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[7.31.2009]
Please come through and support! Jeimil and I will be performing alongside a plethora of my sheroes and heroes including, but not limited to: Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai, Erica Benton, El Dia & Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha, Denizen Kane, Kiwi & (hosts) Mush Lee & Adriel Luis.
Proceeds will go towards funding the coming together of 200+ golden children who find peace in expressing themselves by breaking their silence. I can’t begin to describe how excited I am to see old homies, meet new ones, and in particular, to see the younger up and comers do their thing. Kicking it with youth has really sustained my love and passion for art, education, and activism as of late and I am in the process of possibly getting a new job that will help me stay rooted to what I know and love.
I pray that future mothers and fathers
won’t nothing other than honest
and that they teach their sons and their daughters
that really, God’s the color of water
Friday. 7/31/09. UC Berkeley. Wheeler Hall. 7pm Doors. 730pm Start.
See you there!
C
p.s.
[Footage from "Volume Control 2"]
["Confining life to an eternal present is an insiduous form of soul murder."]
[Dr. Cornel West w/ Tavis Smiley - Family]
If you are a follower of this blog, you can probably tell that Hope on a Tightrope has had a profound impact on my life. Whenever I feel myself begin to move off-kilter and lose my sense of balance, I turn to the words of people like Dr. West, Arundhati Roy, Paulo Coehlo, Cee-Lo Green, Tupac Shakur, bell hooks, my grandaddy Robert McAfee Brown and a slew of others who always seem to stay brilliant and resilient in the face of the catastrophic.
Family is something I have been working to try defining and understand deeper, as well as stuggling to not define and worry about because it may be something whose beauty does not need to be articulated. When pondering what “family” means, I tend to think of people with two mamas or papas, people with a single parent, people who have been adopted by folks of a different ethnic/racial heritage, or like myself – people who have family with differing racial/economic/historical backgrounds.
Where Dr. West hits home (as he always seems to do) is that he believes that:
The family is a major vehicle through which history and memory can be preserved in the face of a marketplace that erases history and defaces memory.
-Cornel West
I am in a state of tremendous gratitude due to how blessed I have been to have such an amazing family, and see clearer now than ever, that blood and genetics many times has very little to do with who your “family” is.
“…we are who we are, because someone loved us.”
ColinResponse
[Real Time with Bill Maher - "New Rules" (July 24, 2009)]
This dude perplexes me. Personally, watching Bill Maher is like a being on a roller-coaster. I go from laughing out loud uncontrollably and praising him for making a brilliant point, to scowling at the TV and thinking, “this dude needs to shut the f*ck up.” The FUNNY thing is, I think this is probably how a lot of people feel about me. =P
Roller-Coastin’,
Senbei
[(500) Days of Summer Official Trailer]
The homie drizzle recommended this and I just watched it with wifey tonight. This flick was effing great.
This is hella emo of me, but I hella appreciate when actors/filmmakers are able to convey the ways that men can behave while lost in lovesickness. Watching Joeseph Gordon Levitt’s character “Tom’s” isolation in heartbreak was hilariously painful to me. It was turrible…but I couldn’t look away. =) Due to my beautiful partner and our collective work, I’ve been blessed enough to have these feelings be distant, fading memories – but I’ve still def got enough scars on my heart from years past to connect with “Tom’s” trials and TRIPulations.
The way this film was edited was insanely creative and provided a rich, lush backdrop for two middle-class, eastcoast transplants to fall in love in the City of Angels.
In any case, try watching this with someone you love (in any way, shape or form) and respect, compare notes of battles won and lost in love, and then laugh together at how simultaneously ginormous AND trivial life is.
Don’t sweat the small stuff,
C
p.s. It’s ALL small stuff.
p.p.s. I want more Asian American/people of color in movies like this. =T
p.p.p.s. I just totally contradicted myself because I’m either “sweating the small stuff” or am saying that some things are NOT “small stuff”.
p.p.p.p.s. ….And so goes the miscegenated, ginormous/trivial life of Masashi. =P
[Rafael Casal: Eastbay Funk.]
[Rafael Casal - Bay Area Slang Top 100 (via iLL-Literacy)]
SO. F*CKING. DOPE. WeOutCheahLikeYADADAIFIGGADEALMeTho. yee.
*Smiley Face*
C
[akiyoshi & senbei (circa 1989)]
[Senbei - Masterpiece (prod. Akiyoshi of Dynamic Souls)]
So…I have been in hibernation regarding musica for a minute now: Going back to school and pushing through a slew of life changes including but not limited to, a continuing examination of my own unique positionality/privilege/struggles, reconnecting to spirituality and my heart (“you corny cuz!”), and working to express my identity fully, while not becoming trapped within it (if that makes any sense at all =P).
