5.06.2011

Randomosity on Fridays: Asians in the Media Edition

It's Friday!!! I had to stop myself just now from continuing with the lyrics to that awful song. Speaking of which, did you know there's Chinese cover of it? The cover basically proves that the song is ridiculous ACROSS LANGUAGES.

Ahem, this is actually a nice segue into today's Asian/Pacific Islander American themed Randomosity! Let's talk about Asians in popular media because it's kind of been a good year for them - as in, hey! more APA musicians getting airplay (like Bruno Mars) and more APA faces on TV (Jenna Ushkowitz on Glee and Maggie Q starring in Nikita)!

Here's a few you might have seen/heard (either recently or not so recently), and if you haven't, maybe check them out? ;)


1. Zee Avi - She's a Malaysian singer-songwriter with a cute folksy-pop sound. Her songs have been featured on the shows Private Practice and Parenthood.




2. Priscilla Ahn - Another folksy singer-songwriter, she has had songs featured on TV shows, commercials, and movie soundtracks.




3. Far East Movement - You've probably heard their song "Like a G6" all over radio in late 2010, early 2011, and you've probably heard this one too. This Asian-Am group originated close to my slice of SoCal - Los Angeles.




4. Rachael Yamagata - Another lady singer-songwriter from Virginia, she's got an Indie, bluesy sound, and her songs have been featured in TV shows and movie soundtracks. She also did a musical cameo (as it were) on (one of my favorite musicians ever) Jason Mraz's song "Did You Get My Message?" on his Mr. A-Z album.




5. Harry Shum, Jr. - If you watch Glee, he plays the dude with the smooth dance moves, Mike Chang. He's also in the web series The LXD, which features a huge cast of amazing dancers.



That's it for this randomosity feature, and thanks for your enthusiasm in my last post! Some of you gave me post ideas (Connie, sharing recipes is a brilliant idea!), so thanks!

Got any music/media recs for me? People I should look out for? Is there anything in particular you'd like to read more about during APA month here?


Have a bright, beautiful weekend!


P.S. Randomly, I realized that I should make more use of my Tumblr's "Ask" function. So if you have any questions (doesn't have to be related to APA month) for me or Loquacious Luce, but you don't want to email or leave a comment here, feel free to ask at my Tumblr (no, you don't have to have a Tumblr and yes, it can be anonymous), and I'll answer here or there.

TUMBLR: Scribbles from Wonderland / Ask

8 comments:

Angela said...

And they're all better than Jennifer Black. Amazing! (that was sarcasm.)

Emy Shin said...

I love these. Thanks for sharing them with us!

Beverly Ealdama said...

thanks for the recs! these are great!

Lydia Kang said...

I so enjoyed this! I kept hearing that FEM song and didn't realize it was them! The other ones were great too. So much good, bluesy music.
:)

Lori M. Lee said...

Vienna Teng - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8nypWKa_aU And pretty much anything by her really :D

Loren Chase said...

All of these people are already on my playlist! Great list! And I absolutely love Zee Avi, her voice is amazing. And Harry Shum is pretty darn amazing as well. ;)

XiXi said...

GAH I LOVE Rachel Yamagata and Priscilla Ahn.

Have you heard Kina Grannis (half-Japanese) and David Choi (I'm assuming he's Korean)? They're pretty well known on Youtube.

Krispy said...

Lori- I do have some stuff by Vienna Teng! Her music is lovely!

Loren- Yay! Yeah, my sister just recently introduced me to Zee Avi, and I love her sound.