Asian American Feminisms in Rap Music

I Bring that Yellow to the Rap Game: Asian American Feminisms in Rap Music Margaret Hogan Schulich School of Music McGill University, Montreal August 2018 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Musicology © Margaret R. Hogan 2018 Abstract: This thesis considers how three women rappers of Asian descent - Masia One, Rocky Rivera and Awkwafina – make statements of Asian self-representation through their interactions with hip hop culture. I identify how these women see themselves as at odds with the myth of the model minority and other objectifying stereotypes. Western portrayals of Asian women cast them as dragon ladies - fearsome, emasculating femme fatales or lotus blossom babies – modest, obedient and exotic girls next door. Both extremes center a voyeuristic sexual othering of Asian women, seeing their value as intrinsically connected to their exotic sex appeal, and craft an image of Asian women as ornamental objects whose purpose is to serve the pleasure of a white male protagonist. The act of self-representation connects the work of all three of these artists and this thesis examines their positioning as non- Black performers in the hip hop milieu. Through analyses of the artistic careers, musical style and deployment of visual media of Masia One, Rocky Rivera and Awkwafina, this work considers Afro-Asian transnationalism and the cultural exchange between two marginalized groups as an anti-racist form of seeking belonging for immigrants to North American society. Abrégé: Les représentations occidentales des femmes asiatiques dessinent celles-ci soit selon le modèle de la dame dragon – une femme fatale terrorisante de par ses pouvoirs d’émasculation ; soit selon celui du nourrisson en fleur — une fille modeste, obéissante et exotique. Ces deux extrêmes renvoient à une seule et même exclusion voyeuriste et sexuelle des femmes asiatiques ; une conception qui perçoit leur valeur comme étant intrinsèque à leur sex-appeal exotique, et qui construit une image des femmes asiatiques qui s’apparente à des objets d’ornements dont le dessein serait de servir les plaisirs d’un protagoniste blanc. En considérant la manière dont trois femmes rappeuses d’origine asiatique — Masia One, Rocky Rivera et Awkwafina — interagissent avec la culture hip-hop et créent des représentations d’elles-mêmes, j’identifie la façon dont elles se perçoivent comme étant en porte-à-faux avec le mythe de la minorité modèle, et autres stéréotypes qui réduisent la femme à l’état d’objet. L’autoreprésentation lie le travail de ces trois artistes, et ce mémoire examine leur positionnement en tant qu’interprètes non noires dans le milieu du hip-hop. À travers l’analyse de la carrière artistique, du style musical et de l’utilisation des médias visuels que font Masia One, Rocky Rivera et Awkwafina, cet ouvrage examine le transnationalisme afro-asiatique et l’échange culturel entre deux groupes marginalisés comme forme antiraciste qui fait appel au sentiment d’appartenance des immigrants dans une société nord-américaine. 2 Acknowledgements The process and completion of this work would never have taken place without the support and understanding of women at McGill University. Unending thanks to my thesis supervisor Professor Lisa Barg, an inspiring scholar and accomplished educator. Her guidance and encouragement throughout my graduate school experience have been essential and the tools of critical thinking I have learned from her will continue to serve me for years to come. Her instruction not only informs my way of thinking, but also has instilled in me a confidence in my ideas that I would never have without her support. Thank you, also, to Professor Carrie Rentschler and Dr. Sheetal Lodhia for embodying intra-institutional radicalism and carving out spaces for activist engagement within an educational context. I would also like to thank Professor David Brackett, whose instruction over the course of my studies at McGill University has been invaluable. To Professors Eric Lewis and Mark V. Campbell, thank you for finding real world applications for my research – I will surely draw on my experiences at IPLAI and Northside Hip Hop Archive in my professional life to come. Thanks also, to my colleagues in music research, especially Kaiya Cade, Kiersten Van Vliet, Emanuelle Majeau-Bettez, Claire McLeish, Jennifer Messelink, Vanessa Blais-Tremblay and Jackson Flesher for your helpful feedback as my project developed and changed. I surely would not have completed this project if not for the love and validation from my family and friends. Eternal gratitude to my mother Raquel Wang and grandmother Man Jun Ma whose resilience and savvy as immigrants to Canada laid the groundwork for every feminist thought that was to emerge from my brain. Thanks to my father John Hogan for always challenging me intellectually, encouraging me to think critically and daring me to read outside my comfort zone. For my partner in love and life Tyler Reekie, thank you – your endurance of my stress and tendencies to stretch myself thin have been admirable and a true show of commitment. To Diya Mathur, close friend and brilliant scholar, thank you for always being a confidant and voice of reason throughout this process. To “Benetton Mob” – Stacy, Mitra, Christina, Jermaine, Emile and Andy – you are all shining examples of thriving as queers and people of colour and knowing you is an honour and inspiration. Peace, blessings and thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to all the above. