8 Asians

Last Saturday, February 2nd, I was able to attend the 2013 Lunar New Year Celebration in San Francisco sponsored by Verizon, which took place in Union Square and lasted all afternoon. The event was hosted by Nicki Sun and David So (who is very funny in person as well) kicked off by a traditional lion dance then several performances by different San Francisco Bay Area, including: Cheung Loong Lion Dance Troupe Hai Yan Dance Troupe [...] Continue »

When Number One Son asked me to look at this video, I wondered “what is ‘Atban Klann’?”  Before they formed the Black Eyed Peas, apl.de.ap and will.i.am (then Will 1x) were part of the group The Atban Klann (ATBAN stands for A Tribe Beyond a Nation).  This single, Puddles of H2O, was part of their planned debut album, Grass Roots.  The Atban Klann was signed to Ruthless Records in 1992, but were dropped from the [...] Continue »

Would you copy the dance moves of a Korean boy band for a free soda (or two, three, or more)? As part of a experiment conducted in South Korea, a Coca-Cola vending machine coaxed people to copy the dance moves of the country’s popular boy band 2 PM, in order to score free soft drinks. Thanks to Microsoft Kinect technology, the machine registers what the dancers do — and the more moves they copy correctly, [...] Continue »

Hey Sandy, you’re looking happily deranged (have you picked your target yet?) Watch out, because we’ve got an ensemble of artists, including Jason Chen, Clara C, David Choi, Inch Chua, Abraham Lim, Heart Hays, Haviland Stillwell, and Deborah S. Craig, all led by George Shaw and the Irvine Young Concert Artists, who have joined together to record a Christmas album to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. Select members of IYCA will also do a benefit [...] Continue »

If Gangnam Style isn’t everywhere already, this video shows that it has invaded Christmas.  This display, created by John Storms, was an entry in the Old Navy Griswold Lightacular Challenge.  Sorry Gangnam Style fans, voting has already closed for this contest. A Happy “Gangnam Style” Holiday to all this season!

I’ve been very hesitant to write about PSY’s participation (and apology) in an Anti-American protest particularly because as one of a couple of 8Asian contributors who is not American, I simply was indifferent (and also tired of the whole Gangnam Style craze.) It was only until I came across Glenn Greenwald’s Guardian article “The PSY scandal: singing about killing people v. constantly doing it” that really best explained my indifference. Knowing PSY’s reputation of being [...] Continue »

When I was in the middle of writing my teen fantasy martial arts fiction novel a couple years ago, I often used youtube to find inspirational classical Chinese dance and music to help inspire me. One of my favorite videos was this one of Bei Bei, a classically trained musician from Chengdu China. As I listened to the enchanting music and watched the way Bei Bei dipped her fingers and glided them across the complex [...] Continue »

Over the weekend, PSY’s ubiquitous invisible horse riding dance video galloped into the record books when it beat out Justin Beiber for the top spot as the most-watched YouTube video ever, with more than 800 million views. Since there has been no shortage of posts about Gangnam Style here on 8Asians since it hit our radars back in the summer, it makes me wonder when people are going to stop watching that video over and [...] Continue »

While I thought that the MC Hammer/Psy Mashup that Psy performed on the American Music Awards was awesome, these racist tweets indicate that not everyone thought that Psy was great.   I checked on some of these tweets, and while some have been deleted, others are still there.  Sigh (pun intended).

The 2012 American Music Awards took place on Sunday and to cap the evening off, PSY of “Gangnam Style” fame, performed  with MC Hammer – and a little mix of “Hammer Time!” Clearly, “Gangnam Style” is the song and music video of 2012 when all the year-in-reviews are done. According to MC Hammer, ‘Gangnam Style’ has hit over 700 million views on YouTube now.

8Asians is happy to feature Johnny Hi-Fi, winners of Episode 1 of Season 2 of Myx TV’s Press Play. Season 2 takes it up a notch making it more interactive, allowing viewers and fans to vote on who gets “played”. Six winners will be flown to the Myx TV headquarters to record their music in their state-of-the-art studios. Still in the running is Johnny Hi-Fi, whose single, “Politician” will be airing on MYX today. Eric [...] Continue »

When hearing the main chorus of a song is playing on loop in my head as it penetrates my dreams and follows me to my morning shower as I imagine driving around in a Delorean at eighty-eight miles per hour, it’s a safe conclusion that I’m enjoying what I’m listening to. Multiply that enjoyment by thirteen, and you have that many tracks from The Yellow Album, the newest release from Portland, Oregon’s Asian American indie [...] Continue »