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GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
Is the U.S. Ready for Asian American Pop Stars?
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:57:19 PM)
ime was when we saw literary fame or Hollywood stardom as the final frontier for Asian acceptance in the U.S. More recently the frontier shifted to pro sports and national politics.
A year into the 21st Century we see Asian lights going on in the literary world, Hollywood and pro sports. We even see Asian Americans in two cabinet posts. But one arena remains starkly devoid of Asian stars -- the pop music scene.
James Iha, Smashing Pumpkins guitarist/backup vocals & solo recording artist
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Classical stars like Yo-Yo Ma, Seiji Ozawa and Vanessa Mae are old news. We've noted Japanese imports like Shonen Knife, Keiko Matsui and Pizzicato Five. We've marveled at the unlikely hit "Sukiyaki". Many of us have spotted James Iha in Smashing Pumpkins and Jeff Lin in Harvey Danger, or maybe even heard of Asian American bands like Seam and Versus.
But where is pop music's Chow Yun-Fat, Ichiro, Chang-rae Lee, Norman Mineta?
One indication of our lack of presence in pop music is the fact that Ming-Na and husband Eric Zee have even financed a record label (Innovazian) in hopes of promoting an Asian American pop/R&B boy group -- a sort of private Head Start program for pop music. Few of us even know its name (At Last). Its first CD sold all of 3,000 copies.
Those of a paranoid or cynical bent will postulate conspiracies among racist, short-sighted heads of major record labels. The sociologically inclined will see pop music as the inner sanctum of American culture and Asians as the perpetual outsiders.
But for purposes of this page, put on your music critic/historian hat and prognosticate the most likely path by which an Asian star will ascend to the American pop firmament. Will it be a Canto-Pop, J-Pop or K-Pop star storming the U.S. via the import route? Will it be a surprise chart-topper by an AA artist (say James Iha with another, more successful solo album)? Or will there be a frontal assault by a wave of AA groups/artists currently playing the club and auditorium circuits?
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Discussions posted during the past year remain available for browsing.
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
Harold Ming,
Ummm, 60%~70% of all animation watched worldwide originate from Japan now. Sunrise, Bandai, IG Production, Gonzo are run by Japanese.
In between animation work is dominated by South Korea and China these days.
Sorry very few Jews and WASP in Asia last I checked.
AC Dropout
Thursday, March 13, 2003 at 14:32:29 (PST)
[24.136.115.189]
FYI, Muhammed Ali's IQ was 78.
http://www.dartreview.com/issues/12.15.98/pugilism.html
And Nelly and Em the top rappers today? God help you.
Dooohhh!
Thursday, March 13, 2003 at 10:08:49 (PST)
[148.104.5.7]
The only good rappers out today are Nelly & Eminem. Nelly does the fun rap while Eminem does all the serious stuff! HA HA HA!!!!
Kokuninja
Thursday, March 13, 2003 at 00:14:51 (PST)
[63.208.63.114]
Harold Ming is just a Chinese dude in the vein of Canto/Mandarin-pop with some hip-hop beats thrown on top. He's obviously a popster who's riding on the coat tails of the hip hop movement which has only just started to rise in Asia in the past 3 years. Typical Asian copy-cat syndrome.
He is SO not original. It's boring. BARF!!!
YAwn
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 17:01:52 (PST)
[128.253.186.46]
OOOOHHHH YEEAAAAHHHH!!!! I wuz wonderin when da backups wuz gonna arrive and what a ways it came indeed!!! SEE?! SEE?! SEE EVERYONE??!! I KNEW I wasnt just talkin outta my ass when a brainy "girl" like AAgal agrees wit little ol' "MOI"!!! Miss ya baby! Where've ya been?! 8o)
Real curious bout dat flic Footloose now .... made me wanna jump class and make for the video store .... only thing I dug up from da web wuz it has Kevin Bacon in it ... may use it for my class presentation .....
All dem quotes were PERFECT, specially love dat second quote to show all dem "old man ming supporters" what a fine line there is between a big-time "class act" and big-time "class prick". Folks, support old man ming and what he stands for, UR supportin MORE than just distaste for hip-hop and rap (hint: it begins with da letter "H") ... see why there's "FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION"?! In class we learn its cuz NOBODY IS INFALLIBLE, specially big stuck-up snobs who read 10000+ novels thinkin it makes dem king s*** and all, even tho dey still CAN'T distinguish the basic differences between right and wrong ..........
