to Asian Americans, but if it ever happens, Ninja Pants and BPR better be there first!
re: Giles and the “Asian American Music” club,
Ninja Pants, BPR, Angry Asian Man, and everyone else who works with the term “Asian American Music” are all engaged in projects that define who fits in. Whether we have different conceptions or not isn’t the question; the point is that when we’re sitting down at our respective desks and thinking about who we want to review/play on the radio and who we don’t want to review/play, we’re making active choices about what we consider to fit under the heading of “Asian American Music”, and those choices are passed on to the reader/listener, who is free to agree or disagree with whatever they want.
For NJP, we tend to shy away from bands that have one Asian person in them, though we occasionally make exceptions (Asobi Seksu being the notable instance). We will always cover whatever people send us, because we feel that the importance of self-identifying as “Asian American” is crucial. But when it comes to the artists we pursue, we won’t just hunt down any Asian-looking faces on MySpace; instead, we’ll usually do things like look at the other media outlets they’ve approached. Artists who regularly perform on college campuses (particularly for API student groups), for example, tend to be more down when it comes to the politics behind Asian America.
I imagine that BPR does something similar, or else you guys WOULD be playing every single Asian person on MySpace’s music, and I haven’t noticed any of that going on because I don’t think you guys have Tila Tequila in your lineup. (If you are in fact doing that, then the definition of “Asian American Music” that you are constructing is grounded simply within one’s ethnic identity, which is still a definition.) Whatever criteria y’all are using to determine who gets played and who doesn’t are the criteria that you’re building into your heading Asian American Music.
Peace,
pat m.