04-13-09
Spoken-Word Artists Bassey Ikpi and Giles Li Tell It Like It Is (Utne Reader)
Spoken-Word Artists Bassey Ikpi and Giles Li Tell It Like It Is
Katie Leo, Utne Reader
Now Li writes to express his views in the most authentic way possible, including all their complexity: “For me [the goal is] to accurately represent what’s inside of me. Everybody, what’s inside of them, it’s all kind of mixed up, and nobody really knows anything, and now [my goal is] nothing more than trying to accurately represent ‘I feel this way about it, I might have misgivings about it for this reason, or I might be fully behind it at this time.’”
“I can only write from what’s inside,” he explains. “All I can really do is just be honest and hope that the authentic feeling of what I’m saying will speak to people. I don’t even have electronic copies of a lot of my poems.”
“I feel like it’s a little more difficult now than when I was a teenager,” Li says. “Everything is so corporatized and everything is so official. People think that the only end to [spoken word] is getting to TV or commercials. That’s not why any of us started.”
“There was no that when we started,” Ikpi adds.
Tell ‘em B!
Click here to see the full article.
10-29-08
Slam Poet Takes Center Stage (Quinnipiac Chronicle)
Slam poet takes center stage
Meghan Parmentier, 10/29/2008
From the Quinnipiac Chronicle
“I’m not going to stand on the stage tonight because I want to look into your eyes and see what I mean to you,” slam poet Giles Li said when he visited campus on Friday, Oct. 24 and performed to an audience of approximately 20 people.
Li, originally from Boston, was a personable performer, generating laughs from the audience several times. He reflected on his own past Halloweens and Christmases in poems, asked the audience to “Facebook him” because of a battle he is in to gain the most friends.
“I just want acceptance, that’s all,” Li said.
Read the rest here. Man I didn’t realize what a knucklehead I was until i read this article!
10-09-08
Li, Shih redefine ‘Asian,’ ‘artist’ (Tufts Daily)
Li, Shih redefine ‘Asian,’ ‘artist’
Geoffrey Gaurano, 10/09/2008
From the Tufts Daily
Members of the Boston Progress Arts Collective plugged their mission of supporting Asian and Pacific Islander artists while undercutting stereotypes during a talk in the Granoff Music Center last night.
Guest speakers Giles Li and Eugene Shih told audience members that the aim of their group is to redefine the terms “Asian” and “artist” in order to eliminate preconceptions.
“We don’t necessarily have to be one specific type of artist or one specific type of Asian. We want to redefine Asian and artist in ways that are not static,” Li said. “I think we should strive not to fall into stereotypes.”
Li and Shih highlighted the organization’s projects, which create an environment to allow Asian and Pacific Islander artists to explore their creative endeavors. The organization has a radio station, an array of special events to showcase all forms of Asian and Pacific Islander art, and a monthly open mic night — New England’s only Asian-American open mic series, according to the speakers.
Students who attended the event were vocal about Asian and Pacific Islander artistic expression and showed interest in the organization’s various projects.
Sophomore James Lin, an artist himself, said the lecture piqued his interest in becoming more involved in the organization and in the Asian and Pacific Islander artist communities.
“I’m … into the artist scene, and being an Asian American myself, I found the lecture to be great,” Lin said. “I think their support is important, because the Asian American community isn’t always seen as creative.”
Tufts sophomore Erika O’Conor said she went to the lecture because it combined her interests in Asian Studies and music. Her class on Asian-American music prompted her to research the collective.
“I was already looking into the Boston Progress Arts Collective before the lecture, and I even have the Asian and Pacific Islander music radio station streamed into my iTunes,” O’Conor said.
O’Conor plans on getting involved with the organization. “I’m planning on going to open mic on Friday,” O’Conor said.
She said she admires the organization’s support for all types of Asian-American artists, as well as its mission to combat stereotypes.
“Asian Americans participate in all kinds of music, and I appreciate the statement that Boston Progress Arts Collective is trying to make,” O’Conor said.
03-31-08
“Celebr(ASIAN) good times, come on!” (NU News)
Celebr(ASIAN) good times, come on!
Mike Devine, 03/31/2008
From the The Northeastern News
Blackman Auditorium was a center for culture and choreography Saturday night when the Pan Asian American Council (PAAC) presented the second annual Celebr(ASIAN).
…
Li followed the opening act, cracking a joke about an automated voiceover that served as the show’s announcer by calling it “one of the whitest voices” he had ever heard.
Li performed poems with subject matter including the statistics involved in US wars (”Mathematics”) and a call to focus on helping people in need during this election year (”Obama Mania”).
Click here to read the entire article.