This song is the first I’ve written and/or recorded in about 5 months and is a tiny window into my current insanity, clarity, self-hate, self-love, intelligence, ignorance, confidence, insecurity, etc., and will (in some form) be on the next Broken Halos Project. This cut is rough and may or may not have different verses from myself and/or Jeimil when all is said and done. =P
Senbei – Masterpiece
Verse 1:
I yawn and wakeup turn off my clock alarm, god is the greatest: “allah hu akbar” / thankful for the morning and the history of my young life, anxious for the glory and the wisdom of my hindsight / was itching for the limelight, but now I play the background, fixing to design life to udder to the cash cow / “got milk?” I need some vitamin d. but me, my smiling has ceased, my stylin’ is bleak, my dream’s designed to free / but it’s not. im paying dearly for it, my masterpiece is blasphemy, I’m slaving yearly for it / but I spent my days with children I was thrilled to go build with, and celebrate my funding til it ran-off (randolph) like childress / damn god, I feel this aching sense of desperation making sense of hesitation’s insecurity / blast off and peel this lyrical cap, a spiritual rap, a miracle in fact, because…HOOK X2:
I love to live inside the rhapsody, searching for the person that I have to be / and I’ll talk to my creator til im fast asleep dreaming how I’ll be a brush stroke in a masterpiece…Verse 2:
I found peace inside a cloudy brain, this aint vision, my rhymes unique sublime I sound insane this aint wisdom / it’s a reflection of the story I was born to tell the planet, resurrection of the glory from my war in hell, god damn it / blissful are their sins if pistols kiss the children goodnight, but wishful is my thinking, simple is my living: just write / let your tale call your voice from silence to ignition. Rep your label, I’ll rejoice in wildin’ AND submission / heaven and hell exist upon the same plane, my lame brain maintained inhaling grams of jane mang / high enough to touch the bottom of the pearly gates, died enough to clutch the bottle from this earthly hate / great, im drinking from a hurting heart’s breaks…wait. I think I see her work of art make / sense of all the madness on this atlas where I’m drowning, meant for these theatrics that we practice in the sound when…HOOK X2
Verse 3:
Another world is on her way and when the days are quiet, I hear her breathing deep and free she sighs inside the silence / and I’ll supply the science, til the future speaks about me, and never be compliant to the foolishness around me / movement it astounds me, ‘cause truth it speaks the loudest, but coolness man its drowns me, during youth my freedom’s clouded / I grew up with children always calling women “b*tches”, and if that shocks u bro or sis: u prolly aint from Richmond / oppression has kinder face in middle-class America. Depression has a smiley face - a ridalin hysteria / to cripple and embarrass you in all the guilt you live in - a sickness that’ll carry you through all the pill prescriptions / and I know its true because I’ve seen it from both sides: I reside on borderlines and watch the scoreboard multiply / at the buzzer im shooting: an act of desperation. In utter confusion I’ll rap to empty space. Sen…bei.HOOK X2
It is what it is. I thank you sincerely for caring enough to listen.
Bless,
Senbei
p.s.
Aki: Your soul is more dynamic than you will ever know. I love you, baby bro.
[j-smooth of illdoctrine speaking on the life and times of MJ]
Watch and listen to the media dance with and around us.
Peace,
C
[I wrote this article for last week's Multiracial/ethnic Edition of the Nichibei Times]
5 Mixed Heritage Asian American Hip-Hoppers to Watch For in 2010
By Colin Masashi Ehara
As a mixed heritage Asian/Nikkei American, I have found on many an occasion, that my ethnicity, race, physical characteristics, and identity are not always in alignment. As a “Hip-Hopper” (one who is not only a fan of the music/expression/culture, but also a practitioner of and participant in it), I find that ethnic/racial ambiguity can be gift and a curse. The “gift” comes in not being asked to immediately prove your authenticity when some of your ancestors wouldn’t have fit into what are often rigid definitions of Hip-Hop. The “curse” lies in not knowing for sure at times, if any acceptance is authentic itself (i.e. “Are folks only giving me applause right now because they think I’m Filipino or Latino?” & “Would they feel me if they knew I was a Japanese whiteboy?” &“If I were ‘full’ Japanese or Anglo, would they even give me the time of day?”). Although I am unsure whether all the artists I am about to mention feel me on this one, I thought it’d be nice to take the time to recognize my fellow multiracial Hip-Hoppers, from a perspective that centers our experiences as mixed heritage people in a society that sees (or doesn’t see) being monoracial as “normal.” Whether intentional of not, it is my belief that much of what we express as mixed heritage Asian American Hip-Hoppers, is a reflection of the observations from our blurring racial lines in our own personal borderlands. That’s my opinion – I could be wrong (but I highly doubt it).
