press book PDF
Transcription
press book PDF
CONTACT: ELTON LIN [email protected] WWW.NOTORIOUSMSG.COM THE MSG STORY Rising up from the hard streets of Chinatown, The Notorious MSG are three renegade restaurant workers on a mission to make your ass palpitate with their high-sodium beats. Their gritty sound is a compound of the rawest sounds on the New York City streets, hip-hop and punk rock, through a lens of streetwise Chinese-American tradition. They transcend traditional stereotypes while inventing a style and lexicon all their own. Their stage show, a whirlwind of sound and fury, has reduced women to tears and made grown men incontinent. The Pan-Asian trio’s rise from the kitchens to the stage has been rapid. Since their debut, they’ve received both national and international press from sources such as The New York Times, Blender, GQ Japan, MTV and MTV Asia, Time Out NY, BBC World Radio, URB and Bust. They’ve been interviewed by Cipha Sounds on Sirius Radio’s Shade45, and were featured in documentaries both on CurrentTV and French and German television. They’ve carved a path of destruction with their live shows, all across the US at various colleges and notable venues including Bowery Ballroom, The Knitting Factory, CBGB’s, Joe’s Pub, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and various dates on the 2007 Warped Tour. The MSG’s assault on your senses doesn’t stop with their music: They have garined a cult-like following with their music videos and original web series, “Schoolhousin’. The MSG are currently preparing to release a full-length studio album in early 2011, entitled “Heavy Ghetto”. Your blood pressure will soar. Your ass-hairs will sizzle. This is Chinatown, motherdickers. THE NOTORIOUS MSG Lead vox: Hong Kong Fever, Down-Lo Mein & The Hunan Bomb Guitar: Billie D. Wang Drums: Noodles OFFICIAL WEBSITE www.notoriousmsg.com BUST MAGAZINE APRIL/MAY 2008 Notorious MSG Imagine Run DMC with a splash of Pretty Ricky and some thick Asian accents and you’ve got a good idea of the Notorious MSG sound. Since the release of their 2004 debut album, Die Hungry, they’ve been making fans’ faces hurt from laughing with songs like “Straight out of Canton,” “Dim Sum Girl,” and “No Good Muthabitch.” All emigres from China and Korea who met working in Chinatown’s Kitchens, Hong Kong Fever, 29, Down-Lo Mein, 27, and their late friend Funky Buddha started MSG in 2002. That’s when 60 year-old mentor Angus Wong, a C-town O.G., took them under his wing and taught them everything from the “Beijing Blast” - which the grup describes as a dance move that “summons the sex gods” - to street smarts. After Funky’s untimely death in a food delivery accident in 2005, the group grew to include The Hunan Bomb, 25, guitarist Billie D. Wang, 27, and Noodles, 31, their dick-exposing drummer. It’s not easy being an all-Asian rap group, and the boys address their struggle in their music. “We wrote a song called “Chinatown Hustler” about our struggle to get seen and heard in the music scene,” says Hong Kong, “which doesn’t really take to people that are different, especially Asian people.” Adds Down-Lo: “You don’t typically see Asian people and expect them to be shouting in your face.” Through it all, it’s been Angus Wong’s attitude that continues to inspire them. “He does whatever he wants, he don’t care!” Says Down-Lo. “That’s the kind of attitude we embrace. People don’t give us a chance when they look at us. We just got to say ‘Fuck you’ to them.” Coming out this spring, MSG’s latest EP, 5 Fingers of Revenge, focuses on vengeance and retribution. Hong Kong insists it’s going to be their most “scrotum-smashing offering to date.” Hell-bent on bringing more fun and danger back to popular music, these guys are just the hustlers to do it. BLENDER MAGAZINE JULY 2006 TIME OUT NEW YORK MARCH 2006 Chopshticks The Notorious MSG is not ready to take your order Judging by their outfits—and their name—you might think that the band Notorious MSG is a put-on. Its members (who style themselves as “original Chinatown bad boys”) dress in matching jeans, T-shirts, leather jackets and outrageous, not-so-matching hair. Frontman Hong Kong Fever sports a Dee Dee Ramone bowl cut, while bandmate Down-Lo Mein (“you can call me D-Lo”) favors a jheri-curled mullet. Drummer The Hunan Bomb rocks a semiblowout Afro. Asian immigrants all, they met in the mean kitchens of Chinatown, working as waiters, busboys and delivery guys. Until three years ago, none of them had played music. “We were gangsters,” Hong Kong Fever claims. “Coming here, we decided to turn over a new tea leaf.” Since then, the band has released a single, “The Chinatown Hustle,” featuring couplets like “We can’t be outdone / We come from the ghetto like Sanford and Son.” They also provided the soundtrack for Chinese artist Cao Fei’s video, Hip-Hop, on view at Chelsea’s Lombard-Freid Gallery. While their look veers toward the wacky, there’s a serious side to Notorious MSG: its determination to illuminate the hard lot of Chinese immigrants working in Chinatown’s restaurant underbelly. “Americans don’t know it’s a hard life, very dangerous,” Hong Kong Fever says. MSG’s former drummer was shot to death last year while making a delivery. What’s unclear is whether the motivation was robbery or payback from the group’s gangland past. But the group feels his vulnerability was plain. “They see you on a bicycle,” D-Lo says, “and think you are weak.”