“In America”

“In America”

I feel like I am the only asian-american around in sight. I was adopted by an American family at a young age so my whole life has been this way so that’s what i expect every time i leave the house since i could remember.

Today, in Los Angeles I feel like everyone who can figure out that I’m not hispanic thinks “chino”. And then immediately stereotype me in their head based on what tv/film has told them or what their family had told them. Based on various experiences of people asking me, assuming me, expecting me, or treating me and what I also see on TV, I have my own stereotype of what Americans stereotype of me.

I think they see me as a foreigner. I think they become xenophobes and which explains their hi-fiving another minority and joking “hey maybe someone can tells us what ching chong ching means” (of course in a Asian-mocking accent). Which doesn’t surprise me, because that’s how America has taught them to be. They taught them we excel at mathematics, have no social skills, won’t hurt a fly, don’t get laid, have small penises, own liquor stores and Chinese restaurants and have no struggle. For Americans who don’t/didn’t have Asian-American friends, their whole theory of us is based on the normalization of bullying us right in front of everyone in their living rooms. I doubt they can name five films or examples of Hollywood films with lead Asian-American males they felt sympathized with.

The way the general American public makes me feel is like everyone’s a potential racist. I feel paranoid when I go out. It makes me stay in. It keeps me an introvert. It makes me hurt. It makes me wish I wasn’t American.

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A Radio Interview: Beats From The East

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CJLO’s Beats From The East Radio Interview w/Mr V.

You can stream from two sites. The first is CJLO.com’s where the episode is split in two making it convenient for you to skip the music in the beginning hour and only play the interview part. The bottom photo will take you to mixcloud.com where the whole episode is played as a whole.

Click on either screen shot above. Thanks.

Michael

My First Show In a Year: LA RECORD Art Show Closing Night GALA

 

Hosted by Dan Collins

You may or may not have come to the opening night of “Dancing About Architecture: L.A. RECORD and the Art of Visualizing the Aural” and had an absolute blast! Well, this is the B-side of that event, the even cooler, even wilder, even LONGER B-side, with more bands, more movies, more readings, and even more ART to buy, both affordable small prints and expensive, one-of-a-kind canvases of your favorite bands, rappers, and guys/gals with guitars. This is the final night of the show:

https://www.facebook.com/events/290640871117441/

Things REALLY start at 2 p.m. with the Pickle Factory’s CLOTHING SWAP! Bring some clothes, get some clothes (changing rooms available onsite).

https://www.facebook.com/events/822010251151842/

The musical entertainment kicks in soon enough and goes all day!

Slammaster MCDC (Chillin’ and Guerrillin’) 3:45 p.m.

Giant Drag 4 p.m.

Michael Nhat 5 p.m.

Geoff Geis 6 p.m.

Pleiades (Gabe Gabe Fulvimar of Gap Dream) 7 p.m.

Open Mike Eagle 8 p.m.

SURPRISE MYSTERY BAND 9 p.m.

Cardoo FEATURING Stephen Kalinich (Beach Boys, A World of Peace Must Come) and DM Collins (L.A. RECORD) 10 p.m.

The Evangenitals 11 p.m.

DJ Zak Lee Aldridge
and many more!
la record art show closing


Continue reading “My First Show In a Year: LA RECORD Art Show Closing Night GALA”

Mixtape: Another Asian Rapper On Mainstream Beats


I always thought it’d be fun to rap on mainstream beats I liked, so I did. Stream the player above. If you want to read an interview I did recently as well, please continue here to Imprint Culture LabMichael Nhat Interview with Imprint Culture Lab

Music Video: Don’t We Pay For Splatter?

I got invited on facebook to this Show and Tell Video event at The Pickle Factory, so I asked if I could screen something. They said yes. So, I am going to premiere the music video for “Don’t We Pay For Splatter?“. I made it with Ryan Pardeiro (Kid Infinity) in downtown Los Angeles.

In the picture, I play a vampire running to the top of a building to seek prey from above. It’s meant to be an introduction to a series of me reprising this character. That’s it. It’s a lot of me running and looking like a hungry vampire.

 

don't we pay for splatter screenshot video

Music Video: I Remember When We Breathed Everyday

“I Remember When We Breathed Everyday”
I wrote and recorded this song in December 2013. It’s an nostalgic song about events I remember from the 80’s and 90’s. It’s a fast song with some flutes, ocarinas, 808’s, and snappy sticks with a small sample of Little Dragon’s “Summertearz” during the hook. The video is just of my first Echo Park Paddle Boat ride taken in March 2014.