_______LYRICS BORN
Tom “Lyrics Born” Shimura is a mixed heritage Japanese/Italian Emcee born in Tokyo, Japan and currently based in Berkeley, CA. He is one half of Hip-Hop group “Latryx” along with Lateef the Truthspeaker and as a graduate of Saint Mary’s High School in Berkeley, Shimura began his Hip-Hop career at UC Davis where he Deejayed for the University‘s radio station (KDVS). Over the span of his career, Shimura has collaborated with the likes of renowned Bay Area Hip-Hop artists such as Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel of Blackalicious, DJ Shadow, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Mistah F.A.B. and E-40. It is safe to say that Lyrics Born is a household name amongst Hip-Hop heads in the Bay Area, as well as on the other side of the globe in Japan. His latest work, As U Were, is set to be released in 2010 and promises to be funkier than James Brown’s baby diapers.
LYRICS BORN
_______APL.DE.AP (of The Black Eyed Peas)
Alan Pineda Lindo aka “APL.DE.AP” is a living, breathing example of the power and resilience existent within Hip-Hop. Born to a Filipino mother and an African American father in the Barrio of Sapang Bato, Angeles City, Pampanga, in the Phillipines, APL is representative of those dehumanized by American occupation/militarization. After his father, a U.S. airman stationed at Clark Air Base, abandoned the family shortly after APL’s birth, his mother Cristina Pineda raised APL and his six younger siblings by herself. As a teenager, APL moved to the United States permanently after being adopted by an American involved with sponsoring “Amerasian” children in the Phillipines. APL attended John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, CA, where he met Will.I.Am. The two went on to become founding members of the world famous Hip-Pop group, The Black Eyed Peas, and have gone one to sell 18 million albums worldwide. APL explains his life story in a song called “The Apl Song” on the Peas’ 2003 album Elephunk, which includes a full chorus in Tagalog sampled from the Asin song “Balita.” If Hip-Hop is a voice for the voiceless, APL is the mic, the amplifier, and the speakerbox.
APL.DE.AP
_______- NICO “N.I.C.” CARY (of iLL-Literacy)
Nico Cary is an internationally touring performer, emcee, and educator as well as a recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Part of the HBO-featured group “iLL-Literacy,” Nico has performed at colleges in over 100 cities, at venues ranging from arena Hip-Hop concerts to educational conferences. He is a McNair’s Scholar and served as a featured editor for Dave Eggers’ Best American Non-Required Reading (Houghton Mifflin, 2002). I’ve had the honor of sharing the stage with Bay Area Spoken Word Collective, iLL-Literacy a few times and have never ceased to be amazed by Cary’s poise, superfluous charisma and ability to convey to an audience, exactly who he is (and who is at the top of his “eff-you” list). Nico Cary’s art (as well as iLL-Literacy’s) would be done a great injustice if simply confined to and defined as “spoken word,” and as an American poet/emcee/educator/musician/artist of Black and Chinese heritage, Cary embraces the soulfulfunkyelectrohiphopshockrock that is his eclectic, frenetic, electric prophetic.
iLL-Literacy
_______FATGUMS
Eric “Fatgums” Strand is an American DJ/Producer who identifies as “a Hapa-Japanese Gosei.” Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fatgums’ obsession with syncopated kick-snares began with his older brother’s turntable and the 12″ single of Pharcyde’s “Passin’ Me By”. At the tender age of 12, Fatgums manipulated the acapellas of this record with said turntable, synchronized them with instrumentals from his boom box, and recorded his own remixes onto his mom’s classroom tape recorder. Immersing himself in the world of turntablism as a teen, ‘Gums began producing beats after graduating from UCLA, and in 2008, was faced with a decision to either pursue a music career, or put beats on the back-burners until he graduated from medical school. While attempting to pursue school and music simultaneously, ‘Gums discovered each took away from the other. He recently took a leave of absence from medical school and produced a West Coast underground Hip-Hop classic entitled, …A Peaceful Riot… with LA Emcee, Bambu (formerly of Native Guns). To those who think this an unwise decision, let us not forget: Dr. Dre never went to medical school.
