Asian Representation In The Music Industry

“There’s still lots of work to be done when it comes to Asian representation” (CBC). This phrase is now more relevant than ever, and is close to many people in today’s society, especially those of Asian descent. Particularly relating to the music industry, it can only been seen recently that KPOP has become socially acceptable. While this is a step in the right direction, Asian culture, including their music is fetishized and still not widely known and unappreciated as Asian stereotypes and the grouping that goes along with that is still very prevalent and very much a standing issue.

While Asian exposure in the media has increased in recent years across the board, it only does so slowly, and in ways that makes it feel like an oddity. Music relating, only as of August 2020 did the KPOP band, BTS, make history as the “first all-South Korean act to land in the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 charts”. With the beginning of this popularization, their music has grown to a globally successful level, however this isn’t the case most of the time. This was a landmark moment for Asian representation in the music industry, as the fight for representation in the US music industry has been prolonging.

Historically speaking, artists of the caucasian race dominate the music industry, which makes sense in the fact that there really aren’t really Asian roots to be built upon in the Northern American music industry. Additionally, as many music-passionate individuals grow up as second-generation Americans, there is always a struggle of not being able to fit in because of being too Asian for North Americans, and too American for the Asian community.

Reiterating the concept that many Asian-Americans have problems with identity and a lack of a sense of belonging comes the complicated nature of what being an Asian-American means to those that relate as well as the rest of society. Existing in a limbo, a culture based off of the collaboration across continents is a difficult idea for many to grasp as there really is no set definition. Li-Wei Chu describes this interchange perfectly, when they say, “...Asian-American culture is trading coffee for boba milk tea; it’s getting late-night dim-sum with your best friends; it’s picking out the coolest-looking buns despite not knowing the food’s official Cantonese name. It’s speaking in equal parts a foreign language from a mother country you’ve barely been to and filling in the blanks with english. It’s never truly feeling like you belong in one place or the other- a feeling that most Asian-Americans are all too familiar with.”

Historically, in protests against Asian-American violence, activists have leaned away from their “oriental” identity and began to embrace being an Asian-American without knowing what that meant exactly. Artistically speaking, this began an era of up-and-coming Asian-American authors, poets, stage-writers, choreographers, and obviously music artists.

Thanks to movements like AAPI, the notion of Asians, and Asian-Americans especially, has been brought to more light than ever. It took widespread violence, deaths, and protests to get there, which isn’t really fair, but everything has some sort of starting point, and hopefully this is a step in the right direction. Musically speaking, with Sean Miyashiro’s American mass media company, 88rising, which houses an eccentric group of artists spanning all music genres and of different ethnicity, hopes to amplify and uplift the voices of Asian Artists in music which is something to definitely look forward to.

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