“When we were first starting in the music industry people were telling us to wear glasses and change our name from Far East movement because it’s ‘too Asian.’ It was a different time, but that type of stuff stays with you and affects your perspective.”
Far East Movement, Resonate
LA electro-hop group Far East Movement (Kev Nish (Kevin Nishimura), Prohgress (James Roh), DJ Virman (Virman Coquia) and ex-member J-Splif (Jae Choung)) may have stayed true to their Koreatown origins and kept their Asian-centric name, but the club hit - 2010's “Like a G6” - that earned them recognition as the first Asian-American group to ever hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts had little to do with their Asian roots, identity or heritage.
After a brief episode of identity crisis with their record company management, FM went through some soul-searching in Asia, and shifted their emphasis from their vocal performances to their work as songwriters producers, and curators. They released Identity (2016), a timely album that featured various collaborators from South Korea and the US, under their own production company, Transparent Agency. One might expected an album exploring Asian-American identity to draw from Asian folk music, but FM chose instead to foreground their roots in two distinct and far-flung musical worlds.
This might sound good in theory, but managing many collaborators and disparate influences can easily come across as being contrived, forced and opportunistic. Thankfully, "Freal Luv," the album's lead single, which features California R&B-pop star Tinashe, anonymous DJ Marshmello, and EXO member Chanyeol, effortlessly blends EDM, hip hop and R&B vocals to create a dynamic, catchy and distinctive track:
"When we made the record, to us it felt like something different. It felt like something like Far East Movement, and it was also really positive and we wanted to make sure the first record we put out felt positive and a concept that no matter what city they're in [they] can relate to themselves, which is love, for real love".
Kevin Nishimura, NBC News
Given American hip hop and R&B's influence on K-pop, Chanyeol's Korean rap verses seem perfectly in place - though they do seem to overshadow Kev Nish's vocals on the track. The album's music video contains enough urban and modernized Asian elements to make up for the song's lack of a distinctly Asian subject matter.
One can argue, however, that mainstream music (especially the genres of pop and EDM) has traditionally been a relatively deracinated playing field. Even among white artists, there's a tendency to downplay one's regional specificity for the sake of achieving a universal appeal: Adele doesn't sing in her native Cockney accent, and there's really no sonic indication that Kylie Minogue is Australian or that Avril Lavigne is Canadian. African American artists, who have a long tradition of aestheticizing identity politics via music and can draw from funk, soul, jazz, hip hop, blues, reggae, dancehall and R&B, are the general exception.
While "Freal Luv" does not explore Asian American identity in a manner that is explicit on a lyrical level - unlike Mitski's "Your Best American Girl" and Awkwafina's "Green Tea" - it does, as MTV's Crystal Leww argues, point towards a possible future where Asian influences can assimilate successfully into American mainstream pop culture:
Identity is Far East Movement’s attempt to create that space for themselves by highlighting what makes them different rather than shrinking from it. Drawing on cultural influences across two worlds is something lots of Asian-Americans have in common. For many, especially those who are second-generation, yearning to understand the homeland of the people who raised them comes through an exploration of culture. Asian-American kids watch Wong Kar-wai films, fight over the best noodle soup restaurant, and consume hours of YouTube videos of their favorite K-pop groups. They love these cultural artifacts, which are understood as markers of cool otherness rather than alienating norms imposed by a dominant white American culture. Identity is a distinctly Asian-American album, and it speaks to the very specific experience of a group of people who are often seen as foreigners in their own home. But there’s no sense of loss here — Far East Movement have made a cohesive, exciting celebration of that hybrid life".
