I was supposed to give a keynote speech at the 5PAN Conference at Smith College this past Saturday, and so my plan was, you know, drive up Saturday morning, drive back to Boston Saturday evening, and help the conference save on costs by not spending a night there. Right, that makes sense, but then Friday morning, I was checking the Internets, and saw that there was an ill snowstorm on the way. I called Carmen, one of the conference organizers, to see what the plan would be. After much jibba jabba, we decided I would drive up that night before the worst of the storm hit.

I didn’t learn to drive until I was 20, and I still don’t consider myself a good driver. (You can get anywhere in a 17 year-old’s world by subway or bus, so learning to drive wasn’t a big thing for me.) It’s not that I’m a bad driver, it’s more that I’m a reluctant driver. I hate driving for more than 20 minutes or so. I especially hate driving in the snow for 2 hours. So I tried to get out of town as early as I could so I wouldn’t have to deal with that whole snow situation.

Anyway, I made it to Northampton in one piece and proceeded to drink like four bourbons from the hotel bar before sleeping because I was so high-strung from the journey. This left me no time to work on my keynote speech that was less than 12 hours away.

But when I woke up the next morning, something just grabbed me and what had been like an idea drought, all the sudden became like, I had a million things I wanted to say, and I had trouble figuring out how to fit it all in. So I just showed up and talked to the crowd and the results were…so-so. I’m much more comfortable as a performer, rather than as a speaker. So you know, hopefully people could get with it simply because I was being honest and trying to share, even if it was lacking in entertainment value.

But on a personal note, it was dope to see something like the 5PAN Conference – which brings together API activists from the Five College Consortium (UMass-Amherst, Amherst College, Smith College, Mt. Holyoke, and Hampshire) even existing, let alone holding a regional conference and actually talking about legitimately important issues and not, you know, about bullshit. I always have a soft spot for doing things in that area, because when I was at UMass, I think I didn’t involve myself enough in what was going on in my community there. So now I’d kinda like to make up for it I guess.

Anyway, got two Beats Rhymes and Rice shows in Southern Cali this weekend: Pomona College and UCLA. See yall there.

Monday night I had the privilege of performing at Virginia State University in Peterburg. It was my first time performing at an HBCU, and I can’t think of a better situation. It was part of much larger event, and I was awed and honored to be a part of it.

The man with the plan was the man who always has the plan, and that’s Shaggy Flores. A word about fellow UMass alum Shaggy: he is the classic East Coast Puerto Rican hustler. He is constantly making things happen for himself, his fam, and his friends. You want to know what hard work looks like? Look no further.

I haven’t seen him in a couple years now, but when he called with the opportunity to do up VSU alongside himself and the inimitable Queen Sheba, I had to jump at it. Straight off a plane from Cali, I stumbled around Richmond for a few hours, randomly letting jetlag catch up with me, peacing out mid-conversation a few times. Eventually VSU staff set me up in a lounge area where I slept solid for a couple hours.

It was real pleasing to see the turnout at the event. For a relatively small school, folks really came out for it. I’d like to think it had to do with my presence…but more than likely it had to do with the presence of respected scholar and activist Bill Strickland, who went off the head during his keynote address about corporate crime and the hypocrisy of the current administration, and it was all take-no-prisoners style. To boot, when he found out where I live, first thing out his mouth was “The fuck you doing in Brookline?” Man I only wish my poetry performances could be half as ill as his keynote address was.

Oh and bigs must go to Iota Phi Theta Fraternity at VSU for their presence at the event.

Anyway, that event was itself a lead up to an opening reception for an exhibit entitled “Hateful Things” featuring relics from the Jim Crow era. Racist imagery and artifacts from the days when racism ran rampant and unbridled across the country, like the 90s. Not just the 1890s either. Seriously. We know the shameful history of America, and I don’t consider myself blind to the reality of that kind of hatred at all, but even I was shocked to see how recently some of those images were created. 1980? 1992? 1996? 2003???

Damn.

Anyway, Shaggy and his family, Keisha and Orixa, were nice enough to put me up at their crib in Richmond for the night, and I flew out the next morning and headed straight to work. It’s been a busy and tiring past week yall, which is why it took me until Thursday to write about what went down Monday. But damn if it wasn’t worth it.

I’m looking at my schedule and it looks chilled out until March, when it kicks into a higher gear. So hopefully I can catch the Blue Scholars next week when they stop through the Bean. See everybody there.

