Jeff Chang : Hip-Hop, Bruce Lee, Race & the Culture That Shapes Us

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Real quick before we dive in, if you’re a regular here, consider pulling up a seat to the Patreon. The seat, the
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table, the kitchen. Three tiers starting at just five bucks a month. Built for the people who don’t just listen, they
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feel it. patreon.com/tmhf podcast show. Link is always in the show
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notes. What is Bruce Lee’s best fight scene? Uh, that’s tough. I think you know the
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fight scene with Chuck Norris and but my favorite is ripping out the chest hair is badass.
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[laughter] Yes. Yes. That’s like [laughter]0:34
that’s all time. All time. All of us, especially all of us hairless types. [laughter]0:39
Oh, it’s such an affront. That’s like revenge of the hairless. Um Oh, what an Asian guy advantage. I never
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thought of it that way. It’s the true Asian guy advantage [laughter] in a fight like that. I love it.
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You’re going to try to grab Bruce’s chest like you your hands just going to slip away. Exactly. Um, [laughter] but I could grab you, Chuck. Yeah,
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you woolly man. [laughter] What’s the best Bruce movie then?
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Big old bear. Um, uh, so I like Fist of Fury.
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I think that that’s the one that I love the most. That’s the post I had in my bedroom. Oh, hell yeah.
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Yeah. Yeah. That’s Yeah, that’s that’s the one I had. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. [laughter] When he’s doing like the sort
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of the Tai Chi mov Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, I love that. I, you know, Enter the
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Dragon was probably like the all time for many, many years, but the more and more I see it, the more I see the problems in it. A Fist of Fury got
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problems in the movie, too, but um, but I feel like that’s the most heroic Yeah.
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of his movies, you know? Yeah. So, what out in a blaze of gunfire and that
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kind of thing, too, you know? It’s like Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah. Two quick ones. Best live hip-hop
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show you’ve ever been to. Wow. He’s gonna name three. I know, but that’s [laughter] okay.
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He’s a writer, you know. That’s okay. Yo, I think, and this is not exactly
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hip-hop, but it’s kind of hip-hop. It was a really It was a go- go band. Okay. In uh in DC. So, uh I got to see
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Backyard um Backyard Band. Oh. Uh and Genis in particular in that band
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um on stage at this. It was like a I mean I want to say it was like a um I
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don’t know like a Elks Club or some [ __ ] Okay. So [ __ ] But it was like Yeah. And and it was
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like you know it was a big bill with a lot of bands on it and stuff but people were dancing so hard that there that at
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the end of the show and it was summertime like there was [ __ ] sweat on the floor [laughter] like it was
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condensation. And then they and they leave. They leave and people are just standing
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there for a while. They’re they’re just stunned, right? It was like a It was such a performance, man. Like, I can’t
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even explain it. Um, it sounds like my last Tinder date. [laughter]3:03
I mean, I assume that’s what she says to her. Body fluids on the floor. Body fluids on the floor. I can’t even
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describe it. Right. Yeah. Exactly. [laughter] Dope. Yeah.
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Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Taste Music here podcast show.
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I am your host Ed Porter. This is the place for full music and
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culture and how they all connect. Oh, dude, I’m going to watch it now. I
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think it’s dope. Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of the Taste Music Here Food Podcast Show.
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I am your host Ed Porter and this is the destination for food, music, and culture
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and how they all connect. My guest today is uh first off, I’m just happy as hell
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that he’s here. And I also learned a lot about how he
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does not want to go in the pre-show, but we’re not going to talk about that right now. So, what I am going to attempt to
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pay this gentleman just proper and well-deserved respect with this intro
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right here. So, here we go. Before hip-hop became a billion-dollar language, before the culture was studied
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in universities, before brands learned how to monetize rebellion, there were people listening closely enough to
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understand that this was never just music. It was a survival system. It was
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a neighborhood newspaper. It was a grief turned into rhythm. It was abandoned buildings becoming sound systems. It was
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young people feeding themselves with imagination when the world kept serving them neglect. Tonight’s guest has spent
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his life tracing that deeper meaning inside the things we consume, the songs,
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the images, stories, symbols, movements, heroes, and myths that shape who we
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become. He has written about hip hop not just as entertainment but as one of the
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great cultural forces of modern America. He has written about race not as a
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headline but as an ongoing story of belonging, power, fear, beauty and resistance. And now with water mirror
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echo, he turns his attention to Bruce Lee, not simply as a martial arts icon,
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but as a mirror for identity, representation, Asian America, and the fight to be seen fully. On TMHF, we
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always say food is more than what is on the plate, and music is more than what comes out through speakers. Food is what
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we consume. Music is the vibration we move to. Culture is what happens when those things become memory, identity,
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and power. This conversation is about hip hop, Bruce Lee, race, storytelling,
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the politics of culture, and what it means to feed a generation with truth. Please welcome to the Taste Music Hair
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Food podcast show, writer, cultural organizer, host, and in my opinion, one
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of the most important cultural historians of our time, Mr. Jeff Chang.
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Damn, [laughter] thank you so much, Ed. That was Wow.
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Thank you. You’re welcome. powerful and humbling. I really appreciate that. It’s really
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wonderful to be here, dude. It’s it’s a it is so so great to have you here. Um when I talked to to to
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my buddy Chef Mitch and he told me that he was having you. I was trying to get out there just to go. I just wanted to go.
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That would have been great. Um and he knows he knows how big of a fan I am of you and so he like I I’ll
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put a word in for you. I’m like don’t put a word in for me. I need to talk I need to talk to Jeff Chang. I need to I
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need to talk to this man because I I’m I’m a kid from the Bronx. So you and and we’ve kind of like
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crossed paths uh geographically um on on many fronts. Also lived in the
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Bay for a lot of time. So there was the your writing has a a a sort of
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imagery attached to it that if you know you know. So, it’s like I’m reliving and
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living parts of my past and the things that I’ve saw through a different lens
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um of it’s like having the answer to the test, right? So, like I I was there but
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seeing all these other you connected all these dots and I’m like okay that makes So to put it in perspective Africa Bearb
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lived in my building so I grew up he was on the I I I lived on the eighth floor. Yeah. Yeah. So I lived on the
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eighth I lived on the eighth floor where my mom still lives to this day. She refused to leave. Bam lived on the fifth
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floor. Mhm. And around the corner I mean there’s all this history hip-hop history um that I
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grew up around that I just was just commonplace for me. But having, you know, going down the the
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rabbit hole was was it was such an important thing as someone who grew up I
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grew I was born in 76. So I grew up in the thick of of this and yeah and in the you know I was the
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kid that plugged that ran upstairs to plug the extension cord into the house to to make sure that the the system was
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had power. So that was so I was you know I was at the the epicenter in the epicenter of all these things. So this
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was risking getting electrocuted. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. To make to make sure that the party
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could come off. Absolutely. And uh it’s just those book you can’t stop won’t stop was such
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an important uh you pretty much are on the forefront to legitimizing
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everything that you encapsulated to it’s undeniably culture when it’s put into
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this form. You can’t deny it when it’s the how you wrote it
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made the others see it. I’ll say that. So, yeah, and that’s really that’s
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really what what the power of that. So, I just had to get that out, man. So, before we jump in to to the deep core of
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of who you are and how you do what you do, let’s let’s talk about the moment
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you realize that culture could change the way a person sees himself.
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Wow. the way that culture could change the way that somebody sees himself. I
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mean, for me, I grew up I grew up on a little island in the middle of the Pacific. I grew up in Aahu uh in
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Honolulu in Hawaii. And um [sighs]9:41
and so my parents weren’t necessarily big on the arts or on music or anything
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like that, but I was. I don’t know. I just came out and I was into it. So we had AM radio and just listening to that
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and particularly like black music on AM radio, you know, like all through the
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70s and and into the 80s and that kind of thing.