FATGUMS
_______-MIKE SHINODA (of Linkin Park & Ft. Minor)
Michael Kenji “Mike” Shinoda is an American producer, singer, emcee, and artist from Agoura Hills, California. He is best known as the rapper, songwriter, keyboardist, vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Linkin Park, and as a emcee in his side (Hip-Hop) project, Fort Minor. He also provides artwork, production and audio mixing for both groups. His father, Leslie, is Japanese American while his mother, Kim, is of European and Native American heritage. While I personally have never been a huge fan of Hip-Hop/Rock “fusion” (excluding Rage Against the Machine), I have nothing but the utmost respect for the dedication and musical talent Shinoda possesses. His collaborations with the likes of world renowned emcees such as Lupe Fiasco, Blackthought, Common, and Jay-Z, speak volumes to his ability to craft soundscapes for the most talented Hip-Hoppers of this age. On his 2005 LP, The Rising Tied, Shinoda wrote and produced a melancholy melody that paid tribute to his grandfather, entitled “Kenji.” This song chronicles Internment and the events that transpired in the lives of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan during WWII. It appears that even when others may believe that mixed heritage people represent a dilution of culture, Shikata Ga Nai (“it cannot be helped”) and the art of Gaman (“enduring what seems unbearable with dignity and grace”) still seem to shine through.
MIKE SHINODA
_______Colin Masashi “Senbei” Ehara is a Yonsei Japanese/Scottish/Iroquois American raised in Richmond, CA and is one half of Hip-Hop group “Broken Halos” with emcee, Jeimil Belamide. He is currently at work on a Master’s Degree in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and resides today in El Cerrito, CA with his wife, Emalyn.
Gotta shout out my big bro, Mr. Alec Yoshio Macdonald for allowing me to write this piece. It’s super refreshing to write about something like this in the midst of my delving into academia/Asian American Studies. I get caught up in my head questioning everything around me so much, I sometimes don’t know which way is up. When given opportunities where I am able to send some shine to the people I look up to, it helps to keep me centered, grounded, and human.
Check out Alec’s fresh-to-def article Check the Label, regarding the different ways mixed heritage people have chosen (and not chosen) to identify. Self-Determination GOES.
I hate it when they say I shouldn’t spray the world with Paper Bullets…
Bless.
ColinResponse
p.s.
The Nichi Bei Times, the leading Japanese American newspaper in the country, has been keeping the community connected, informed and empowered since 1946. Community leaders founded the Nichi Bei Times to reconnect dispersed Japanese Americans after their forced incarceration in World War II concentration camps. As Northern California’s oldest and most respected Japanese American newspaper, we continue in this tradition, addressing the cultural, historical, political, economic and social concerns of a vibrant and evolving community.
[RHYTHM X of Vallejo, CA]
My big bro Bob of Berkeley/Oahu played a huge role in my love for Hip-Hop while I was growing up. A mixed heritage Asian American himself (Filipino/Japanese), Bob introduced to me to vinyl, cassettes, and Rap/Hip-Hop music in general. With this said, it comes as no surprise that when I visited him in Hawaii earlier this year, he not only told me about he and his homies being the only Asian kids at Sick-Wid-It shows in the Bay Area back in the day, but also put me on to a little-known Emcee/Producer by the name of Rhythm X.
Back in 1994, a young Japanese American kid from Vallejo, California apparently got signed to E-40’s Record Label, Sick-Wid-It Records and dropped the best Bay-Area-Rap-album-you-didn’t-know-about. Known as “The Mental Oriental,” Rhythm X put out a single solo LP entitled Long Overdue, before being dropped from the label after Record executives above E-40 told 40-Water that they “did not know how to market him.” *SIGH*
[Rhythm X (feat. E-40) - This Type A Sh*t]
[Rhythm X - I Got A Few Screws Loose]
[Rhythm X - Sherry (Original 90's version)]
If anyone knows of another Asian American rapper signed to a major lablel prior to 1994, please holler at me, because Rhythm X just might the Masanori Murakami of Rap.
BUY Long Overdue HERE.
Ill toast to that.
Kampai!
Senbei
["You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people."]
[Cornel West w/ Tavis Smiley - Philosophy]
“The condition of truth, is allowing suffering to speak.” This is yet another track from the companion CD to Cornel West’s latest book, Hope on a Tightrope. I love Dr. West’s words here and find comfort in his thought-process because he acknowledges the American people’s hunger and thirst for a new set of philosophies. As a country, we have grown (belligerently) drunk with distraction and anything that will numb and allow us momentary escape. If “justice is what love looks like in public, and deep democracy is what justice looks like in practice,” me thinks it’s safe to ask “where’s the love?”
Philosophy is a meditation on and a preparation for death.
-Plato
To philosophize is to learn how to die.
-William Fontaine
He or she who learns to die, unlearns slavery.
-Seneca
In a (pain + love = growth) process of watching my unarticulated assumptions die and turning them loose,
ColinResponse
p.s.
The greatest Americans have not been born yet
They are waiting patiently for the past to die-Saul Williams