NinjaTurtle,AAgalMarryMe!
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 16:03:41 (PST)
[64.37.155.9]
"A wise man can act a fool, but a fool
can't act a wise man"
Mohammed Ali, the greatest of ALL time !
budding rap star
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 14:02:18 (PST)
[153.104.212.24]
Wrong again as usual, those multi-billion dollar (stupid assumption)
major animation studios and gaming houses are run by Jewish and WASP men,
not any brothas or sistas of yours.
Sounds impressive when you've just got
a big mouth, but has no value without
facts, which you are painfully void of.
Have a nice day anyway.
Harold Ming
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 10:51:44 (PST)
[153.104.214.108]
"Remember, when you point your finger accusingly at someone else, you have three fingers pointing at yourself."
- Old Proverb
"The man who has a right to boast doesn't have to."
- Old Proverb
"No one has the right to choose what is wrong."
- Abraham Lincoln
"It is much easier to be critical than to be correct."
- Benjamin Disraeli
"I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird."
- Paul McCartney
"If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague."
- Steven Wright
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression."
- Thomas Paine
AAgal
Wednesday, March 12, 2003 at 01:14:54 (PST)
[204.210.11.100]
See the movie "Footloose". Ninjaboy is right.
AAgal
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 23:49:15 (PST)
[204.210.11.100]
Look fellas. Everything goes thru cycles. The Alternative music movement started with the rise of Nirvana. It was amazing stuff. It reached its zenith probably with the Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (go James Iha!). Since then it's been a steady decline, and now rock music today is basically for shit, overall.
The same thing is happening with hip hop. It reached its heights with 2Pac, Snoop, and Biggie, and it's declining slowly. 50Cent? Please. Eminem is the only person who's doing anyhting substantial. And he's a WHITE GUY too! lol. We've seen the quality of hip hop records fall dramatically in the early part of the new century. Come 2007/8 or so, you'll see a new trend, a different type of music that will rise. And hip hop shall fall. Music comes and goes.
Ephemeral
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 18:19:08 (PST)
[128.253.186.46]
Ninja Turtle:
well well well, all of a sudden you are
Mr. "nice guy" explaining to everyone the meaning of "BLOW ME" as you put it.
At the same time educating us poor fools
on "hate speech". You must think everybody is stupid and you so damn clever. NOT ! I agree with someone who
said like your name "you are a cartoon
character".
Victoria no secret
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 14:33:55 (PST)
[153.104.212.24]
I hear ya "Bring it Jin!" ... dont know why I keep hearin' "Jen Lo" on a hip-hop station either ... plus the good stuff always gets censored so I just buy and download to fulfill my hip-hop thirst. Also look out for Linkin Park's new album "Meteora" released in two weeks (4 those who don't know, dey got two asian MC's, Mike Shinoda and Joe Hahn) ........
Ninja Turtle, Go Jin Go!
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 14:06:09 (PST)
[64.37.155.9]
Mike Shinoda, the emcee in Linkin Park, is half-Japanese.
DJ Hahn, the DJ of Linkin Park, is Korean.
Jin, signed to the Ruff Ryders label, is Chinese.
The Mountain Brothers, the most talked about underground hip-hop group for the past 5 years, are all Chinese.
Foxy Brown is half-Filipino.
Although Linkin Park and Foxy Brown are the only two that have gained mainstream recognition, I think this is just a very promising sample of Asians who are making it in the world of music.
If you consider Linkin Park an AA group (since they are AA led, don't be fooled by the fact that Chester Bennington gets all the attention, Shinoda writes the music, plays guitar on tracks and is the featured vocalist on most songs) and you consider Foxy Brown AA, then the question becomes which is the most likely path the NEXT Asian star will ascend to the American pop firmament.