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Um, you know, then getting a chance to really understand that there’s different
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forms of it, right? So you’ll hear soul music and R&B and then that kind of
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becomes disco and that becomes and and there’s funk as well of course and then that becomes like reggae like you’re
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hearing reggae in the islands because that’s super huge to this day. Yeah. in the islands. Um that connection
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and that sort of understanding of of colonialism and um you know and
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disenfranchisement and genocide and slavery and all of those kinds of things. And you know so music was always
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a part of I guess who I was and hearing Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and Bunny Wher
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and Jimmy Cliff and all of these folks and going wow like that’s pretty deep
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you know. Um, and it actually relates to some of the
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things that we’re experiencing in the islands, you know, having the land taken away from us, being colonized,
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um, by the Americans and all of that kind of thing. Not having the language for it, but having like the music to express that.
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Absolutely. I think maybe that was the thing, you know, probably when I was just very young listening to all of this music and just soaking it
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all up. And then later on you start realizing, oh that’s because this is
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black freedom culture and this is these are the seeds that have been planted in that going back right
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hundreds upon hundreds of years. Um and and and so through that when hip-hop
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comes along going yeah that’s that’s that’s representing our generation. Yeah, for sure.
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That’s something that, you know, I can get into and that’s what kind of gave me my voice.
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Yeah. You know, much later down the line. Yeah. No, you hit on something that I I actually never thought about until just
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right now. So, every every person um I’m sure generations
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before me, but I can speak to my generation has their own awakening moment with with Bar Marley, right? And
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with Ree. Everybody I know. Wow. Everybody I know has it whenever time it is whether it’s in it’s for me
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it was early on so like um I got exposed you know growing up in the Bronx it’s I mean it’s every large Jamaican
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population right so Right. Absolutely. And so there’s uh you know either in college or some people exposed that way.
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Everybody has a a a Bob Marley experience and everybody has a Michael Jackson experience. Everybody.
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Every single person. So we’re talking so like my daughter my youngest daughter’s 11. She’s in it right now. So like she’s
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die hard Michael Jackson fan and I So I showed her videos of I used to perform
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anybody that came to the house I right in front of the door I’m I’m I’m I’m performing. Everybody who knows me knows
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me. So that so they I showed her videos of me videos of her older si siblings
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and and then some uh imagery of my parents you know Jackson five fans. So
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like Jackson five. Yeah. So that so it’s it’s deep and that that there’s very few people that have that that type of staying power, but
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that’s the that is encapsulated the power of of hip-hop. That’s right. The power of culture, the power
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of music, the power of hip-hop. Yeah. So it’s all it’s all entrenched in there. So and you hit on something else, too, which is a good segue into this
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question. What did Hawaii give you that the mainland tried to take away or
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complicate? I think for me, you know, growing up, I grew up in a very multi-racial family.
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Like I’m Chinese and Native Hawaiian. You know, the Chinese side has been in the islands for seven generations now.
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Eight generations actually if you include like my my nieces and nephews having kids now, right? So,
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um so inner marriage was, you know, was
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just natural, I suppose. Yeah. you know, everybody in the family, there’s so many different folks from
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different backgrounds in the family, like literally I’m related to and that’s kind of how I grew up. And I, you know,
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the extended community, same type of thing. And it’s it’s not to romanticize it too much, but it is to say that like
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when I come when I come to California in the 1980s, I’m like in Berkeley, you
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know, which liberal supposedly liberal type of place. Immediately I’m getting called
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[ __ ] and I’m like, what? What? What is that? what? Yeah. Like you think I’m less than you now?
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And you know that I had to that was a real adjustment um for me. Um
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and you know, you’re 18, you’re trying to figure out who you are anyways. You’re having an identity crisis
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anyways. And so yeah, so for me, like I just it it’s it’s almost kind of corny
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in that way, but it it’s the way that I look at the world, you know? um all these different types of folks
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coming together um and and then you hear each other’s stories and and that’s sort
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of how you grow uh yourself and and to think that there are people out there
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who want to shut all that down, right? Ban can’t stop, won’t stop, or they want
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to like write out history. They want to take down like things in the national parks that are
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talking about the history of slavery or the history of genocide or all those kinds of things. And to think about all
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of that and that’s like the opposite of how I grew up, right? No, but that I mean, here’s the deal, too. The other side of that is
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this and and you know as well as I do. If you want to uh keep a people
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docile, then you you keep them from having the knowledge, right? You you hide the knowledge from which is why if
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you had slaves, you didn’t you ban them from reading. You didn’t want them to get any knowledge. So, this is the the
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the precipice of that. like, okay, well, they know already, but you didn’t see that. You know, like, you know, before a
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picture was worth a thousand words, right? Now, so people can do things. They’re getting away with things on video. So, [laughter]16:00
where does this AI all this stuff? Yeah. It’s so It’s It’s so crazy. It’s so crazy. Yeah. And they ban the drum, right? Like
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they like everything that that that forms the basis of a world view
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that’s opposite from yours, they’re going to try to ban. Yeah. Um because they can’t they can’t
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in their world view they can’t merge with that. It’s inferior to their worldview. So they but the only way that they can
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get rid of it is to try to suppress it. But that just makes it continue in different kinds of ways. Absolutely.
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Um I mean let me [snorts] I’ll just jump to Bruce real quick. Right. There’s this like Bruce fought really hard in Enter
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the Dragon for Enter the Dragon. The movie that he made that shot him to popularity. It was like his last movie. But he
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fought really hard to have these scenes at the beginning of the movie. And if you remember in those scenes, right,
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first he’s like having this sparring match with Sam Hung. [clears throat] He kind of he he beats Samuel Hung with
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the fakest like armbar ever. Um but [laughter] dwell on that is what what
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happens after that, right? He actually he goes and he talks to his sefue, right? His teacher.
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Yeah. And his teacher quizzes him. And then he in turn goes and teaches a student and
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he quizzes his student, right? And that’s like that scene is so important
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because it was so important for Bruce to have it in the movie because it shows the passage of knowledge. Absolutely.
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Like if it were up to if it were up to Hollywood, it’s it would have just been like Bruce just jump just jump and punch and
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kick. Yeah. you know, just like just dribble, you know, just throw your
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football, right? Like, but but Bruce was like, “No, I’m not going to do this movie until you allow me to have this scene.” And in that
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scene, he’s showing like this is what we pass down. We pass down knowledge. And so, you know, just just to rant a little
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bit more, for me to see, you know, martial arts on the White House lawn being trumpeted as this thing
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of aggression. Yeah. right as uh as something of domination,
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right? As opposed to something that’s about self-defense and about pride and about protection.
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Yeah. Right. That’s just and and and all of that
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erasing all of the Asian. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. [laughter]18:27
Was there any Asian on I don’t even know. I don’t even know if there’s anybody on stage who was I didn’t watch so I I have to watch
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better things to do that day. Yeah, absolutely. You know, but yeah, I just was like,
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“Oh, this is how they do us, you know, like and and uh anyway,
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that’s I mean that’s a whole that’s a whole another two-hour conversation.” Uh yeah, and and I I’m gonna come back to
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this because there’s something that you speaking on Bruce, there’s something I’m gonna revisit it because there’s
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some teachings in there that even the hip-hop culture because everybody knows
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that, you know, Bruce is revered in hip-hop culture like to no other like uh
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and but there’s some things that we we we need to do better at. Um but I’m going to revisit that. But right now,
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we’re going to jump into a segment. Yeah, we’re gonna jump into a segment called Code Truths.
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Every story, I’m sorry. Every flavor tells a story. Every story tells a truth. This is cold truth. Presented by
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like a perfect record at the perfect time. Uh if you were in studio, we would
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be tasting sorbet. However, however, through we haven’t gotten the the the taste of visions yet, but when
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[laughter] when that does when that whenever the Jetsons actually becomes real to where you know I was watching
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just the other day. Yeah. Hit the button. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what we’re going to do the the the
20:01
precipice of it is I believe that uh real conversations happen over flavor
20:07
and real time. And so I’m going to ask you a question that is going to uh
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demand your 100% honesty. Uh thus spines
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the cold truth. So I’m going to ask you that question now. The question is this. In your opinion is
20:24
representation enough if the systems behind the screen, the publishing house and the museum university
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and the label stay the same. I’ll react the question cuz I botched it. In your
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opinion, is representation enough if the system behind the screen, the publishing
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house, the museum, the university, and the label stay the same?
