A new album from hip-hop artistsJason Chu,Alan ZandHumble the Poettackles Asian American historyand spotlights the Asian hip-hop community.<\/p>\n
\"Listening to this album is kind of like the reminder that were all in this together and were coming together as a united front,\" said Rapper Alan Z.<\/p>\n
Hip-hop has always been a genre about empowerment and liberation for marginalized people, and it's long-inspired countless Asian American artists.<\/p>\n
\"Groups like Public Enemy, NWA all these people that were defining and that had something to say about the society around us,\" said Rukus Avenue CEO Sammy Chand.<\/p>\n
\"I felt understood, because a lot of these stories are people that are disenfranchised, people that are underdogs, outcasts,\" said Rapper Alan Z.<\/p>\n
\"It hit an emotion. I think I was an angry kid. I was confused. I was angry at the world,\" said audio engineer David Yungin Kim<\/p>\n
\"I think that is something that really identified with all of us immigrants, of course, right?\" said Chand.<\/p>\n
In 1979, Afro Filipino disco artist Joe Bataan debuted \"Rap-o-Clap-o\" now considered to be one of theearliest rap songs ever recordedand built off the cultural influences of New York City's hip-hop community and pioneers like DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash.<\/p>\n
From the seventies and eighties onward, hip-hop grew with the success of artists like NWA, Run DMC and Public Enemy, inspiring a major wave of Asian American rappers, break dancers and producers entering the scene in the nineties. And artists like The Mountain Brothers, RhythmX and the rap duo of Key-Kool and DJ Rhettmatic contributed to the growing hip-hop culture.<\/p>\n
\"A lot of people go 'yo, why is there such a deep tie between Asian American communities and this Black and Brown art form.' And I think because so much of Asian American culture as we've been wrestling with identity for about 50 years, parallels the birth of hip-hop culture as it grew and it had its growing pains,\" said rapper Jason Chu.<\/p>\n
Chu, an expert on the intersection of Asian American identity and hip-hop culture, says that the two communities developed at the same time building from the shared histories of racism and identity in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\"I think there's been such a parallel to where now, you have a ton of young, 15- to 25-year-old Asian Americans who literally grew up with hip-hop as the dominant voice of not just marginalized cultures, but of pop culture in their lifetime,\" Chu said. <\/p>\n
\"You got groups like 88rising here Far East Movement and Drunken Tiger from Korea, who I grew up listening to. That was the first person, first Korean that I related to, because it was a player in the hip-hop industry that looked like me,\" said Kim.<\/p>\n
Today, the representation of Asian American artists is still growing in hip-hop, with labels like Rukus Avenue pioneering South Asian hip-hop both in the U.S. and internationally.<\/p>\n
\"We really had a lot to do with how young South Asians in this country also viewing themselves as potentially being artists. Not only was hip-hop conducive for us, but I think that that story itself was very unique to us. And I think that we needed the hip-hop forum for it,\" Chand said. <\/p>\n
This story originally reported by Casey Mendoza on Newsy.com. <\/p>\n
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Continued here:<\/p>\n
Hip-Hop history: Dropping the beat on AAPI artists - KATC Lafayette News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new album from hip-hop artistsJason Chu,Alan ZandHumble the Poettackles Asian American historyand spotlights the Asian hip-hop community. \"Listening to this album is kind of like the reminder that were all in this together and were coming together as a united front,\" said Rapper Alan Z. Continue reading