it is hardly ever recommended for artists to read into forums or open discussions revolving around their work. some won't even read reviews, the risk of even one random comment completely tainting or overturning a creative process is too great. i guess i'm a sucker for things like that...i'm perpetually curious of what people have to say about my work. i guess that's what has always driven me to keep going. every comment, positive or negative, has the potential to catapult me into some crazy path deep into the oblivion that i've come to recognize as my own mind.

so every once in awhile i check out the comments for slip of the tongue on youtube. besides the intriguing nature of the fact that the same video's been posted a dozen times by random people all over the web--half of which claim to be the director ;) --i find it somewhat amusing during the moments when people get in heated arguments over my poem, or the video, or me, or whatever. in a lot of ways, it's the only time i ever get exposure to harsh, uncut criticism.

talking black.
the biggest debate, that of which has existed probably as long as the film's been around, is me and how i "talk black." i'm sure everyone's heard of it before, whether specifically about me or someone else, the whole issue of vernacular and its attachment to race--if you speak too "properly" you're whitewashed, if you speak too "street" you're trying to be black. according to certain comments, my use of such words as crackin,' playalistic, and even yo have won me the merits of being wannabe black.

now, i hardly find it necessary to defend my use of language in context of my cultural background (or dare i say...ethnic makeup...), and i'm readily anticipating someone pointing our my use of the word wannabe as a sign that i wish i was a british spice girl. what concerns me enough to even pay any attention to these comments is how much it says about the perception of culture in today's climate--not only the ownership of what cultural trinkets certain peoples have privilege to, but also how people view cultures other than their own and the need to compartmentalize.

case in point, yo!
for the sake of entertaining an example, lets use the word "brother," and how, according to basic principle of "racial vernacular," certain people are allowed to use it. based on this theory, brother is an english term, and thus can only be used by people of english descent or anyone else who wishes to conform to the colonized language. brotha can only be used by black people. bro can only be used by...lets say white surfers and frat boys. broham, by...jewish rabbis? and i, as a person of asian background, am of course left with most honorable brattah-san.

now, i don't think it's necessary to even attempt to assume the ethnic backgrounds of the authors of the comments up for discussion. i'm sure that, just because two or three people have expressed the sentiments in discussion doesn't mean that only two or three people of the 100,000+ viewers of the film feel that way. i'm sure there's a rainbow of people who have found reasons to dislike me, my poetry, or a combination of the two. regardless, the fact remains that even before poetry, before having a defined rhythm to my speech, i've always had to deal with explaining "who i was trying to be." in so many ways, it's this constant requirement of me to not only define my culture, but explain the science behind me pretending that i'm part of another, that ultimately led me to do what i do in life.

spoken word.
i grew up listening to hip-hop. not exactly because i wish i was black, but because i don't understand chinese, plus those a-pop videos are a bit too spazzy for me and make me dizzy. as a person of color growing up in the 80's and 90's, hip-hop for me was the only vessel of a voice that explained at least an iota of my perception. no, i didn't relate to tupac's accounts of thuglife, or being raised by a mother addicted to crack, and even as a 5th grader, i was well aware that he wasn't speaking directly to me. but really, as an asian kid growing up in the suburbs, who was? if anything, i understood what it meant to be harassed by the police, and prejudged as a young person of color, and the feeling of having my life premeditated for me. basically, hip-hop was the artistic forum that, despite all disparities, was most relevant to me...and i sure related to it a hell of a lot more than...yan can cook.

in high school i began writing rhymes. i soon realized that it wasn't for me. it was already a struggle to prove myself as an "emcee" or whatever, but i honestly didn't have the will to defend myself every time someone (regardless of their race) wanted to ask me "why i'm doing black music." regardless of the debates surrounding that, or the cultural ownership of music. regardless that asian americans don't have a genre of music within notable influence to claim as their own. for me, engaging in that debate was as difficult to win as it was to avoid.

then came spoken word. and i know, there's love jones and hip-hop influence and saul williams being overwhelmingly the most influential modern artist engaged in the genre, but for me, it was much easier to claim the artform as my own. after all, it's poetry. who can claim that poetry belongs to a certain group of people?

especially having been introduced to spoken word by asian american artists such as 2tongues and 8th wonder, i was finally given a template of how my experience in america and the inherited traits of my bloodlines could coexist in art. it was very new to me. what i've always hoped to do, in pursuing spoken word, is give fellow asian folks something they can be proud of, something they feel that they can claim as a representation of them, without any guilt. the truth is, no matter how ridiculously dope an emcee is, if he's of asian descent, there's always an underlying sentiment (even among asian folks) of "yikes...does anyone in this room think this person's being fake?"

i believe that most artforms (especially hip-hop) can be genuinely mastered and influenced by anyone, regardless of race. my gravitation to spoken word lies in my freedom to attribute as much of it as i want to my culture, or the greater racial community that i identify with and that embraces me as a part of it. from the chinese immigrants who tagged poetry on the walls of angel island, to the balagtasan artists in the philippines who debated politics using verse, to the street orators in the earliest chinatowns, poetry just might be the only thing that no one can ever tell me is not mine.

ultimately.
the thing is, the past years of doing spoken word have really just helped affirm what i've known my whole life, which is, unless i walk around with wooden sandals and a gong, there's always going to be someone accusing me of wanting to be black, white, latino, eskimo. i try not to let that affect me more than influencing me to write a long ass blog about it. i'm aware of how limited the scope of "asian american" culture is, and how the general public is still unable to differentiate our experience with that of our counterparts on the other side of the world. as long as i'm doing this, i can be sure to expect at least one person in all of my audiences making pre-judgements or asking "what that asian guy is doing on stage."

in the end, i use dope, saucy, skiddikyawskeetskeetskeet because i've spent the entirety of my life growing up in california. if i started filling my poems with words like "ayo ari mistah roboto" i probably wouldn't have as many people claiming that i'm denying my asian culture, but that would definitely be me being fake with myself. word.




i mean...until next moon, oh most gracious blog reader. *gong sound*