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No, absolutely not. I, you know, the [sighs and gasps] I’m trying to think
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about a short way to kind of to to kind of answer this, but maybe I won’t. Um, [clears throat]20:59
you know, the the thing is is Bruce, just as we were just talking about, he
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had to fight tooth and nail with Hollywood to get even these most basic scenes that would illustrate the
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humanity and the reality of how of how
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this culture got perpetuated and became a thing, right? Um, and it’s it was like
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he had to fight all these folks in Hollywood that were just like, “No, we just want to have you kicked.” Like that’s the fun part,
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right? Exactly. You know, [snorts] um, we just want to have you punched. That’s the fun part. Like, we don’t need any of this philosophy stuff.
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But it all comes from something. And that was what Bruce was trying to show was the beauty of Asian fighting arts
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and Asian philosophy. And um, and just to say like, so he
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breaks through, right? He dies. He breaks through. He uh everybody wants more of him.
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Yeah. But he’s dead. He’s gone. But Bruce didn’t do the movie to just popularize
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kung fu, right? He was he had a larger vision. He wanted to have more representations of Asians
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and Asian-Americans, you know, in the media and screen. And it takes us like 50 years
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get to the point where we actually have what I kind of sometimes jokingly with
22:17
friends call like Bruce’s revenge which [laughter] is everything everywhere all at once.
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Michelle Yo, right? He came up in kung fu movies, right? Finally gets to play a role where she
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can demonstrate all of these different things, all of these different ways that she could be living, right? She could be
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a laundromat owner. She could be like a a mother who’s worried about her daughter. She could be like uh a movie
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star. She could be a kung fu star. She could be like all of these things in this movie with this fictional
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premise. Yeah. But it took us like more than 50 years to kind of get to that point, you know, from Bruce’s first like times that he’s
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coming into into Hollywood. So, you know, and even then, right, we still
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don’t have representation in Hollywood. No. Like that was the type of thing where it got green lit because because of of
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literally this upsurge in violence against Asian-Americans. Yep. You know, that’s like that’s the moment where they
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go to the Daniels, I’m sure, where they go, “Oh, yeah, you can make that movie.” Right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Well,
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that’s that’s why that’s why uh to me one of the most impactful it it was an
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impactful movie is But one of the most impactful things in sinners was showing the relationship was showing the
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relationships between the black and the Chinese, right? The black and the Asians because that that to me uh was the story behind
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the story. There was there was so much that [snorts] just having the visuals
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spoke volumes and and it would at least would cause
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cuz Oie have all these other historical things that are in there. So it it at least poses the question to be like,
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okay, what were the relationships like? How was the synergy between specifically
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today when there’s so many wedges that are trying to be driven between coach? It’s it’s crazy. It
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really is crazy. And it’s and the answer is that it was complicated then, right? And it’s complicated now, right? Exactly. the
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whole debate about whether or not the Asian uh characters like
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were like selling out black folks like collaborating with the white folks.
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Like that’s a really interesting debate to me, you know, because it’s it’s complicated for
24:38
Asian-Americans. Like that’s part of what we’re always like fighting against. And there’s a lot of Asian-Americans who
24:44
are just down with blackness until they want to get up with whiteness. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and there’s so many
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different parallels. Yeah. But there’s so many different parallels, too. So, like we were just talking about what So, I grew up when
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watching Kung Fu Theater, right? So, every day, Saturday afternoons and then before
25:02
42nd Street was cleaned up. [laughter] You had the only two types of theaters you had on 42nd Street. That’s it.
25:08
That you you had kung fu theaters or you had, you know, the ones you wasn’t supposed to go into. And so, uh, as a
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kid, Yeah. Yeah. You had you had the porn. Yeah, it was porn city. It was like Yeah, porn city, you had foreign films,
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you had black exploitation, and you have kung fu. So people So people always go, why why do black folks love kung fu
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movies so much? And it’s and the answer is just racial segregation. Like that’s where folks went to the movies. Yeah.
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And after blackportation movies broke in Hollywood, which because Hollywood was
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failing at the time. So they’re like, “Oh, look at these independent black filmmakers like Melvin Boss is making
25:42
some movies. like if we throw a little bit of money in that, we put a little investment, we’ll make a million dollars. Mhm. And then they’re like, “What’s the next
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thing we could do?” Oh, kung fu movies, which is the new that’s again those are the parallels. So, it’s the same it’s
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the same it’s the same plan. Same game plan. Same game plan. It’s the game plan. [clears throat] But the here’s the thing is what I say what
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I try to tell people is like racial segregation is the reason that you have
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like folks like me loving hip hop and folks like Wuang Clan loving kung fu
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movies. Yeah. Right. And so it’s like they want to keep us segregated. They put us in these
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neighborhoods. They make us go to these certain places, right, to to see the films and that kind of thing. we figure
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out what we want to do with that and we always plant the seeds of of our own kind of like rise, right? So that’s a
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fact. So that’s a beautiful thing like racial segregation plants the seeds of its own demise in the culture and the culture is
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where we always get our our clap back. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, that has been cold troops presented by just
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fruit sorbet atilier where the flavors are cold but the conversations are honest. For more info head to
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www.justfruitsbay.com justffruits.com. Okay. You spent your career studying how
26:56
culture moves, right? How sound travels, how images travel, how movements travel,
27:01
how identity gets remixed. Food does the same thing, right? So, a a recipe moves
27:07
through migration, trauma, celebration, adaptation, memory, and survival.
27:13
When you think about your upbringing in Honolulu, what foods carry memory for
27:18
you the same way certain records carry memory? Wow, that’s such a beautiful question.
27:24
Um, yeah, food is a big thing for us in Hawaii, man. Absolutely. It’s so huge. It’s such a huge thing for
27:32
us. And you know, I always point back to like the mixed plate lunch, right? Like just
27:37
Yes. It’s it’s And again, this is something that corny to anybody who comes from Hawaii. It’s like, “Yeah, mixed plate
27:42
lunch, of course, blah, blah, blah.” But I think people are stunned when they realize like if you go and you you go to
27:47
any drive-in, right? Or you go to any kind of uh eery and stuff, and there’s always some sort of a mixed plate, and
27:53
there’s stuff from all these different cultures on the plate, right? So, you’re going to get your protein, which could
27:58
be it could be like Japanese teriyak steak, or it could be um it could be a
28:05
beef stew that’s kind of adapted from, you know, whatever English and uh
28:11
Hawaiian styles and that kind of stuff. And maybe it has a little bit of flavoring and stuff from from Asia as
28:17
well in it, you know. Or you could you could have all these different types of things as your protein. Then you got
28:22
your two uh scoops of rice. Yeah. Then you got your salad.
28:27
You got to have your salad, [laughter] you know, and you could or you could have your fish, right? You could have your pokey, right? Like you could have
28:34
all of these different types of things. And it’s just natural, right? It’s just it’s a thing. It came out really
28:40
literally from the generation that had left the plantation and moved to the city. And they’re like, “Oh man.” Like on the
28:47
plantations, what they used to do was they used to come with these little lunch um tins, you know? They’re like
28:53
little round tins like kind of like them. Yeah. Like dim sum um you know bowls or whatever.
28:58
And people at lunch would like pull them out and they’d share it. They’d sit in a circle and they’re all they’re all from
29:03
different cultures and they would share you know tins with each other. Oh man that’s adobo. Like let’s Yeah, exactly.
29:10
That’s incredible, right? Like or oh that’s sticky rice. Wow, that’s you know Chinese sticky rice. Wow, that’s
29:15
incredible. And oh that’s like that’s that’s Kalúa pig. Kalúa pork. What? you
29:21
know, and people are just and so out of that comes this amazing kind of culture
29:26
and it it’s it’s born of like you were saying it’s born of survival, but it’s also memory and then it’s this shared
29:32
memory that they’re creating with each other, right? It it evokes like where their ancestors might have
29:38
come from, but now they’re sharing this and it creates Absolutely. Absolutely. So that’s why endlessly people in the
29:44
islands can talk about like, oh yeah, what’s the best lunch? Yeah, you know. No, no, that’s fact. Like I know when I
29:49
go I I’ve I’ve so I spent a lot of time in Hawaii all over. So I
29:54
used to work on cruise ships. My halfway point would be Hawaii. I would make sure that was my stop off and I would stay
29:59
for a month. I did that every year for years and then I like to go I take my uh
30:05
you know we go out there with the family. I just love love love. Um there’s you also hit on a huge point
30:13
that most people overlook. The most I aside from the food, the most
30:19
important ingredient in a dining experience is the company that you surround yourself with. Oh, that’s beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
30:26
Absolutely. Because you you know, you can you can shoot a great experience to hell with
30:31
the wrong people. Like, [laughter] Right. Good food taste bad, right?