Also, The Xecutioners, one of the best scratch DJ groups in the country, pay tons of respect to Shinoda for his ability to rap and Hahn for his DJ skills. They liked the two so much, they asked both of them to be featured on one of their singles. If you're interested the track is called "It's Going Down" and was in a pretty heavy rotation on MTV. So they're no slouches in the scene.
spoken word
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 13:36:57 (PST)
[199.2.242.25]
Ah, there goes "old man ming" going on again and again about how self-righteous he is, dictating whats "intelligent" versus whats rubbish ... its gettin old newz dude! For a fairly young guy, you sure sound lots like ma grandparents (prolly closer to one o' dem old farts from da KKK actually), dats why UR still "old man ming" to me ... and yeah, for someone not too impressed wit ma grammarz, luv da way U spelt "qoute" ma well-read 'ol buddy boy! And while your brothas and sistas are running major corporations and businesses, MINE run multi-billion dollar major animation studios and gaming houses who talk bout cartoon characters and hip-hop on a daily basis ... while I'm in class aspiring to get der maself, you can read your life away in your "Massinger" or "Yoshida" my friend, but may I also suggest for your reading list some "Arthur Miller" as well (a la "The Crucible"), or some "Harper Lee" (a la "To Kill A Mockingbird")?? But nooooooo, of cooooourse you couldn't .... not from da lowly likes of hip-hoppin little 'ol moi, non monsieur!!
Look Victoria and other folks, I thought we had already gotten over this "everyone just listen to what the f* they want and leave everyone else da f* alone", but obviously we haven't .... I respect "WHAT" you support or disapprove of (including hip-hop), but be careful "WHO" UR supporting ... if you go way back into this thread, you'll see that at no point in time whatsoever were any of the hip-hop supporters were the antagonizers or provokers. We've been on the "defense" the entire time, and any agression you see now is merely a MEANS OF DEFENSE. My hip-hop bro BeatBoxB gave a perfectly sound, rational opinion in defending hip-hop: "Like I’ve stated before, THAT’S JUST YOUR OPPINION! And your opinion is obviously not shared with the rest of the world." .... but what does our very self-prescribed "classy" old man ming do? He slams him back in one of the worst possible ways, attacking the man's occupation and very dignity ... if you read further back you'll see ming man was the one who provoked it all in the first place: "NO SURPRISE from one who's industry depends on hype, electronic manipulation, and garbage loosely interpreted as MUSIC". Now this opinion of his, he was totally entitled to, but when he goes on and attacks my main man BeatBox at a personal level ... dat's one big no-no and even a 10 year old kid can figure dat out, so pity it wuz able to slip by a guy who reads Faulkner to Emerson ... UR right Har, in your very own words: "The old man you refer to is 23 yrs old, just surprisingly intelligent and full of class" .... yeah, VERY SURPRISING indeed!
Ninja Turtle
Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 11:47:01 (PST)
[64.37.155.9]
Yo KDK, one mo thing .....
I agree wit U on one thing ... that YOU ARE entitled to your "opinion" about rap, and nobody can legally stop u ... HOWEVER ... some o' these other cats on this forum opposed to it have stepped way beyond the boundaries of free speech ... I wuz gonna try and quote the 1st amendment from the US constitution but its way too long, but it boils down to this ... there's actually different branches of hate speech which arent condoned by the US constitution ... at the top of my head: hate speech based on "unreasoned [intolerance of] differences", hate speech that "incites violence" (also called "fighting words"), hate speech known as "defamation" aimed to humiliate and degrade (an) individual(s) as the primary intent, and theres a few more but I dont recallz ..........
Oh and anothuh thing too ... (heres "my opinion bout your opinion") ... U think rap requires "no talent" on the grounds that "rap is just someone TALKING along with a beat". Well "poetry" is just talking WITHOUT a beat, "instrumental music" are beats WITHOUT talking, "dancing", "acting" or "performance art" may have no words nor music whatsoever and the list goes on and on so UR labeling quite a few arts and artists as "talentless" with your very closed definition ... no doubt UR entitled to hold that opinion of course .........
Ninja Turtle
Monday, March 10, 2003 at 16:58:26 (PST)
[64.37.155.9]
KDK:
well said, I can only agree with your
well thought out comments. It's no coincidence that someone who expresses
a little intelligence and good taste like Harold Ming would be the target for lame comments by the hip-hop heads who are so hip-hopped on their own theatrics
that they are blinded to alternative
listening or anything that's not stupid,
repetitive, degrading to women, sensationalizes violence and caters to those who support this medium. Now that is not to say that hip-hop is all evil,
but there seems to be a blind loyalty associated with it that makes it a pity for so many lost minds. Look at the state that society is in today and much of it at least can be traced to mindless madness marching to destruction of family and ethical values
Victoria no secret
Monday, March 10, 2003 at 14:00:53 (PST)
[153.104.212.24]
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