—Howard Halle Cao Fei’s Hip-Hop is on view at Lombard-Freid Gallery through April 8. GQ JAPAN OCTOBER 2009 22_23_017992.Heeb11.qxd 8/18/06 2:38 PM Page 22 THE WHOLE MEGILLAH HONORARY HEEB THE NOTORIOUS MSG DELIVERY BOYS ‘N’ THE HOOD BY JESSICA GROSE 22 heebmagazine.com Left to right: Hunan Bomb, Hong Kong Fever and Down-Lo Mein they get serious for a moment to explain the hardships of Asian immigrants in the American workforce. “We thought we were following the American Dream when we came to this country,” Down-Lo says. “But we were just moving from one ghetto to another. It was shocking to see our brothers and sisters in the kitchens [of Chinatown restaurants] with no way out and no respect, making three dollars an hour.” Fever chimes in: “People don’t see [delivery men] as people. It’s like the food just comes like magic.” He throws his leather jacket onto the floor and continues his rant: “But we get just as much discrimination from the music industry. Because we’re Asian, they don’t know where to put us. We’re not here to assimilate. We’re here to tell the story for our people, give them a voice. Our music is the music of the streets.” And, just as Biggie dealt drugs on the streets of Bed-Stuy before hitting it big, MSG did what they had to do to get by on the streets of Chinatown. “When we first came here, we did some not-so-legal things,” Fever admits. “Without the music, we’d be dead by now.” But after that dire pronouncement, he smiles, his prominent canines glistening in the darkness backstage: “But we’re more than entertainers. We’re triple threat motherfuckers!” And he doesn’t mean vegetable, chicken or shrimp. PHOTO COURTESY OF NOTORIOUS MSG The MSG in Notorious MSG stands for Moo Shu Guys, not monosodium glutamate. Yes, the ingredients in this pan-Asian hip-hop trio consist only of natural flavor: Down-Lo Mein comes from Taiwan, Hunan Bomb hails from South Korea and Hong Kong Fever is from, natch, Hong Hong. Each spent years working in the bowels of the Chinese restaurant industry, enduring the typical trials and tribulations of recent Asian immigrants. According to the group’s three members, its song lyrics and MySpace.com profile, MSG is both an outlet for their rage at the system and a tool to raise awareness of the difficulties facing the Asian restaurant worker. But, as you may have guessed, MSG are not hip-hop activists. Channeling Bone Thugs-NHarmony, N.W.A. and Cypress Hill all at once, they are satirists, brilliantly imploding notions of race, ethnicity and the American Dream. At the Knitting Factory’s Tap Bar in Manhattan, the “Original Chinatown Bad Boys” get onto the stage in matching Adidas tracksuits, speaking into the mic in caricatured Asian accents. They are a sight to behold: Fever has the body of Bruce Lee and the haircut of Dee Dee Ramone; Down-Lo’s jherri-curled mullet recalls Eriq La Salle’s wannabe loverboy in Coming to America; and Hunan Bomb’s wild mane of hair and intense demeanor evokes Min-sik Choi’s crazed killer in Oldboy. Not long into the performance, the guys pull out a massive egg roll and light it up like a blunt. The crowd screams in glee. One audience member wears a wife beater proclaiming, “I (heart) Orientals.” When MSG sings, “I will be the one who makes fried rice for you for all eternity,” the group’s rabid fans push their way to the front of the stage in a veritable frenzy. Then come “Dim Sum Girl” with its Motown ballad-style chorus and the anthem “Chinatown Hustler.” Hong Kong Fever, the frontman and resident heartthrob, teases the lusty audience, swapping between faux-innocence and faux-naughtiness. He croons, “I know I’m supposed to be a G, but Gs have feelings too!” and “My heart is a dumpling with no meat inside.” Fever picks one woman from the audience to be his “Dim Sum Girl” and reaches out to hold her hand. Then he grins and shouts, “I might get some ass tonight!” After a few beats, he adds, “This is the Tap Bar, right?” The members of Notorious MSG maintain the Chinatown G shtick backstage, congratulating themselves on a performance that “blows out your ass like spicy beef.” But POPEYE OCTOBER 2006 WOKKING THE WORLD The humanizing and conscious-making impacts of The Notorious MSG. Writer Bernice Yeung rap group—comprised of front man Hong Kong Fever, heartfelt crooner Down Lo-Mein and the silent but strong Hunan Bomb4 — are more accurately likened to Asian American Sidney Poitiers for our post-modern times. The rap group’s socio-political consequence to Asian American identity-making comes, in part, from the members’ humble beginnings in Asia.5 Following the well-documented pattern of 1 Not since Martin Yan have Americans witnessed this rare and effective form of entertainment-cum-culinary cultural diplomacy between Asia and America. 