Asian Majority

After Jin exited the US Rap market (come back!), there hasn’t been any new ones to gain national exposure. I recently caught this video, and this man has got some skills and the voice. Will he get the platform to make it happen though?

Harry Shum Jr: thank you for being another Asian American role model. I touched upon him briefly in another Glee post, but let’s get a bit deeper into his profile. Let’s start with his most visible role to date which is his character in Glee.

In the hit Fox show Glee, Harry Shum Jr plays the role of Michael Chang who doesn’t have as much time singing, but he is definitely the go-to guy when it comes to dancing. These days, the Asian American male being strictly a nerdy dork is probably waning due to shows such as America’s Best Dance Crew which have many Asian males in the best if not the winning crews. When it comes to sitcoms and movies portraying this, it’s starting to come around though having a major character representation isn’t exactly there.

Even within Glee, he is not a major character though he is starting to get some more screen time, and things may be changing for Harry soon! E!Online has reported that Harry Shum Jr will get a promotion to be a regular character next season! You can read the article via the link at the bottom of the article though the funny thing is that the picture in the article includes the character played by Chord Overstreet when he isn’t mentioned at all. I don’t want to read into it too much though I do wonder if some foolish editor thought it would be too hard to feature an Asian male alone?

So how did Harry get to this spot? He was born to Chinese parents in Costa Rica and lived there for about 5-6 years before heading off to San Francisco. It wasn’t until high school that Harry started dancing when he tried out for the dance team on a dare! This grew into choreography and soon the jocks and football players started joining the dance team. Sound a bit like Glee?

This parlayed into other opportunities including being the silhouette dancer in iPod commercials…for about a dozen of them! He was also fortunate enough to dance with Beyonce and J. Lo. Add onto that a few dance movies, and his recent venture into an online dancing show called LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) on Hulu, and you can see the talent and success he has had. Let’s hope for more to come and others to follow his lead.

One interesting thing to note from his Yellow Magazine article is that even though his parents weren’t thrilled, they supported him in his decision. Good thing for us!

E!Online Article
Vanity Fair interview with Harry
Article and for the ladies, it includes a shirtless picture of Harry in Yellow Magazine

Glee is one of the hottest tv shows out today blending catchy songs with all the fun high school drama that many of us can relate to. With a cast of multiple characters, there are many that we can relate to or even ones that we wish we were. We are quite pleased with how Glee is portraying Asian Americans along with breaking many other barriers.

Most noticeably, they are providing a strong character who is homosexual in a way that I can’t remember from other TV shows though I’m sure there are many I haven’t seen. Since this is a blog about Asians in the media though, I will switch attention to that. I’m really pleased that they haven’t gone the typical Hollywood way and made the Asian American male the homosexual (see Entourage).

Harry Shum, Jr., who we will delve into more later, is one of the characters who is starting to get a few more lines and TV time on Glee, but he is portrayed in a more balanced way than most Asian characters. In fact, I would say that it is in a much stronger way than typically done. He is a member of the football team. He has been shown as a sex symbol with his abs. He is an amazing dancer. Chalk one up for an Asian American role model.

Last week’s episode “Never Been Kissed” (Season 2, episode 6) depicted a rival school Glee group which included a homosexual who again is not Asian. That rival school though did have other Asian American males within the group, and in one scene it was mentioned that he had a girlfriend (as did the African American in the scene).

Congrats Glee on the success so far and for bringing out positive role models. I did wonder about the character of Tina who has a last name Cohen-Chang. I wonder if they’re going to explain that one at some point. Will Glee dare to have an Asian American male dating a non-Asian or even marrying a non-Asian? Maybe her parents were divorced and her father married a non-Asian? Or is she half-Asian in the series though she is not in real-life? Let the stories continue.

Visit the Glee web site

Fans, as a follow up to the latest post, please tune in to watch Far East Movement on a new show on Fuse called A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus! Details are below:

A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus with a musical performance from Far East Movement

Thursday, Oct. 28, 7/6C

On a new episode of A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus, L.A. electro-dance-rap group, Far East Movement, is this week’s musical guest! And, rock band Atomic Bomb sits down with Mark.