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstracts 2 Acknowledgements 3 Table of Contents 4 Introduction 5 Literature Review 11 Chapter 1. From the Land of the Trill: 22 Masia One’s Multiracial Hip Hop AutHenticity from Tdot to Singapura CHapter 2. Brown Goddess witH War Paint: 42 Listening for Solidarity and resistance in Rocky Rivera’s “Godsteppin” and “Turn You” CHapter 3. Drive tHat Corolla Right Into tHe Streets: 66 Awkwafina’s “Green Tea” and Anti-Racist SHame Conclusion 89 BibliograpHy 92 4 Introduction In 1973 Bruce Lee and Jim Kelly would burst onto the silver screen with the ground- breaking martial arts action film Enter the Dragon and by the next year, the film would be filling seats with Black and Latino youth at repertory cinemas on New York City’s 42nd Street. A few years prior, Bruce Lee would be quoted as saying, “I am a yellow-faced Chinese, I cannot possibly become an idol for Caucasians” (Prashad 2001, 127), but by the release of Enter the Dragon, he had ascended into idol status across racial lines, starring in a narrative in which a Chinese man and an African American man fight against a mutual white enemy. Lee’s commitment to anti-racist ideology - which made him one of the first kung fu masters to train non- Asians - came across in his films, establishing a link between underprivileged Black youth in America with kung fu for decades to come. The ubiquity of kung fu in hip hop culture in particular can be traced in the paintings of Fab 5 Freddy, to Wu Tang Clan’s extensive Shoalin monk inspired catalogue (Prashad 2001; Hisama 2002; Wang 2006), and most recently in the Kung Fu Kenny short films of rapper Kendrick Lamar. Kung Fu and rap music continue to be rich meeting grounds for dialogue between African American and Asian American popular culture; this thesis will consider rap music as a place for Asian Americans to develop claims of belonging in North America that exclude whiteness as the ideal standard for assimilation. Among the earliest documented Asian people to arrive in North America were Chinese and Filipino sailors who acted as guides for early settlers on Spanish ships in the late 16th century. These sailors were valued for their seafaring expertise 5 and, as such, provided a lifeline on ships during the treacherous crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Despite their skill, Asian crewmembers received fewer rations than their Spanish crewmembers and their wages were never paid in full. While these sailors left their island home with the intent of returning, many chose to stay in the New World rather than risk death by starvation, illness or drowning on the perilous return journey in ill-equipped, filthy ships. Leaving behind their lineage and culture, they started a new life in a place that promised freedom (Lee 2015, 24-30). Instead, they faced an emerging society arranged around a racial hierarchy, with whiteness prized and blackness reviled. The exploitative conditions of the Spanish ships were to be echoed by each successive wave of Asian immigration to North America. From the indentured slavery of Chinese “coolies” and aggressive anti-Chinese immigration laws to the internment of Japanese Americans and Canadians through the Second World War, Asian groups have been united by a shared exclusion from the laurels of white American society (Lee 2015, 37; 90; 211). Throughout the 19th century, aggressive media campaigns stoked the fires of resentment toward Asian immigrants in North America, resulting in violent clashes between the Chinese and their detractors. On October 24, 1871, for example, a mob of nearly 500 in Los Angeles dragged Chinese out of their homes, killing seventeen in a public lynching in the city’s downtown that would become the largest mass lynching in U.S. history (93). And while the post-civil rights era of the 20th century reduced instances of overt racism toward those of Asian descent, media representations of Chinese, Japanese and other Asian/Pacific Islanders as villains and perpetual foreigners who are poor at English, inscrutable and criminal appear 6 frequently in film, television and advertising (Chou 2016, 7). Moreover, anti-Asian mocking in the media, with its strong racist framing of Asians in North America, exists alongside reports on the achievements of Asian Americans in schools and workplaces which represent Asians as a “model minority.” While seemingly positive, this model minority representation has become a racialized myth that erases the various forms of discrimination most Asian Americans still face in their daily lives (12).

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