It’s not often you hear neo soul covered by Asian Americans. (Okay, there’s Renee Sebastian, but you don’t see everyone trying to cover Goapele at your local Asian American Idol.) Wikipedia describes neo soul as being more “ethnocentric” to its R&B counterparts, cognizant on matters cultural and political. Enter Dawen, a R&B singer-songwriter based in the LA area; his first single “Wake Up” — with lyrics such as “Just because I saw the movie Crouching Tiger / doesn’t mean that I know kung fu” — have been making the rounds in the Asian American blog circles. And while this means you’ll probably hear this song more on, say, the main stage of Kollaboration or the local cherry blossom festival than on the radio, I can appreciate the message and especially the musicality of his music.
What really caught my attention, however, is Dawen’s cover of Maxwell’s “Pretty Wings,” performed here with his brother George. I’ve been a fan of Maxwell for a while, but seriously, this guy is good.
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5 Comments to “Dawen’s Cover of Maxwell’s “Pretty Wings””
BigBrotherSpeaks wrote:
Correction: Dawen's first single is titled “Wake Up”.
Thanks!
Posted on 19-Aug-09 at 6:37 pm | Permalink
ErnieAtLYD wrote:
Oops! Corrected. Thanks!
Posted on 19-Aug-09 at 6:46 pm | Permalink
BigBrotherSpeaks wrote:
You guys are the best, thanks for your support!
8asians? More like 888asians!
Posted on 19-Aug-09 at 6:55 pm | Permalink
syx wrote:
this is pretty cool. i did my undergrad at northwestern, and i remember the APA student group i was in always got dawen to perform at our events. nice to see that he's still going strong
thanks for posting this!
Posted on 20-Aug-09 at 11:47 am | Permalink
Jason Huynh wrote:
Dawen is a cool guy. I met him at TNKAT (Los Angeles) and he frequently goes still, so if you want to meet him, that is the place to be.
His CD album is coming out and he is going to have a release party on 09.09.09. Go check him out on facebook.com/dawenmusic
Posted on 20-Aug-09 at 9:00 pm | Permalink
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