30:36
Yeah. You can make good food taste bad or you can make you can make some shitty food not so bad with the with the right
30:42
company. Like, you know what? I’ll do this again, you know that’s right. Think about all the all the shitty experiences you had in college with the
30:49
good people like so it’s still a memorable a great memorable experience in your head because of the vibe and so
30:55
that that is one of the most important things um
31:00
in a kitchen you know the person that controls the recipe controls
31:07
the the story right so whatever their adaptation of whatever foods they’re
31:12
cooking they they are the the a orators, if you will, of that story in culture
31:19
right now. Who controls the recipe? Who controls the recipe? Who’s holding the recipe? I mean, it’s still
31:27
Well, this is what I say is is we were talking earlier about like the people
31:32
who are greenlighting our movies and our, you know, whatever our records or
31:38
our books or that kind of stuff. And that hasn’t changed. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re not still
31:45
making the best recipes. Yeah. You know, absolutely. No, I mean I mean and I think food is
31:51
actually like one of the best examples of that because you know you look at these whatever top 100 lists or James
31:57
Beard or all that kind of stuff, right? We’re not eating like goulash. Yeah.
32:02
Expected [laughter] goulash, you know, but it’s not a goulash restaurant that’s like at the top. No. No. And it never been rated.
32:09
It never will be. Yeah. People are paying big bucks to eat our comfort food, man.
32:16
Bro, listen. No, so check this out. I just I was just having this conversation and I called this like backboard like 10
32:23
15 years ago, okay? I said the day that the day I see a
32:28
restaurant in Midtown Manhattan with chitlins on the menu selling them for for $60 a plate, I’m flipping the
32:35
building over. Sure as [ __ ] Sure as [ __ ] So from oxtails to oxtail
32:41
was throwaway money. I mean that was throwaway meat. Like that was something that was a part of a meat plan that just
32:46
take this too. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And right now oxtail poundforpound is
32:52
more than filt. That’s right. That’s right. And it’s 60% bone dishes. It is 60% bone. So I mean [laughter]32:59
it’s ugly eating, right? You have to Yeah. There’s no there’s no classy way to do
33:05
it. It’s the same thing I think about. I think no grown man should drink a drink out of a straw. There’s no You cannot
33:10
look masculine sipping out of a straw. I don’t care what you try. It’s impossible. Next to now it’s that burning your your your psyche too. So
33:17
[laughter] um that’s right. I’ll ask this. That’s real though. That’s so that is so
33:22
real, man. I mean like oxtail, right? Like that’s something that what Jamaicans, you know, car AfroCaribbean
33:30
folks have have a version like we have from from South Southeast China like Filipinos have kare you there’s like
33:38
it’s always the left it’s the last piece. Exactly. And it’s the last piece and now now it’s
33:44
like what 50 bucks 40 50 bucks when you go and the problem is it’s supply and demand. So there’s only one tail per
33:49
cow. Okay. It’s not ox. We don’t have ox in this country. So, let me put that the the news flash to anybody out there
33:55
listening. It’s not ox. We don’t we don’t even know. We’ve never seen an ox in our in our life.
34:00
Those are cowtails. Cowtails does not sound sexy. It’s a marketing choice. It’s [laughter]34:06
it’s a marketing choice. Hey, I’ll give you another little tidbit. Back in the days
34:11
when, you know, cowtail, people be like, “Yeah, exactly.” Okay. Back in was kind of exotic. back in the day like
34:16
at the height like we talking at at uh during the Macho Man Randy Savage height when Slim Gems was the thing, right?
34:23
Okay. They’re they’re trying to make a resurgence. The first ingredient on the label of of those Slim Gems was beef
34:28
lips. Did you know? [laughter] Wow. It was literally the first It was
34:34
literally the first Yeah, it’s No, it’s it’s taken off now. I’m sure I’m sure the recipe hasn’t changed, but
34:39
you know, the wording has, but it [laughter] The wording has What’s the What’s the euphemism for B flips now?
34:46
beef in this flavoring. [laughter]34:53
Exactly. I hear you. Okay. Bruce Lee created his own style like we just talked about because he
34:59
refused to be trapped by tradition. All of the greats operate in the same manner. I believe all the greats operate
35:05
in that same manner. Respecting the traditions but refusing to become frozen by them. Um, do you see
35:13
that to be the case? Is there a through line between uh honoring the the past and tradition,
35:20
but also trying to inject a little bit of ingenuity into it.
35:26
Yeah. And there’s a little bit of of dealing with what you got as well, which is also hip-hop, right?
35:33
Like they take away the music programs, but hey, I still got records and a turntable, so I’m going to fix that. and, you know,
35:39
figure out how to make that an instrument. Um, and change the way that you hear hear music, um, hear records.
35:48
Um, so, you know, Bruce Bruce is somebody that he never
35:54
he could say that he wasn’t ever formally trained uh, uh, to the to the degree that he
36:01
would have gotten like a belt. And now there wasn’t necessarily belts in these schools, but
36:07
there was, you know, there were there were different types of schools and styles that folks uh taught, but he
36:15
never finished a formal course of study, if you want to put it that way. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It was kind of he kind of he kind of
36:21
stopped in in in Wingchun, which is the style of kung fu that he he you know,
36:26
first really learned from Yipman. Um he stopped after like two forms. Um, and
36:33
a little bit of of work on on the wooden dummy, the Wuk Jong. And so, you know, he would say
36:40
to his friends when he was when he was kind of ex he was going to be he was about to be exiled to America. He’ll
36:45
tell his friends, “Yeah, I’m going to go to America and I’m going to be a big kung fu teacher. I’m going to be a seafue.” And they all laughed at him.
36:51
They’re like, “You you barely know any forms.” And so, uh, that caused him to start learning all these other different
36:57
kung fu styles. Yeah. Uh, at that time. And then when he comes to Seattle, he starts studying with
37:02
Japanese Americans and learning like karate and judo and jiu-jitsu and all these other kinds of things. And he
37:08
learns boxing, you know, from from folks. And he learns uh all these other
37:13
kinds of ways of moving your body and and and fighting. And he pulls all that
37:19
stuff together and he mixes it up. Yeah. Right. Um, and out of that he creates he he he
37:26
joins a generation of folks that are kind of creating this new way of thinking about martial arts. So the base
37:33
is still like Asian and Pacific Islander. Yeah. you know, stuff. But to that
37:38
they’ll add like French um savvate, you know, or they’ll add uh you know, the
37:45
foot styles from watching Muhammad Ali videos um or or Jack Dempsey, you know, like
37:50
punching styles from Jack Dempsey and that kind of thing. The base is still um Asian and and that’s what he begins
37:57
to to kind of promote is this mixed type of thing. And so he he gets all these people mad. All these people who run
38:03
these schools where they’re just teaching you one kind of style. Yeah. You know, he gets them really pissed
38:08
off. Uh but what happens of course is out of that,
38:14
you know, like him and his generation of folks, a lot of them are from Hawaii, which is really like in many ways the
38:20
birthplace of what we now know as as mixed martial arts. Mhm.
38:25
Um, you know, they’re doing it two generations before Bruce is, but Bruce’s and his friends are the ones who really
38:32
take it up to the next level. Mhm. Um, and uh, and so that kind of mix,
38:38
right, of tradition you could call it or whatever, like that old knowledge and making it new and
38:44
then making it available to folks and accessible to folks. That’s his innovation. And and I think in a lot of
38:50
ways, you know, that process is just like what happened with hip-hop, right? records,
38:56
right? They’re [snorts] taking like even James Brown, right? James Brown in in, you
39:02
know, 1967 and 1968, he’s listening to all kinds of folks across the diaspora.