Click Here to watch it on Youtube.
Click Here to download via iTunes

New: Songs With Friends EP

Rare Demos, B-Sides, & Collaborations with Sam Yurick, Maestro Gamin, LinaCarol, Xerebrl, Passive65ive, Kid Infinity, Luna Is Honey, Sequence, Nathan Nice, Justin Time, Foci, Dumbfoundead aka Parker
credits

released 01 April 2014
Produced by myself

Produced by Michael Nhat 2005 – 2014

 

 

Songs With Friends EP Album Cover

 

1. Outside Your Definition Of A Prize (featuring Sam Yurick and Maestro Gamin)
In 2009 or 2010, I met Sam at one of my shows. He bought commented on my record and bought it. I seen coming to another show of mine at The Echo, but I had just finished and was leaving. That’s all I knew of Sam Yurick. Years later, I think another member of Sams group, Charles Mallison, asked me to collaborate. He frequented LA scene as much as I did, so I saw him more often than Sam. Plus, he’s half Asian, so I assume one of the two or both made him more comfortable to approach me. Anyways, that’s how I met Sam and came to collab with him. I met Maestro through Dylan Doren. I imagine Dylan played him something of mine and he must have liked it. Then I was leaving one morning and right when I stepped out the door, Maestro was sitting in the car on street in front of me waiting for the light to change. He yells out my name and says he wants me in his group. I yelled back to email me. A month or so later He came to one of my shows at The Smell and bought my LP and booked me at one of his shows. In 2012, I tried to start supergroup with rappers I knew called The Best People In The World. It never gelled. We made maybe four songs. Maestro and Sam were invited to a part of the group. They were the first to record their verses. Some of the other members never recorded at all, so this song is me going back to that project and finishing one more song.

2. I Was Born With Two Heads (featuring LinaCarol)
This song was originally recorded to a sampled beat I made in 2005. It was for an unreleased November Album. The rules of that album were everything had to a beat I made from 2005 and only recorded on cassette tape. After hearing it again I decided we should re-record it because I liked the lyrics.

3. Liquid Strange (featuring Xerebrl)
Bill is a friend I made on Myspace in 2005. He came to party in Pasadena I was playing at that year. Then we shot some fetish videos with his girlfriend at the time. A memorable one was shooting them making out inside a packed church in the middle of the aisle. We got kicked out. A year later, before I could afford a computer or anything to do with the footage someone stole the camera from my studio while I was at work. I think it was my apartment manager or maintenance. They said they were going to repair something in the day. So the footage is forever lost. Then we were hanging out downtown one evening. I bought a bmx bike from a homeless guy for five bucks and I let Bill borrow the bike. Someone stole it from his garage. We didn’t talk or hang out for a long after that. I was never bitter about the bike. Maybe he thought I was. He randomly emailed in 2013 about his music project Xerebrl and asked if I wanted to collab.

4. Basements (featuring Passive65ive)
We’ve never met. We’re both down with Paramanu. This was an internet collab.

5. Sticky Gate (featuring Sam Yurick)
The first sounds you here fading in are how the beat was originally with the same drums when Sam begins. After we recorded our verses, I played around with the beat.

6. Nails And Grease (featuring LinaCarol)
We were homeless when we made this. I used to live in Kensington for a brief time and I befriended Greg from the venue The Ox. He came to LA to visit and his friend he was staying at let us stay there too. After jamming with Greg with his drum machine and whatnot I made this beat with his equipment. He was supposed to write to it also, but he couldn’t think of anything. So only two of did.

7. Summertime (featuring Kid Infinity and Luna Is Honey)
I met Josh from Luna Is Honey in 2008 at a show I was playing for a private “Smell show”. After I performed, he asked me to play at Mr. T’s in Highland Park. This show was a lot of my friends introduction to me. It was my first show with anything affiliated with The Smell. I got booked at like five places that night. And every weekend after that it felt like the snowball affect was happening. Everytime I played a show in the “LA scene” i got booked for another or more. Anyways, that’s how I met Josh. He sings the hook. I don’t remember how where or when I met Ryan from Kid Infinity. I think we were booked together, maybe that Highland Park show, and we became good friends since. For two rappers, who hang out often, you figure we’d have something newer than this. But this was lost for years, I finally found it on a drive. I wanted to release it on Collected Songs 3.

8. Army Of The Dead (featuring Sequence, Nathan NiceJustin Time aka Old YoungFociDumbfoundead)
In 2005, I tried to start a supergroup called Dead Calm. Everyone came to my place and recorded the verses into a shitty 30 dollar mic. We recorded 8 Songs via Tascam Porta 01 four-track. Then I put them on CD. Then Jonathan aka Dumbfoundead joined the group, but I couldn’t get the two tracks he recorded on CD. They stayed on four-track cassette tape unheard and forgotten for 7 years. In 2012, Andrew Felix lent his Tascam to me (Which I killed the mabuchi with recording so much). I realized I need to get all this old stuff on tape onto the computer. So I did. Army Of The Dead was one of the songs resurrected.