12-05-07
“Bryn Mawr Hosts ASA Culture Festival” (The Bi-College News)
Bryn Mawr Hosts ASA Culture Festival
Hannah Mueller, 12/04/2007
From the The Bi-College News
Lions, poetry, swords, a capella, hula—Bryn Mawr’s Asian Students Association Culture Festival had it all. “Night Market: The OccAsian of the Year,” held in Thomas Great Hall last Saturday, was well attended and a great success. The performance portion of the show was followed immediately by a Night Market, a beautifully decorated and eclectic “street fair” in the back of the Hall with food, games, and gifts.
Kelly Soudachanh ‘10 and Sandra Lee ‘10, Culture Festival co-heads and emcees, really had their act together, which made the show flow naturally and quickly. The first and last performances were by the Johns Hopkins University Lion Dance Troupe. Pounding drumbeats accompanied the five dancers, four of whom composed two huge, colorful lions with moving mouths, ears, and eyes. As part of the dance, the lion dancers pounced into the crowd, and later into the Night Market.
…
Giles Li’s performance was the finale to the program portion of the festival. Li is a spoken word artist from Boston who has founded the Boston Progress Arts Collective and works as an Arts Coordinator at the Neighborhood Center in Boston’s Chinatown. Comfortable and friendly with the audience, Li performed lyrical spoken word poetry about America’s international situation in “Mathematics,” the hypocrisy of commercialized Christmas in “A Crappy Xmas Poem in Seven Parts,” and a deeply respectful and heartfelt tribute to the women in his life in “Woman.” Li interspersed his poetry with funny stories from other performance experiences, and with an acoustic version of “Umbrella” on the guitar, which was pretty funny. His last poem involved audience participation; in three sections, we yelled “Okay!,” “Yeah!,” and “What?” at his direction and were incorporated into an ardent appeal for peace.
Click here to read the entire article.
11-09-07
“Hip-hop performance to examine culture” (The Northeastern News)
Hip-hop performance to examine culture
Matt Collette, 11/05/2007
From the The Northeastern News
While considering hip-hop and spoken word performances, Asian American performers are rarely the first to come to mind, said organizers of tonight’s “Beats Rhymes and Rice” event.
Three Asian American hip-hop artists from across the country will perform in the West Addition of the Curry Student Center at 8 p.m. The performers seek to examine Asian American culture through a medium not usually associated with Asian culture.
“It’s a spoken word hip-hop event featuring three Asian American performers,” said Delia Cheung Hom, director of the Asian American Center.
The event, a collaboration between the Asian American Center, the Asian Student Union, the Korean-American Student Association and the Vietnamese Student Association, will showcase Asian American performers, a demographic not usually associated with hip-hop, Hom said.
Beats Rhymes and Rice is named after a line from Seattle-based hip-hop duo Blues Scholar song with the lyric: “Beats rhymes rice be the breakfast of champions.”
Both members of Blues Scholar are second-generation Americans whose parents worked hard to send them to college, according to their website.
The three performers are Giles Li, Bao Phi and Kiwi, each hailing from a different region of the country. According to promotional material for the Beats Rhymes and Rice tour, they deliver a unique combination of social commentary, self reflection and painful comedy, all to challenge established assumptions about the Asian American community.
Hom said few people are aware of Asian American hip-hop performers, but the three performers at Beats Rhymes and Rice have all made names of themselves in their local communities, as well as on a national level.
“You ask people, ‘have you ever heard of an Asian American hip-hop performer’ and they say no,” Hom said. Read more…
10-26-07
“Artists express heritage” (Central Florida Future)
Artists express heritage
Lauren Paulauskas, 10/26/2007
From the Central Florida Future
Three talented spoken-word and hip-hop artists filled a packed Cape Florida Ballroom with words and music Wednesday.
The Beats, Rhymes and Rice Tour, starring Giles Li, Bao Phi and Kiwi Illafonte, breezed into UCF.
“They’re traveling from school to school,” said Cuong Le, chair of the Asian Awareness Council of the Multicultural Student Center at UCF. “This is the first school they’re stopping at.”
Members of the Asian Awareness Council, who put on the show, were really excited for their arrival and performances, he said.
“We asked one person, and they told us about this tour,” Le said, “so we jumped right on it.”
The three Asian men, all of different Asian heritages, emphasized their origins through their conversations with the audience and their descriptive pieces. They’ve known each other for a while and said their paths have crossed several times.
“We’re all community artists,” Phi said. “We’ve shared a lot of stages.”
The three men performed in a rotation because they said they didn’t want the audience to get bored. The audience’s response throughout the show proved that their plan worked. Read more…