Bao, Kiwi, and myself hit up Southern California for the first time together at the most recent stop on the Beats Rhymes & Rice tour. UC Irvine played host.

Logistically, this might have been the most convoluted collection of schedule details we’ll ever have to deal with. Bao flew into LAX, rented a car, and picked me up when I landed in Long Beach. Kiwi came into Burbank and drove down to Irvine in his own rental. Not to mention the fact that we all three stayed in different parts of Los Angeles County with various friends or family, plus we had to make sure to get together with our boy Daren Mooko of One Of Agency, who’s been our agent from the minute we conceived of putting the whole tour together. Crappity crap!

The students took care of us real good. Allowed me to borrow Kristen’s guitar for the show and gave me a place to nap before it got started. Actually, I think I was still napping when the show started because these folks started ON TIME. I’ve never seen nobody – definitely not Asians – start as promptly as the UCI heads did. I was telling friends in the area not to worry about getting there until closer to 8:00, even though the start time was listed as 7:00. I guess I’m an idiot because by like 7:02, Kiwi was spitting the first joint of the evening.

I was also mildly shocked by the on time start because Jana and Jesse were just chilling and talking to us five minutes before the show and they weren’t freaking out at all. A lot of the time, you can tell when the show is about to start by how hectic the student organizers start getting. None of that this time.

I think the combined factors of a somewhat chilly night and outdoor show kept the crowd a little smaller than what Facebook had led us to expect. It was cool though. I usually get nervous about outdoor venues because a lot of us have had difficult situations with sound or passersby in the past. But the crowd was all love, repping Irvine well. Oh, as well as San Diego, because a few people made that drive to check out the show too. Say word to Cali freeways! (more…)

Saturday, I had the honor of performing at Bryn Mawr College; for those who don’t know, that’s Katherine Hepburn’s alma mater. But raw I’ma give it to ya, with no trivia. (Can you tell I’m excited for the new Wu-Tang album? Even though Ghostface says it’s “bullshit.”) Let’s move on to the meat.

Got to kick it with old only-meet-up-once-a-year friend Sham-e-Ali and her son little homie Husayn before the show started, and that’s when he told me there was an invisible Harry Potter sitting behind me, who kept tapping me on the shoulder. I swear it was H doing the tapping, but I guess I have to take his word for it. It was really good to see familiar faces in the boonies, so I’m ever grateful that they battled sickness to come out.

But it was also good to meet new people, and meet I did. The crowd was surprisingly live for such a small school, and I met a ton of folks throughout the evening, and that always makes me happy. I get homesick pretty easily when I travel, but seeing so many folks actually responding to my work was very rewarding and helped make it easier. Actually the crowd, and especially the organizers, were extremely hospitable and went out of their way to make sure I was never at want for something. So big thanks to Kelly, Sandra, Helen, Jeanette, and all the event organizers and board members for looking out for me.

It’s been a while since I did a show in which I wasn’t the only act, or one of two or three. This time, my feature closed the show, but there were many students who went on before me, and yes they definitely did their thing. Not only did several Bryn Mawr folks get up on stage, but folks came out from other schools too, specifically Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and Penn in…well you know where Penn is.

I feel like there were too many performers for me to list them out…but I’m gonna try. (more…)

Saturday I had the privilege of performing at the 2nd annual IMPAACT Conference at the University of Connecticut. (Really clever acronym: Identifying the Missing Power of Asian Americans in Connecticut. Fiyah!) And got a chance to see old school homie Corky Lee do a presentation about some of his work, which spans several decades of photos of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from all walks of life just in their daily. His work has meant a lot to a lot of people, including myself, and so seeing him again was a real thrill.

When I moved away from DC back in 2002, some friends bought me an original print of one of Corky’s photos, which currently hangs in my hallway. It’s a kid’s eye view of a young Chinese boy holding a sign that says “More Jobs!” amid a larger scale protest, and I’m assuming it was taken in Manhattan’s Chinatown when they were building Confucius Plaza and not offering construction work to the Chinese laborers. In the background of the photo is many grandma-looking women holding signs as well. Some folks have asked “is that you?” and of course it’s not, but in a way it’s all of us. It’s representative of the first step any one of us takes in the movement, whatever moved us to fold our fingers around a sign in the first place.

