Sylo nozra6/19/2023 ![]() For Toronto R&B artist Kristina Alcordo, that meant growing up feeling the pressures of assimilation and "literally wishing I could be white." As a result, many second-generation children of Asian immigrants grow up in search of a place to fit in or belong, which sometimes results in feeling othered by both North Americans and Asians for not being enough of either. There is no space that is built by and for us. While genres like jazz, rock and R&B were pioneered by Black artists - and white people still take up the most space in every aspect of the music industry, from musicians to label executives - there are no Asian roots in North American music. Other artists who are of Asian descent but aren't solely identified as Asian artists include Nicole Scherzinger, Hailee Steinfeld, Tyga and Anderson Paak.) 1 spots for their songs: Far East Movement's 2010 single "Like a G6" and Bruno Mars (whose mother was from the Philippines) with various hits like "24K Magic," "Grenade" and his Mark Ronson collaboration, "Uptown Funk." (Mars also falls into a category of people who don't fit neatly into the image of what North Americans think Asian - namely East-Asian - people look like. Since 2010, only two artists of Asian descent have earned No. As writer Asha Iran wrote in a 2018 piece titled " American is in Love With Asian Music, but Asian American Artists Still Can't Catch a Break": "While is giving America a glimpse at what immensely popular stars of Asian descent could look like, it isn't contributing to Asian-American success."Īsian artists born in, or based in, North America have long tried to climb the Billboard charts. But these countries' battles to infiltrate North American audiences is only illustrating half of the picture. Of course, K-Pop is just one of many popular musical genres right now, both in North America and in Asia where styles like trot and K-rap are equally as beloved as K-Pop in South Korea, and other countries promote their own versions of pop like J-pop in Japan, and Cantopop and Mandopop in China. ![]() ![]() market for well over a decade, but what does this moment mean for other Asian musicians looking to break through? It was a watershed moment for Asian representation, from a foreign industry that had been trying to break into the U.S. On a statistical level, it appeared that the K-Pop group had finally conquered North America, one of the biggest markets in the world and one that artists everywhere still look to as a barometer of global success. 1 hits to their name, and the group earned its first-ever Grammy Award nomination. Last August, K-pop stars BTS made history as the first all-South Korean act to land in the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 charts with their single "Dynamite." A couple of months later, they added two more No. It feels like clockwork every year when someone inevitably says, "There's still lots of work to be done when it comes to Asian representation." And it's not a false statement Asian visibility across the board, from film and TV to music, has crept up in recent years, but only incrementally and in ways that can often feel like anomalies. ![]() It may not be a defining feature of his music, but it undeniably is a defining feature of his public identity. "It's just going to be a byproduct of the way I look," he says, with a sigh of acceptance. But even though it doesn't factor into his lyrics, this topic always seems to find its way into his interviews.ĭuration 3:32 Korean-Canadian R&B artist Sylo Nozra hopes that making 'sexy R&B music' as an Asian man will help push back against beta male stereotypes. He praises other artists, like Japanese-American singer-songwriter Mitski, who do. In fact, he has no interest in putting that part of himself into his songs. Nozra's music, an intoxicating mix of R&B grooves with increasingly pop-leaning hooks, never addresses his experiences as a Korean-Canadian man. We both acknowledge it's an important conversation to have - in fact, Nozra is adamant about being "part of the change" when it comes to expanding and establishing more Asian representation in Western music - but it's definitely a burden that is continually put on people of colour to talk about and we're feeling the weight of it on this particular day. I'm here, sitting on a Zoom call on a crisp February afternoon, to talk to the singer-songwriter about his experiences being an Asian-Canadian musician navigating a music scene that rarely feels representative of people that look like us. Toronto artist Sylo Nozra and I have been chatting for 30-plus minutes when we admit that we've talked ourselves into a knotted, pretzel-shaped dilemma.
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