2 It’s possible that the first person to draw this allusion may have posted to the Badminton Central Discussion Forum, www.badmintoncentral.com. 3 With hit songs such as “Straight Outta Canton” and “Chinatown Hustler,” The Notorious MSG deftly capture the ennui and angst experienced by lowwage migrant workers who are constantly overlooked and dismissed by both the corporate entertainment industry and mainstream America at large. Furthermore, the group’s frequent allusions to their sexual conquests and prowess, coupled with their colorful gastronomic analogies for male genitalia (e.g. their “egg rolls”), powerfully counteract decades of Asian male emasculation that have been exacerbated by the Western press and media. See also the entertaining interview with The Notorious MSG from the Web portal the Gothamist, “The Notorious MSG, Original Chinatown Bad Boys,” February 23, 2006. Here’s a snippet: Q: When you’re roaming the streets, what kind of heat do you guys pack? Gas, electric, hot plate? What else do you pack? A: Our most ferocious weapon is the heat that we pack between our legs. Our egg-rolls are like homing missiles, and we have a full-lock on the vagina, captain. 4 These are not, in fact, the performer’s real names. 5 All three men hail from what they call “the ghettoes” of Asia. Before arriving in the United States, Hong Kong Fever, who is originally from Kowloon Bay, admits that he was engaged in some form of criminal behavior that he is now “not proud of.” Down Lo-Mein is from Ping-Tung, Taiwan, where his grandparents ran a prosperous brothel. The Hunan Bomb is a former pit fighter originally from Inchon, South Korea, who developed what is believed to be an unstoppable fighting technique known as the “Kimchee Claw.” The original third member of MSG, Funky Buddha, was also originally from Korea and was rumored to have come from an unsavory background. Funky Buddha was replaced by the Hunan Bomb in October 2005, after Funky Buddha was gunned down in Chinatown. See the TV news report of Funky Buddha’s death on New York 1, accessible on The Notorious MSG’s web site. (There continues to be vigorous debate as to whether or not Funky Buddha’s death is a hoax. But then again, if it was reported on the news, it must be true.) 6 It is rumored that the men of The Notorious MSG were passengers aboard the infamous Golden Venture ship, which smuggled 286 illegal Chinese immigrants in cramped and horrific conditions. 7 E.g. Strain Theory. Look it up, you lazyass. 8 From an interview with The Notorious MSG: HK: When we get here, we discover it is not that easy. You know, we work in the kitchen, we work very hard in the restaurant. We find out about our brothers and sisters getting killed, getting jacked. On the streets. No respect. DLM: ...People treat them like animals. HK: So we find they live like second-class citizens over here. … That become more of our message from our music. To kind of, with our success, we want to give our brothers and sisters in the Chinatown streets, in the ghetto and kitchens all over the world, given them a voice and let their stories be told. … 020 HYPHEN FALL.06 In tapping into the unexplored territory of New York’s Chinatown, The Notorious MSG have come to establish themselves as something of a hip hop tour-de-force, with appearances on MTV and performances at respected New York night clubs such as CBGBs and The Knitting Factory. The group has also been profiled by top media organizations such as BBC’s “The World” and the New York Times,13 which have noted the group’s astonishing Horatio Algiers-like rise from Chinatown pot-scrubbers to a renown and influential musical act.14 Through its compelling music and public presence, the group has brought the plight of Asian immigrant workers, as well as the oft-disregarded potency of Asian male masculinity to the forefront of mainstream Western consciousness. For example, their tremendous fashion sense15 imbues their performance with youth and sex appeal. And the fact that the trio raps and makes statements such as “we fucking rock the bitches when we’re on stage” in hop-socky Chinese accents only adds authenticity to their revolutionary musical work. Indeed, in its continued quest to represent the True Experiences of Asian male workers to a larger audience, The Notorious MSG succeeds in disrupting flawed but persistent stereotypes and discourses about Asian Americans. Despite their notable contributions to American