In addition to Corkeezy, I also got to see someone else tied to my DC days, Porthira Chhim, who gave a very interesting presentation about the history of Cambodians in the States, tying in connections to the PATRIOT Act, Armenian genocide, and country music, as well as more typical topics of discussion like the Kim Ho Ma case or the IIRAIRA of 1996. Good thing Porthira was doing it, because if it had been someone else, I don’t know if I would have learned as much as I did. For example, did you know that Cambodians were recruited to attend American universities as far back as the 1950s? I was able to flip through one of his resources, and it was truly fascinating. I’m itching to find out more…

I also peeped a film “Whose Children Are These?” expertly directed by Theresa Thanjan about the fallout from 9/11 for Muslim communities in America, with specific attention to three teenagers in New York. It was great, because it’s not that the information was really new to me, but the storytelling was so powerful that it felt new, and that can go a long way in pushing people not to grow complacent.

Unfortunately, I missed Ishmael Ileto, who was so genuine and kind to me when I met him back in 2000. In fact, if you look on the inside of the re: verse CD, the shirt I’m wearing is actually the shirt he gave me of his brother’s image. It’s strange how many connections that this past weekend had to my time living in Washington. There are a lot more actually, but you don’t have all day now do you…

But the show was just me and a hip hop act GNE, who were really ill. You may not have heard of them because they’ve only started working together recently, but definitely keep checking for them, because they will be making themselves known. And the message they are spreading needs to be heard. It really was my pleasure to be sharing a stage with them, and I know I’ll be seeing them at many more venues in the future. I’m gonna go out on a limb and also say they are the dopest Sikh hip hop duo I have ever seen. So take that for what you will.

Anyway, I really appreciate the hard work that Mike and the rest of the student organizers put into the conference. They taught me about the new fashion trend of rocking a t-shirt over your dress shirt, which gives you the benefit of the relaxed look of the t-shirt, plus the business attire of a dress shirt. That’s the new shit. Trust me.

Also, it was really cool to see the resources available to Asian American students at UConn! Not only space, but dedicated staff, and just looking back on photos from past events, I see they’ve really done their work trying to bring the rest of the country to their campus, including Dith Pran, Yuri Kochiyama, and my mellow Ed Bok Lee. I hope I get a chance to go back there real soon, because I’m always impressed to see the work that happens on behalf of API students in rural campuses. And believe me. UConn is about as rural as it gets.

Aite yall. It’s hard trying to keep up this blog pace. Hope to see you again soon.

Last night, Beats Rhymes & Rice did it up again. This time at Northeastern University in Boston, and all I can say is thank you to the folks there for everything, from the hard work it took to find space, to removing that oddly-dressed – yet surprisingly nice - frat out of our green room, to getting us water, to providing us with Jamaican food after the show. (Know this: if you’re running low on funds but need to eat, Jamaican food is one of the best options out there, because you will stay full for hours on only a couple bucks. Thank all that’s good for the beef patty.) Much props to Delia at the Asian American Center and Long.

I have to admit, we had our doubts about the space when we first started scoping it out, because it was a food court, complete with a Wendy’s, a D’Angelos, and a Taco Bell (speaking of which, did anyone notice that the only thing Royce Clayton did during the World Series was talk about getting a free taco at Taco Bell? He didn’t even get on the field, yet he was wearing a mic for the cameras. I have to say, that is somewhat suspicious, I wonder if the league is going to force every team to have one guy they don’t play but wears a mic every game for product placement. Like Carlos Gomez be sitting on the Mets bench asking other players: “have you seen that new Harry Potter movie? You know he can fly!”)

But so, we had our reservations, but by the time everything was set up for the show, it was cool. They had a wall up to block us from having to look at the restaurants the whole time, plus they had given us 5 mics. 5! We only had three people performing, so I tried my best to move from mic to mic and use all of them, because I didn’t want that set up time to have been in vain. (more…)

Over the past weekend, my wife and I met Ewuare X. Osayande at Brown University, and I have to say upfront I was slightly intimidated by how intelligent and well-spoken he was. It’s rare to meet someone who has the kind of presence this man has, and what was more impressive was the feeling that he was being completely genuine with everything he did and said. Nothing escaped his lips that was not well thought out. I never met the man before, but I will definitely keep checking for him, and I’m glad we were able to interact in such a positive way.