39:09
Yeah. And he’s thinking about how that music sounds and how he can bring that into what he’s been doing.
39:15
And that’s where like the funk breaks come from, right? like his innovations from 1969 to like 1972, 1973 that
39:24
creates like all of these other artists that want to pursue the same kind of vibe. Um, and and they’re mixing up like
39:32
Afrouban sounds, Mambbo, and they’re mixing up they’re bringing in like Brazilian samba, and they’re bringing in
39:37
parade music from New Orleans, all these street musics, all these parade musics,
39:42
right? Um, and and it’s it’s a it’s it’s this process of mixing it all up and
39:48
creating something new in the US that that makes it uh makes it possible for
39:55
for then DJ Cool Herk and Dada and and Flash to be able to play all these
40:00
breaks, right? And then people influenced by them like Craft Work. Yeah. you know, from Germany who’s
40:05
influenced by James Brown. Like they’re like recognizing, oh, this is all kind of part of the same thing and they
40:12
create a new cannon of of of beats that then, you know, everybody’s beginning to dance to. Exactly.
40:18
Um, in in that kind of a way, it’s a similar type of process. I saw so many, you know, links between like what was
40:24
happening with Bruce and martial arts and what uh the folks in the Bronx are doing. Absolutely. Hip-hop.
40:30
And it’s it’s the same the same happens in food. So what what you just des what you just described was was a gumbo.
40:39
So so this is so important in all this. Yeah. Yeah. It really is because so I I’m so
40:45
I’m so if I could if I can go back and have conversations I would want to dig into what all of these people were
40:52
eating because there’s all these shared experiences. So I I took for for a lot a
40:57
lot of time I took for granted growing up in New York City because food for me has always been a mixture
41:05
cuz you have cultures from everywhere and it’s just common place that just becomes,
41:10
you know, quintessential New York to me and I thought everywhere was like that until I left, you know, and it’s not,
41:17
you know. So, uh, uh, there’s that. Every culture has a rice dish,
41:24
every culture has a pasta dish, every culture has a chicken dish. The only thing things that change is the method
41:31
of cooking and readily available ingredients. That’s it. The flavors. Yeah. Yeah. The ingredients
41:37
that make the flavors. Yeah. Yep. So, the readily available. So, the spices, the all and the method of cooking, everything else,
41:43
you know, uh, every culture. And so those the food is no different than all of the other arts. And uh it’s it’s uh
41:52
you know, and then you have the one thing that that America’s been great at, and it’s also the thing
41:59
that they’re trying to stifle is America is great at the remix.
42:05
Yeah. Right. And and you don’t get the remix without all the ingredients. You do not get the fortune cookie.
42:12
That’s the which is the American invention. American [laughter] invention in San Francisco. Exactly.
42:18
Go ahead. Break it down. Break it down. You do not get the fortune cookie unless
42:24
you have the Chinese Americans understanding that American pallet
42:30
desires something sweet after their meal. We don’t do desserts typically, but we’re going to we’re going to figure
42:36
something out that is going to be quintessential American, but yet very Chinese. Yes.
42:43
And so and we have those instances throughout time. I mean like the general sauce chicken is not Chinese food in
42:49
China is not how it is here. You know anybody if you’ve ever gone to China is not they don’t know what you’re talking
42:55
about because chopsie is an American invention. What’s that? Yeah. It’s an American invention. Yeah.
43:00
Yeah. These are uniquely American. Taco Bell
43:05
will never exist in Mexico. Not in the sense of we know it, you know. that’s
43:11
not how things are done. But those are American inventions or or or or iterations, if
43:17
you will. Uh and and that’s it’s a necessary thing, but you have to have the people here to
43:25
influence those things or you don’t get that. And and that’s that’s the one thing I think uh and I I wholeheartedly
43:32
believe that food and music are going to be the two major catalystes to eradicate
43:38
all biases because when you have a reverence when you have a reverence for the art forms, uh if you just so happen
43:46
to put a face in a name and have a conversation with people that those things derive from, it’s hard for biases
43:53
to exist in those those realms. You know, that is what’s going to it’s going
44:00
to take hard conversations across the table over
44:05
good food to really understand that we are more alike than different. But it’s the
44:12
differences that make life sweet. I love that. I love that. I also wish
44:18
that I could share like your optim like today I’m sharing your optimism about that. you know that food and music can
44:26
take us there. Um, sometimes I don’t, you know, sometimes I’m like, “Yeah,
44:31
they eat a lot of our food.” No, no, they still get they sure love our martial arts.
44:37
They love all the things our foods, but they, you know, like they they love all the the They want all
44:42
of our rhythm and none of our blues, right? And so, that’s exactly This is I mean, this is what everybody’s been talking about with
44:47
regards to to black music, right? For sure. Black music. I like to say folks to folks, you know, like
44:55
like black music is not part of American music. Black music is American music. In the same way that American martial arts,
45:02
it’s not it’s it’s Asian first. It’s Asian martial arts. A American martial arts is Asian martial arts.
45:09
Um and we, you know, there are contributions from all these other absolutely types of schools. Absolutely.
45:14
But it’s it was put together by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Um, and uh, and so you know what happens
45:22
when going back to this thing like this White House situation,
45:28
you [laughter and gasps] know what I mean? Like $60 million to build this claw. I bet you like I bet you there are maybe
45:34
three or four people of Asian or Pacific Island descent in that entire audience that day.
45:39
Maybe, you know, and in Right. Exactly. And and in the same way like that’s just
45:44
paralleling what we’ve been seeing happening with black music for decades upon decades. They give it new names.
45:50
They I’ll give you one even better, right? I’ll give you one even better. One of the and this it’s a good thing. So the
45:56
first to document it is typically to is going to claim ownership, right? So it’s
46:02
like the race to the patent, right? So food food the French are credited a lot
46:07
with being the uh uh uh the creators of a lot, right? Just because they wrote it
46:14
down. It doesn’t food predates and and cuisine predates
46:22
French being in a society being so like I’m trying to use those words. I’m
46:27
trying to use some nice words. But before [laughter] So the first the first Neanderthought I put a chicken on a put it in the in the in
46:34
the Exactly. It’s it’s it’s stolen. Let’s credit that person. Yeah. But it’s it’s it’s it’s the it’s
46:40
the same [ __ ] playbook. They’ve been running the same playbook forever. Like so, okay, I’m gonna uh Yeah, I’m
46:46
going to take this uh Little Richard’s song, but I’m gonna I’m going because I’m putting it out, I’m going to put me
46:52
as a writer, right? And so because it’s it’s on paper that I’m a writer. That’s right. Yeah.
46:59
The fact of the matter is this. This is the beauty of the arts. There’s five mother sauces. Every sauce
47:05
that you’ve ever had is a derivative of one of the five, right? There’s only 12 musical notes. Every song you’ve ever
47:11
heard in your entire life is a combination of one or many of those 12
47:17
notes. That’s it. So, what you cannot steal is the ingenuity and the creativity. Matter
47:23
of fact, that’s the magic. That’s the magic that we’re talking about. So, yes. People have been fighting forever, but
47:29
you haven’t been fighting stylistically with, you know, I’m going to use your
47:35
your body mass and your energy against you. You just, you know, I’m going to
47:40
use this against you and you’re not going to see it coming because I’m a 100 steps ahead of where
47:46
you you could ever possibly be. Yeah. Those you have to you have to give the
47:52
pink elephant in the room a name. Yeah. and and because when it comes down to the further innovation, you cannot
48:00
innovate something that you don’t understand fully. So then we just get these watered down versions of the So that’s like all these
48:07
new kids that they’re sampling the sample, right? [laughter] They don’t they don’t they don’t know
48:12
where the original You don’t even you don’t know that’s James Brown. You’re sampling Little Yachty thinking that that that’s
48:19
that it’s new. That that is a sample of a sample of a sample. Yeah. That’s the That’s a horrible game
48:25
of telephone. [laughter] That’s not fair to Little Yachty, by the way. No, no, no. I’m not I’m not knocking I’m
48:31
not knocking a little Yachty. I’m not I’m not knocking a little Yachty at all. I’m just saying. But yeah. No, exactly.