Tune in this Thursday, 10/28 at 7/6C on Fuse!

Once again, Asian Americans are making progress, and this time in mainstream music!

After Jin faded from fame in the rapping world in the US, there haven’t been too many Asian Americans making headlines until now. Not only are these artists making headlines, they are on the top of the charts too!

FAR EAST MOVEMENT
I first got wind of this group while watching a cable channel called AZN television with their rap. Now their more recent music has more of a dance beat to it, but the fans are loving it, especially “Like a G6″ (that’s a private jet, not a Pontiac car). Honestly though, I enjoyed their older song called “Western” which is definitely more rap and less dance. I don’t discriminate either as a good song is a good song and a bad one a bad song regardless of race.

This band came out of LA and the ethnicity of the band includes Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean. The band members are- Nishimura, James (Prohgress) Roh, Jae (J-Splif) Choung and Virman (DJ Virman) Coquia. They have used a lot of social media and marketing to put themselves in this position.

BRUNO MARS
He has exploded into the scene with some very good collaborations before coming out with his own smash hit “Just the Way You Are”. He was born in Hawaii of Puerto Rican and Filipino descent and just recently released his album “Doo-Wops & Hooligans”. We look forward to hearing a lot more from him.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2010/10/12/2010-10-12_bruno_mars_far_east_movement_lead_asianamerican_pop_music_wave_taking_over_the_b.html

Jin is a rapper and most notably a freestyle rapper who got his big break back in 2001 where he went on BET’s 106 & Park. There was a segment called Freestyle Fridays where each week the emcee would battle (basically rap insults) another emcee. If someone won 7 weeks in a row, they were inducted to the hall of fame. When you think of rap, you usually don’t think Asian, but Jin has skills.

Check it out…the first video was probably his weakest: 106 & Park Compilation

Here’s a more recent freestyle battle. It’s a bit harder to hear:

After being inducted to the hall of fame, he was signed with the record label Ruff Ryders becoming the first Asian American to sign with a major rap label. Unfortunately his relationship with the Ruff Ryders didn’t bring up large commercial success. Soon after, he decided to go independent. Here’s one of the best songs I’ve heard from his new releases:

More recently he completed in Cantonese. Here’s an article for more information on Jin: http://www.ballerstatus.com/article/news/2007/07/2896/

Will Jin ever gain major commercial success in the US? Hopefully one day, but if not, at least he’s paving the road for more Asian rappers.

There is another stereotype that Asians can’t dance. Well for those people who are that naive, read on.

This is another old news thing but was recently garnering more attention due to the movie Planet B-Boy which showed at this year’s Tribeca film festival (excellent movie that I would recommend). Some of the world’s top breakdancers actually hail from Asia, and in the documentary Planet B-Boy, a few crews from around the world including USA, France, Korea, and Japan are followed during the Battle of the Year 2005 competition. This is the premier international B-Boy competition.

Although B-Boying is much newer in the Asian countries than some other parts of the world, they have definitely risen to the top. In fact, in the 2005 competition, here were the results:

Best Show: Ichigeki (Japan)
Battles:
1. Last For One (Korea)
2. Ichigeki (Japan)
3. Gambler (Korea)
4. Phase T (France)

Wow! The Japanese and Korean crew dominated that year. Here’s one of the routines from Ichigeki:

Back in 2006, the Vagabonds from France won with Last for One from Korea taking second. The 2007 competition is coming up on October 20, 2007 out in Germany. Go check it out and see who comes out on top this year.

Back on the film, beyond the great dancing in Planet B-Boy are great stories of the different crew members. Also, after the whole competition is over, you can see the camaraderie among the different groups with their common love of breakdancing. Good stuff.

If you can’t get enough, here is a good article about how Korean breakdancers have risen in the world scene: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSSEO2657720070424?src=042407_0831_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters&pageNumber=1

Not that I don’t love sports and entertainment, but I’ll try to post some more thought provoking material next.