The reason this past weekend came about in the first place was the confluence of a few different factors at the right time: Asian American Heritage Month, Southeast Asian Heritage Week, and the Black Heritage Series. So the students came up with the crazy plan to bring the aforementioned Ewuare and myself, and the one and only Bao Phi into town to do workshops about interracial coalitions and building a movement for all oppressed people. Apparently, this was the first time those three campuswide efforts had collaborated on one event, and from what everyone was saying, it was successful beyond expectations - although they may have only been saying that so we didn’t feel bad. Following that, we three performed, along with several Rhode Island-based poets and Brown students. Man, it almost made me feel bad because the quality of spit on the mic was making me doubt if I even deserved the status of “feature.” These folks were dope, including old friend Ammala Douangsavanh (of Zawadi), as well as the campus spoken word crew Word.

For a trip that lasted fewer than 24 hours, there was a lot going on. Much respect to the student organizers - and there were many - who battled sleeplessness and apparently school-sanctioned debauchery (Rahul mentioned something called ‘Trick or Drink’ which is probably exactly as it sounds…) to make it happen.

So after the show, we hit up the Vietnamese joint next door, which was called “Phonomenal” “Phonatic” and really lived up to the name. But because my wife grew up making family daytrips to Rhode Island for Khmer food, we knew what we had to do the next day. After soliciting recommendations from the local Southeast Asian population – including the folks from PrYSM (click the link to learn somethin’) we ended up filling up at Apsara Restaurant and also hitting up Sunny Market to buy a box of about 130 persimmons for five dollars - five dollars! - as well as mad frozen fish. Word to the Asian-owned independent stores.

The itis took hold on the drive back, and combined with the end of daylight savings, I ended up missing the end of the Patriots’ ninth straight win along with the rest of my Sunday. Bao makes his way back East this week, as we join up with Kiwi for the second Beat Rhymes and Rice show here in the Bean. See yall there.

The Beats Rhymes & Rice Tour kicked off last night in style! Thank you UCF, we had a blast.

Yeah, there were some wrinkles here and there, but overall, I think we gave them a pretty bomb set. We held stage for about an hour and 15 minutes – a little longer than we had planned – but everyone was having a good time, and for real, I think the raw raw rawness of our first EVAR Beats Rhymes & Rice show was a very special feeling.

Also something that was unique to the first show was having Diasporatic on the turns. For those who are scratching their goatees, he was the cat who produced some of the illest beats you’ve heard Kiwi spit on over the past few, including “Drowning” off the Native Guns Barrel Men CD. Dude is a native Floridian, so he and his boy Gerard swung through and it was dope to have additional support for the show. In fact, the first Kiwi track I ever heard was Imagine, which was also produced by Diasporatic, and hearing that song spurred me to contact Kiwi just to introduce myself. So the fact that Beats Rhymes & Rice is even going down is partially due to D. (By the way, if you haven’t heard that song, head over to Kiwi’s myspace to peep it.)

I get the feeling that every show is gonna be different, because that spontaneity was energizing, and if we get over-rehearsed, we’ll start just going through the motions and not giving our best effort on the mic. So if you happen to be in the same town as the BRR tour more than once, just know that you won’t be seeing the same show twice. Well…parts of it will be the same…but you know, not all of it.

We also had a very minor confrontation with a white dude on some ignorant comment he made when we went to eat dinner. Bao – who is very articulate – did most of the talking for the group, which was fun. The guy turned very swiftly from obnoxious drunk to apologetic drunk. By a strange stroke of luck, he was actually staying at the same hotel we were, and when he saw me in the hallway, he apologized again profusely, said what he did was “fucked up,” and I just had to laugh, because he was probably thinking, “Shit! These dudes followed me to my hotel! Asians do not play!”

As is their custom, UCF folks showed us a good time last night, even though they’re in the middle of exams right now. That is love; we mad appreciated how welcoming everyone was. Also true to form, the show started half an hour late because Asian people can’t show up on time for a damn thing. Folks were apologetic, but that’s how every Asian event is everywhere. It would probably feel weird to start at the stated starting time. Keep it real yo.

All in all, I don’t think our first EVAR Beats Rhymes and Rice show could have gone any better.

Photo courtesy of Bao Damn Phi of some Florida folks - Nayo, Cuong, and Sachi.

BTW – I noticed Angry Asian Man shouted us out! We didn’t even ask him to either. We’re happy that folks think that news of Beats Rhymes and Rice is worth passing on.

To download a press kit for the “Danger & Beauty All Stars” tour, featuring me, Ishle Yi Park, Denizen Kane, Regie Cabico, Taiyo Na, and more, please right click the link below and select “Save Link As” or “Save Target As.” To book me as a part of this show, contact ishlebooking(AT)gmail.com.

Click here to download a press kit…