48:37
I completely agree with you. I think you’re entirely correct. And that’s where I think like, you know, that
48:42
representation question that you asked earlier is so the code true question is so important, right? Like if if this was
48:49
really a meritocracy, like if the US was really about like putting the best up,
48:54
you know, I’m not even talking about like how you want to judge aesthetically. But if you want to look
49:00
at like who is doing it, it’s people like Ryan Cougler, right? Like people want to see that.
49:06
That’s what people want, right? But it’s all the gatekeepers that are that are standing in the way of a true what if
49:14
you want to call it meritocracy whatever like real equity is I think what we would kind of put it.
49:19
Yeah. Right. [snorts] Um that’s the story that folks loved. Yeah. And that’s the story that everybody
49:26
could see themselves in. [snorts] But that’s not the story that that we get
49:31
from the folks who hold all those all those purses. And and so that’s again why like food is so critical. It’s so
49:38
important. We all got to eat. We’re all doing it every single day. And we’re all much more conversant probably
49:45
food-wise than we are with like the ins and outs of history of black Americans
49:51
and Asian-Americans in the US. Sure. Um, so I agree with I think I I like on
49:57
most days I want to be really optimistic and be like it’s an opening and that’s why we do what we do, right? That’s why you cook. That’s why I write. That’s why
50:04
you know we we do the things that we do. Otherwise, like what would be the point?
50:09
But absolutely, we you know, the hopefulness that that folks will be able to kind of see it at some point is is the real deal.
50:16
I I’m just trying to to to help spread the message. And I know
50:21
you’re not going to you’re not going to get we’re not going to get you’re not going to get everybody, right? But the thing is, there are going to be
50:30
more people than not that once you you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. So once you see it, you can’t unsee it,
50:37
right? Yes. And now it’s a choice. Now you’re choosing to to operate in a falsehood and and and
50:45
to be closed-minded. That’s a choice. Ignorance is a choice. Ignorance is a choice.
50:50
Ignorance is a choice. And so now I just think that they should all wear pink hats with yellow bills. So now
50:57
at least we [laughter] can we can identify them. What we there’s a sense of that. It’s happened already. That’s
51:02
what the MAGA hat is. But but uh you know and thank you. So now I I
51:08
understand now I know how to the enemies you know are the best ones.
51:14
I much rather I much rather which is why I love New York so much. So I listen you
51:19
know where you stand with a New Yorker immediately. Like there’s no gray area. Like you know you know exactly what it
51:25
is. I don’t have time to have to be trying to decipher uh friend or foe, you know, like and so
51:32
let’s I’m cool with that. But now you have to because of that now now we’re playing chess. Now I have to
51:38
to I love the debate. I am I love the hard conversations because specifically when
51:44
I’m operating on fact and you cannot refute the facts. There’s so many of
51:50
them. Okay. uh you let’s just talk about a little bit
51:56
of of accolades and accolades from a sense of utilization
52:02
to do the things that you’ve done. Um is recognition ever complicated when
52:09
your work is rooted in communities that have historic that have been
52:14
historically denied recognition? you you highlight
52:19
Mhm. and and all of your works, marginalized communities that just so happen to have
52:27
these glimmers of greatness that explode. And those are the things
52:33
like Bosot was a graffiti writer, right? Right. It wasn’t until
52:40
he got the co-sign, it’s called a spade a spade. It wasn’t until he got the cosign from Warhol that
52:47
pushes him over the edge. Uh and and he was shunned matter for years. Uh what he
52:55
was doing didn’t matter. And then now Oh, because
53:01
a few a couple of people that you deem to be worthy see his work for something
53:08
grander. Now it’s a thing. That [ __ ] has to stop. M yeah agreed. I totally agree.
53:16
But you know, it’s also so complicated these days, you know, in terms of
53:21
uh trying to to be able to get
53:27
past the gatekeepers. Yeah. In in odd ways, right? on on the one
53:32
hand like we thought we all thought social media and the internet and the would democratize
53:39
folks being able to you know do things and and it did some amazing things like
53:44
a new dance could start up on some block in I don’t know [clears throat] you know like Memphis or whatever and then the
53:50
next day everybody might be doing it but then it makes it also easier and faster to be to be able to bury like the
53:59
the actual folks who came up with that dance. Yeah, exactly. Like like suddenly like some kid in New
54:08
Jersey, you know, is doing it and they’re like, I you know, I’m I’m the
54:13
one who did this. [laughter] You know, they saw those kids in Memphis who were doing it or whatever. Um so I
54:20
mean it’s an ongoing type of it’s an ongoing type of thing. And then the other thing it creates is this recognition, right? is is it creates um
54:30
uh its own kind of uh weather system in a way.
54:35
Yeah. You know, so that you get folks who are are coming out and just like, oh, you know, Bosot, he didn’t do anything.
54:43
He’s like nothing. You know, you know, and and you can understand why, right? Like if like Ramlz used to
54:50
say, “Oh, Boscott’s the one that was anointed by the by the white folks.
54:56
and you know and Romeli was not right and so you can understand like some of where that’s coming from. You can
55:01
understand it from a personal point of view but also from a point of view of like how fair is that that we have to be
55:07
validated [clears throat] from the outside and that kind of thing. That’s why I still love like
55:12
Ryan Ryan’s path Ryan Cougler’s path you know I look at him and I’m just like he came up and he did something that was
55:18
really true for himself. Fruitville Station that was his first movie. Yeah. Great too.
55:24
He’s only been able to and he was like he was green lit by an Asian-American producer, right? An Asian-American and a
55:30
black producer, right? Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bonjovi. Yeah. And um and then from there he was be
55:35
able to build from strength. And that’s sort of the same path that that that Bruce took. So that at some point you’re
55:42
undeniable even when people are continuing to deny. Yeah. You know, you can’t Yeah. You can’t refute. You
55:48
can’t put the genie back in the bottle. You can’t put the genie back like you said. Like you said, exactly.
55:53
Yeah. So crazy. Okay. If if hip hop was born from abandonment and Bruce Lee became a
55:59
symbol for people fighting invisibly, invisibility, sorry. Visibility. Yeah.
56:04
What does it say about the world that our most powerful cultural icons often
56:11
come from people who had to fight just to be seen as human? Right. Right. I think about this all the
56:18
time. I mean, you could tell by the books that I’ve written that I’m drawn to that kind of story, you know, this
56:24
story of the folks who are just completely forgotten or abandoned who still figure
56:29
out how to make an end run and like take it over, right? Yeah. Um, and uh and so yeah, so I think about
56:37
this all the time. I mean, on the one hand, the US loves an underdog. My dad my dad, you know, who like voted for
56:44
statehood. Yeah. Yeah, he was part of the generation that voted for statehood. Like always used to tell me in America
56:51
it’s about the underdog, right? I’d be like, “Dad, who do we cheer for? It’s the Super Bowl. There’s no football team
56:58
in Hawaii. Like, who do we cheer [laughter] for?” He’s all like, “Let’s look at like what the odds are.
57:05
[laughter] Cowboys versus the Steelers.” And the Steelers are not favored. Like, we’re cheering for the Steelers. You
57:10
know [laughter] what I mean? And true underdog story. Yeah. We love an underdog story and we also love to [ __ ]57:17
on the underdogs all the time, right? Like I that that gap I’ve never been able to
57:22
really understand and maybe as long as I can’t understand it is as long as I’ll be writing these kinds of stories. Yeah.
57:27
Um you know the the that’s what you would hope is is that folks
57:34
would want to learn more about it and that’s why you like this again this is why we continue to do what we do.
57:40
Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. Um, if culture is the way a people proves
57:45
they survived, what are we creating right now that will prove we were here and what are we
57:52
consuming that might erase us? Wow, that’s a big one. So, yeah, we
57:57
could we could point to folks like, you know, uh, like Ryan Cougler. We can point to
58:04
um you know uh we can point to writers like Rebecca Sonet, you know, people who
58:11
um are documenting Yeah. what it is that we’re doing to resist, you know.
58:17
Um there’s so many other folks who who are doing it that are so uh important.
