Are you 'In the Mix'?

Have you ever noticed those catchy Japanese songs in the background while you’re mindlessly playing video games? Music department assistant professor Noriko Manabe has done more than notice them — she studies them. Along with East Asian studies professors Richard Okada and Cameron Moore, Manabe organized “In the Mix: Asian Pop Music,” a conference at Princeton this Friday and Saturday. Street sat down with Manabe to hear more about the intriguing world of Asian pop music. Be sure to register for the conference online and check out the concert by Japan’s DJ Krush at Terrace Club on Friday. Doors open at 8:00 p.m. with DJ Yori Iinuma opening.

Q: How did the idea for this conference come about?

A: I’m a music professor and an ethnomusicologist, meaning that I actually talk to people in my research, so I’ve spoken to about a hundred different artists in the course of my work. After I had a conversation with Professor Okada about having an Asian pop music conference, I talked to a couple of the contacts I have and a number of them showed interest in my idea.

Q: What are some highlights to look forward to?

A: Well, we ended up bringing DJ Krush over, so that’s very exciting. In general, the idea was to try to put together a conference that would highlight various interests within Asian popular music. As it stands now, I’ve got about 33 speakers from eight different countries representing a lot of different skills, meaning everything from anthropology to globalization, media studies, East Asian studies, history, musicology and linguistics. Our guests are speaking in different panels on Friday and Saturday, and all the major countries in East Asia are being addressed. We also had inquiries from various filmmakers, so we’re showing two documentary films: one on the rock scene in the People’s Republic of China and another on indie rock in Japan. I will be interviewing DJ Krush on Friday afternoon, and we’ll have him give a concert Friday evening at Terrace. At the very end, we’re going to have a demonstration by Tora Taiko, which is the newly formed Princeton Taiko [Japanese drumming] group. We’ll have a workshop for anybody who is interested in learning how to do Taiko. We’ll finish off with a concert by Dzian!, an Asian surf rock group from the University of Virginia. We’ve got about 120 people registered to come, mostly from Princeton, but we have people coming in from Japan and the West Coast. Our speakers really come from everywhere.

Q: Who are some of your favorite artists in the world of Asian pop music?

A: I’m actually doing an article right now on DJ Krush. I like a lot of his stuff. I find him to be quite innovative, and he has a very interesting sensibility about music. Let’s see, what else? Another group is Shonen Knife; they were really famous in the United States because of college radio in Seattle, so Nirvana and Sonic Youth were really into them. They’re three women who were inspired by the Ramones. They’re very intelligent, but I’m not sure if their irony is actually appreciated in the United States. They’re quite ironically intelligent, so I really like what they do. I also actually just went to see Deerhoof in New York and I really like some of their music, though I’m not sure if they count as an Asian group. There’s also a rap group called Rhymester that is very funny.

Q: Do you expect most of the attendees to be Asian or Asian-American?

A: Looking at the attendee list, I’d say that’s not necessarily true. I mean, we didn’t collect race data but just judging from people’s names, I’d say about a third seem to have Asian names but the rest could be from anywhere. You have a number of people who have European-sounding names.

Q: How do video games tie into the rise of Asian popular music?

A: I think a lot of Americans get exposure to Asian popular music through video games, because it’s one way for Japanese popular music artists to incorporate their music into the game. I was a thesis adviser for Julianne Grasso ’10 who will be speaking at the conference about her work studying the music in video games, such as “Final Fantasy” and “Zelda.”

Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Sara Wallace.