Still, it’s only been in the past few years that artists like Anderson.
It would be careless to document a history of Asian Americans in hip-hop without mentioning figures like Chad Hugo of The Neptunes, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, DJ Qbert and Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Geologic of Blue Scholars, Far East Movement, apl.de.ap of Black Eyed Peas, Awkwafina, Lyrics Born, Guapdad 4000, Jay Park, Raja Kumari, Year of the Ox, Flowsik, Stupid Young, MBNel, China Mac, Cool Calm Pete, P-Lo, Chow Mane, Spence Lee, Bohan Phoenix, Anik Khan, Ted Park, Kid Trunks, Snacky Chan, Bambu, Ruby Ibarra, Rocky Rivera, G Yamazawa, and the entire Beatrock Music roster. Many Asian American rappers have been accepted for their rap purist’s perspective, being mindful of the genre born from Black and brown youth in the South Bronx in the late ‘70s.
To honor AAPI contributions to hip-hop is to understand that our community isn’t a monolith-the genre has produced rappers from many different ethnic backgrounds, who come from cities near hip-hop hubs across America, and are byproducts of the rap eras they came up in.
