U. hosts Asian music conference over weekend, drawing more than 30 speakers

The University’s “In the Mix: Asian Pop Music” conference brought together 32 speakers from eight different countries alongside performers, music industry professionals and students from around the world on March 25 and 26.

Uniting academia and pop culture with interdisciplinary subjects such as ethnomusicology and literary studies, the conference aimed to explore how popular East Asian music and artists are perceived by fans, promoters and academics in both real-life and theoretical contexts.

“Academic writing can be quite theoretical, but we wanted to mix this theoretical debate with what actually happens in the field,” said Noriko Manabe, a professor in the music department and one of the conference organizers.

“As an ethnomusicologist you think about music, and also the social context in which the music is played,” Manabe explained.

The conference explored both the modern and the historical, with topics ranging from Japanese protest songs from the 1960s, to the music of video games such as “Final Fantasy” and “The Legend of Zelda” to the role of rap and hip-hop in Chinese and Korean youth culture.

Manabe said that plans had originally been made for a pan-Asian conference, but the focus was later narrowed to East Asia. “There were so many applications for papers that we had to focus on something,” she explained. According to Manabe, there were 80 paper submissions and 121 registered participants, but many others also attended.

Alex Shih ’11, who volunteered at the conference, said he enjoyed the fusion of academia and popular culture and called the experience “really valuable.”

“They talked about Asian-American YouTube celebrities, Asian-Americans who go back to Asia to make their career,” he said. “This is the music I listen to, these are the celebrities I follow in my free time, in my room. And it was interesting to see them in an academic setting.”

The conference highlight was Friday night’s DJ Krush concert at Terrace Club. Despite technical difficulties that postponed the show for an hour and half, the concert opened to an excited crowd.

“Having gone to more than a few shows at Terrace, I can say that I have rarely seen the crowd as pumped as they were on Friday,” Cameron Moore GS, one of the conference organizers and a second year Ph.D. student in the department of East Asian studies, said in an email.

Kelly Shon ’14 said she felt that the audience enjoyed how DJ Krush integrated his Japanese roots into his music, adding that he was more popular with people who are “very into finding their own music.”

“The audience loved DJ Krush. Some people idolized him,” she said. “He’s very different from any other typical DJs that we’re exposed to in America ... There’s more of an artistic feel to it than someone who’s DJ-ing for a dance crowd or a party.”

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Shih said that Asian music was becoming increasingly popular among young Americans, and that he felt the conference was very relevant. “Before, I would sit in my room and wave my hands around to Korean pop music, but I can now go to the Street or hang out with my friends and listen to it ... People are more receptive.”

He attributed the increasing popularity of Asian music to YouTube. “It’s a lot easier for Asian and Asian-American artists to post online, and for us to have access to them,” he explained.

Shon expressed different sentiments. “I don’t think that Asian music is very popular outside the [East] Asian community. Of the Terrace shows I’ve been to, this had the most Asians attending it, but there were many others as well.”

Shih said he had hoped that more undergraduates had known about the conference. “My friends would have been very interested, but they didn’t find out about the panels and workshops.”

Shih also expressed his hope for increased focus on Asian-American studies at Princeton. “It’s cool that people were studying Asian America and the pop culture that a lot of us enjoy,” he said of the conference. “It’s not something that Princeton offers here ... I was talking to a couple of professors from [University of California, Los Angeles] and UC Davis, and they were really surprised that we didn’t have an intro class to Asian-American studies.”

The conference closed with a workshop on Taiko, a traditional form of Japanese drumming, and a performance by the Asian surf rock band Dzian!

Manabe and Moore expressed their gratitude to the speakers and musicians from Japan who attended the conference in spite of the difficulties facing the country after the March 11 tsunami.

“This conference was held at a time that was very difficult for Japan and there was a bit of a time when we were wondering whether DJ Krush could come, as he had relatives and in-laws in the region affected by the tsunami,” Manabe said. “He helped raise awareness about the situation.”

The conference was sponsored by the East Asian Studies Program, the Department of Music, the Council of the Humanities, the Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Program in American Studies, the Center for African American Studies and the Lewis Center for the Arts.