58:23
And I think the thing that that I worry that we’ll get all swallowed up by is
58:30
this laziness. to to just people talk a lot about AI these days. I don’t worry
58:36
about AI so much as I worry about like what will it what does it do to
58:44
what does it do to continue to isolate us and to make us not want to engage
58:52
with each other? Like if I were to learn if I were to want to learn how to make a
58:57
gumbo like I could go to to Mr. We call him Mr. Chap
59:03
[laughter] or Mr. Claude or whatever. Yeah. And get gumbo recipe. But if I really wanted to learn it, man,
59:10
I’d be taking a plane out to see you. Yeah. And hang out with you in the kitchen, right? And that’s like that’s someone
59:15
that’s going to stick, right? That’s a different experience. Yeah. Claud and Chad, they don’t know how that thing’s going to taste. You know, they
59:22
might have picked up the median recipe from a hundred gumbo recipes and most of
59:27
them are probably garbage compared to what a fed [laughter] can you make. Yeah. I mean, I know that I know that that’s
59:32
the truth, right? You know, but I think that that’s that’s what I worry about is I worry that that that
59:38
that we’ll continue to take the shortcuts.
59:43
Yeah. You know, but like making community is hard stuff. You know, making a work of
59:49
art is hard stuff. You know, thinking thinking is hard. Critical thinker is hard, right? It’s
59:57
not it’s not like it’s not like just listening to some radio show and just like oh yeah I I know what’s going on
1:00:03
now with the world queuing on. Yeah. [laughter] So it’s it’s that’s the hard stuff and and
1:00:10
that’s where we have to engage each other and we have to debate like you you know you love debating. I love listening
1:00:15
to you debate. Like [laughter] I love your New York energy man. I grew up on a different island but [laughter]1:00:21
I’m I’m feeling it. You know, and that’s what we got to do is we got to have we have to be in engaged with each other to
1:00:27
be able to kind of make it through this this particular period and get to the next one. For sure. For sure. For sure.
1:00:32
All right. Be before I let you go, which reluctantly um we’re going to we’re going to play a little game called the
1:00:40
lightning round. So, I’m going to ask you uh a series of questions and just the first thing that pops to
1:00:46
your head, just just spit it out. Okay. All right. Clear my head. Okay. There you go. Yeah. Wa.
1:00:51
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All [laughter] right, let’s go. Be water, my friend. Okay. Uh
1:00:56
uh, one album every cultural historian should study. H, one album, Ilmatic.
1:01:04
Facts. Okay. Ilmatic. Ilmatic. Do I need to say why? I don’t need to say why. I just I’ll just say Ilmatic.
1:01:10
Okay. All right. Best DJ skill that also applies to life. For those who don’t know, you also was a
1:01:16
DJ. You started as a DJ. I still I DJ in the room like over here by Yeah, I see the turnt. I see the 1200s
1:01:22
back there. [laughter] Yeah, you see them right there. Yeah, I see them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, again,
1:01:28
best DJ skill that also applies to life. I mean, you know, just rocking the crossfader, right? Like just
1:01:34
understanding like how to uh to match match those beats to put these two
1:01:41
records in conversation with each other and uh and like yeah, I mean, I’m I’m
1:01:46
I’m not as much of a scratch DJ as I am a fade DJ. Mhm. Um, and so, you know, no disrespect to
1:01:53
New York DJs, but like I like my non New York DJ. New York DJs just slam the crossfader over. [laughter] I like I
1:01:59
like the long fades like the Chicago DJs, you know, the Detroit DJs, that kind of thing.
1:02:05
I got you. I like that. That’s that’s the thing I like because it’s it’s a metaphor for
1:02:11
for bringing every all these different layers and different things. The way I
1:02:16
like to describe it, man, I’m I’m gonna describe this, right? The way I like to describe it is that poly rhythm is like
1:02:23
a metaphor for life, you know? Like [clears throat] if you got a DJ, there’s like one record which is like a document
1:02:29
of one person, one person’s view of the world and their culture, and you got another record that’s their document of
1:02:35
their worldview and the way they hear the world and their culture. and you get it to to to move like you can move to
1:02:42
either of these beats by themselves, but when you put that all together, that’s gonna activate Yeah.
1:02:47
folks on the dance floor who are then adding their beats and their rhythms and and their worldviews into that. That’s
1:02:53
that’s the juke joint scene in centers, man. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay.
1:02:58
Most underrated element of hip-hop, djing, raking, writing, MCing, or
1:03:04
knowledge? Knowledge. Facts. Easy. That’s easy. Yeah, that’s easy.
1:03:10
Okay. Okay. All right. One food, and you already talked about a dish, but this is a different one. One
1:03:16
food that takes you back to Hawaii that I can get here on on the continent.
1:03:21
Yes. Okay. Cuz I’m going to say this and it it might piss some people off, but you can’t get real pokey on the continent.
1:03:28
It’s not. There’s maybe there’s one or two folks that that can do it, but it’s mostly fake [ __ ] with like
1:03:35
[laughter] edamame and [ __ ] lettuce and all this. Like, [laughter] no, that’s not
1:03:41
it’s not [ __ ] pokey, folks. I’m just telling you. Okay, that’s real. No, that’s real. You could call it pokey, but I mean,
1:03:47
it’s not pokey. So, so uh that does not take me back to Hawaii. [laughter]1:03:53
So, I I love I love that segue to [ __ ] on poker here. I I love [laughter] I mean I’m sorry. I just have to say
1:03:59
no I I I respect it. I respect in the Yeah. In the in the tradition of telling the truth.
1:04:05
Um just letting you know. So uh for me it probably uh ah spam easy.
1:04:11
Oh yeah. Okay. You know like I always get spam and it’s very easy to make. So a great So again spam was invented in
1:04:17
Minnesota. That’s a Minnesota product. Oh okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Minnesota. Yeah for real. They don’t sell it here
1:04:23
but that’s here. We’re selling here. But I mean there was some sort of a conspiracy in the war.
1:04:28
Yeah. It was a commodity 40s to make make spam. I mean maybe there was a hor
1:04:33
the hor military industrial complex eat spam across the Pacific man.
1:04:39
For sure. And that’s it’s the reason why it’s it’s5 $6 a can now which is crazy. So uh and it’s like there’s like 20
1:04:45
there’s like 20 that’s true. There’s like 20 different flavors too. It’s crazy. That’s that’s true. Pineapple. Who the
1:04:51
[ __ ] But who the [ __ ] Who wants turkey spam? I’m me.
1:04:57
Nobody wants turkey. Nobody wants low sodium turkey spam. Get get the [ __ ] Are they making it from turkey beaks? Is
1:05:04
that like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. [laughter] Absolutely. Okay. And finally.
1:05:10
Okay. One word that the current one word for the current state of America.
1:05:17
Okay. I’m gonna say waiting. I think everybody is waiting,
1:05:23
okay, right now for the moment, for the moment that this is that they can get involved in making this turn. I think folks are
1:05:31
are I think our folks are pissed off, you know, I think folks are are done
1:05:38
with this, have been done with all of this [ __ ] for a while. Um, and and I
1:05:44
think that there’s some folks who are out there like, where is everybody? Why aren’t there like more of you at this, you know, this no kings protest or that
1:05:50
kind of thing? And I think folks are waiting for the moment and then when change comes, there’s going to be a lot
1:05:56
of change coming and some of it’s going to be not so good, but hopefully most of it will be
1:06:02
really good. Yeah, it’s it’s got to get worse before it gets better. I mean, this just the way it’s the way history goes. Like
1:06:09
gotta Yeah. No, it’s sad truth. Okay, I got one last final question for you.
1:06:16
Okay. You get one album, one book, one meal, and one person only one
1:06:23
and one person from history at the table. History. Wow. [snorts] What are you choosing?
1:06:30
[ __ ] That’s so hard, dude. That’s really, really hard.
1:06:36
God. God. Oh, man. One album. That’s impossible,
1:06:43
man. You can do it. I believe you. I believe in you. I would say I would say I mean if
1:06:49
there’s one hip-hop record it definitely be balloon mind state by de la So for sure that would be the record.
1:06:55
Although like of late I’ve been listening a lot more to spiritual jazz. So
1:07:01
um yeah maybe maybe like another record to to throw
1:07:07
into that mix would be like I don’t know like a a Wayne Shorter [snorts] collection or something like that. You
1:07:12
are a true true artist [clears throat] trying to sneak two records into this deal. So [laughter]1:07:17
Okay. So, and then one book. How you going to do one book, man? One book, man. One book. Listen, you got
1:07:22
a small backpack. It’s a It’s a It’s a carrier messenger bag. You got one book. What? One book? I
1:07:30
can’t imagine. One book. One freaking book. Um, dude, this is the hardest. This is
1:07:37
the hardest question by far. Um, God, there’s so many books. There’s so
1:07:44
many. Uh, just pick just pick one. One. Okay. One person. It can’t be easier.
1:07:49
One meal. Well, one meal. Did you? Yes. One meal. Mhm. I could do that. I So, I love I love a
1:07:55
good Japanese curry. Could be black curry. Could be like regular [clears throat] curry. Uh, Japanese curry.
1:08:02
Um, it could be a citrusy kind of curry. It could be a super fire curry. It’s any curry. like Japanese curry with rice.
1:08:09
Okay. Is would be my thing. What’s the protein of what’s your protein of choice in that curry? Um in the curry.
1:08:16
Oh, good question. Probably probably tonkatu. Yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. You can’t go wrong with
1:08:22
that. Can’t go wrong with that. Um but I would also good real pokey from the island. [laughter]1:08:27
So, okay. Slipped in two for that one, too. Huh. See? Yeah. You’re consistent. You’re consistent. [laughter]1:08:33
One person from history, huh? Yeah. Oh, yeah. One person from history.
1:08:41
One person from history. Um, you know, I would probably say,
1:08:49
um, I would probably say, okay, so this is
1:08:55
this this is this person. So, probably King Kamehameha the first. And the
1:09:00
reason is is I would really like to talk to him about
1:09:06
about war. Mhm. About unity.
1:09:11
Um about mercy. Um about how to rule, how to think,
1:09:19
um about that. Kamehahha did so much uh in his lifetime. Some of it was not
1:09:25
pretty or beautiful. But I would love to talk to him about that. And I also like to talk to Ladsu.
1:09:31
Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Put another one in there, you know, like how did he come up with his idea, you know, like uh these ideas and how did he think
1:09:38
about like what people needed and what the way was and the DAO and all that stuff like that. So,
1:09:43
okay. And and now we’re back to that album. We’re talk we’re back to the album or to the book.
1:09:49
Was it the book? There’s a book. Oh, you want you want to albums already? You want to give me more
1:09:54
albums? No. No more. Okay. No. Okay. Back to the book. back to the book. If nothing else, give him a right.
1:10:00
Okay. You know what? We’ll go back and we’ll just say like the Dao De Jing because I would say that that book I I
1:10:05
didn’t really really study it until I started doing this book on Bruce. Okay? You know, um the Dao De Jing and it’s
1:10:12
it’s so beautiful. It’s so poetic and there’s so many layers of how to think
1:10:18
about how to live, how to be how to be in relationship with other people, how to be in relationship with nature. Um,
1:10:25
there’s just so much wisdom in, you know, in in those those little like
1:10:31
poems that it never gets old. I I probably read like about seven or eight different
1:10:38
translations of the Dao and some of them um I would love to talk to Ladu and be
1:10:45
like, “Yo, like you know, this person translated you this way like and this person translated
1:10:51
you that way.” Like which one is right thing? And then he and then Loud would probably never neither one of them. Neither either one
1:10:57
of them. He wouldn’t give me a straight answer. He’d be like, you know, just go back in the forest, dude. And
1:11:02
you know, think about it some more. And but yeah, I could probably spend the rest of my life doing that. Yeah. Okay. That’s that’s that’s dope. That’s
1:11:09
dope. All right. Yeah. Everybody that’s under the sound of our voices and I can see your your handsome
1:11:14
face, tell them where they could follow everything you got going on and all the
1:11:20
things. Uh, okay. Uh, thank you. Uh, jeffchang.net,
1:11:26
watermeir.net. Um, and I’m on Substack at zentronics
1:11:33
and I’m on Instagram at Zentronics as well. So, so explain Zentronics. I’m I’m always I
1:11:40
wanted to ask before like I just was a fan of Mantronics and they used to I I used to go uh this is gonna
1:11:46
like love Mantronics. Love this. I’m about to give you I’m about to Yeah. So, I used to go by DJ Zen. Um,
1:11:52
that was my my name. And I don’t really I the honest the honest truth is that I
1:11:58
I loved the name. I just love the name. I didn’t really think about it too much. [laughter] Um, and and I there was the
1:12:05
there was this uh young um Latino uh um
1:12:12
I just there’s no other way to say it. He was like a coke dealer actually [laughter] in DC. And the summer that I went to go
1:12:20
to DC to learn community organizing, he just seemed like the coolest [ __ ] [laughter] I don’t know
1:12:26
why. And I don’t think about him too much now, but I was just like, and you know that and the dude’s name was Zen.
1:12:31
So I was like, um, yeah, you’re you’re a cool ass [ __ ] And I just love
1:12:38
that name, Zen. And so, you know, it came time to get a DJ name. And I was like, “Oh, Mantronics. Zantronics.” And
1:12:45
I was like, “Yeah, it works. That’s perfect. It does work.” So I I love that you were searching for the
1:12:50
politically correct way to say coke dealer. That was a [laughter] pusher and you know he’s probably not
1:12:56
around anymore, man. Doing good [ __ ] Yeah, yeah, it’s a short short lifespan.
1:13:03
I mean, here I was a young community organizer and I was just like this guy’s I was looking up to this drug dealer. I
1:13:09
was like, you know, like 19 20 years old or something like that. So I mean there stories of the hood, you
1:13:15
know, like [laughter] That’s what it is, man. It’s true. I mean, it’s it’s the real
1:13:21
truth. It’s No, it’s facts. It’s facts. All right, man. Uh, listen. Thank you for for for for taking the time. Like,
1:13:28
truly, I’m going to show you how how geeked out. Uh, look at you got the you got the OG.
1:13:33
Oh, no. But and I got I mean, I just highlighted all through this bad boy. Like, I like So, so yeah, yeah, I uh I’m
1:13:41
I’m a geek. I’m a little bit of a geek, but um Yeah, that’s the old school. Thank you. No, for sure. For sure. I
1:13:46
gotta get I’mma get you to to sign on this bad boy. One. I’m gonna run into it to you. I’m gonna follow you up. Well, we we’ll go get some of that
1:13:52
shitty pokies just to Yeah. Just to hang out with you [laughter] and criticize the bad poking.
1:13:58
Absolutely, man. But yeah, thank you for taking the time for this. But this this conversation is exactly why, you know,
1:14:05
this this platform exists because food is not just food. Music is not just music. Culture is not just something we
1:14:11
watch from the sidelines, right? Like culture feeds us. Culture trains us. Culture wounds us. Culture can heal us.
1:14:19
Culture tells us what is possible before the world gives us permission. And this is that’s what you document on a
1:14:25
consistent basis. You’re remind you remind us even through hiphop and through, you know, this work you’re
1:14:31
doing with Bruce, you know, was he was never just a fighter. You know, race was never just a category and storytelling
1:14:38
is never neutral. And so, uh, for everyone listening, make sure to pick up Jeff Chang’s Water Mirror Echo, Bruce
1:14:45
Lee, and The Making of Asia, Asian America. Revisit can’t stop, won’t stop.
1:14:51
I’m a huge fan. Uh, who we be and we going to be all right. Uh, follow Jeff’s
1:14:57
work wherever he writes, speaks, hosts something, and and all the things he’s
1:15:02
building. And as always, this is Taste Music here Food Podcast Show. I am your host, Ed Porter. If you found value in
1:15:09
anything that you heard today, like, comment, [music] follow, tag us all in
1:15:15
it. Um, tell us your favorite shitty poke spot. Uh, and and and Jeff will rip
1:15:20
you a new one. And that’s just the way it go. So, uh, until next time, I’m Ed Porter. Peace.