life and culture, however, The Notorious MSG remains dissatisfied with their accomplishments, which perhaps reveals their weakness for over-achieving. In fact, Hong Kong Fever has argued that the group will not feel it has achieved the American Dream until it has helped incorporate Asian Americans fully into mainstream media and entertainment. As he has eloquently stated, “We are here to carve a boothole in the Corporate America. We will carve the boothole bigger and bigger until all of our brothers and sisters can fit there. And it is going to be painful. But they will like it.”16 ≤ There are a lot of stories that have not been told that we want to share with the world. It is a perspective that people have not thought about or even seen. We try to bring that to the surface. There is a lot of, I feel, repression and rage in Chinatown that people, from not being able to express themselves fully. … We try to give that expression in our music. e.g. downing shots of soy sauce and smoking egg rolls. The New York Times keenly notes: “The name Notorious MSG is more than a play on that of the Notorious B.I.G., the 1990’s rapper, and on monosodium glutamate, the flavor enhancer used in some Chinese restaurants; it also serves as an acronym for Moo Shu Guys. The name was adopted, said the former workers at a Chinese restaurant, after a run-in with a customer who had made racist comments. … For reasons they declined to specify, the men would not give their real names or say where they lived; they would say only that they were in their 20’s and sought to make music illuminating the hard-knock life that they and their fellow Chinese immigrants often face.” From Julia Wang, “Their HardKnock Life,” The New York Times, June 11, 2006. 14 Another mainstream news organization, Time Out New York, ran a story entitled “Chopschticks” that stated, “Judging by their outfits—and their name— you might think that the band Notorious MSG is a put-on.” (Clearly, this is not the case.) 15 During their live performances, the men of The Notorious MSG typically remove Red Adidas track suits (or some other fly get-up) to reveal the standard restaurant worker uniform of white shirts and black pants. Hong Kong Fever also boldly sports a bowl cut, Down Lo-Mein wears his hair in well-coiffed jheri curls, and the Hunan Bomb’s mop has a studied, punk rock messiness to it. 16 In Hong Kong Fever’s dialect, “boothole” is interchangeable with “butt hole.” Slang for “street credibility.” Their words, not mine. From “FOB for Life”: it’s getting so damn hot in the kitchen people dissin’ jealous of all the ladies we kissin’ now listen to the funky beats you’re missin’ 9 10 11 PHOTO: COURTESY OF MSG THE SIGNIFICANCE OF The Notorious MSG to Asian America cannot be overstated.1 Though some cultural critics have already begun calling the group the “Asian American Beastie Boys,”2 this descriptor does not begin to accord this bold New York Chinatown rap trio proper respect for its role in challenging racist barriers in mainstream entertainment and revolutionizing Asian American media representation3. Indeed, the charming yet virulent Third World migration to developed countries such as the United States for economic opportunities, these young men, who were all teenagers at the time, boarded a cargo ship to the United States in 1993,6 which is where they reportedly met. Upon landing in New York’s Chinatown, they went out in search of the American Dream. Hong Kong Fever and Down Lo-Mein did as so many other hard-working immigrants do: They took thankless jobs as delivery boys, waiters and chefs at a take-out restaurant in New York’s Chinatown called the Crazy Wok. (The Hunan Bomb initially parted ways with his Chinese friends for a period of time and went back to underground pit fighting, where he was undefeated for many years.) But as a result of experiencing what some scholars have come to call “racial discrimination” and “cultural ignorance,” immigrant life would prove to be challenging for Hong Kong Fever and Down Lo-Mein. Criminology theories7 would predict that the twosome would not be able to resist the call of the criminal underground, and indeed, they could not. Both men joined a Chinatown gang called The Dumpling Killaz, which was known for running the Chinatown mahjong circuit, but they soon discovered that mayhem and destruction did not help them properly express the rage and frustration they felt as disrespected and dehumanized immigrant restaurant workers.8 Though they would eventually stage a violent coup and disband the criminal organization, arguably, it is their experience with gang life that helped the duo establish the necessary “street cred”9 to launch a hip hop group that could garner the respect of an unforgiving multicultural society. Using simple equipment such as the Roland D-20 keyboard and a Tascan 4-track recorder, the musical duo began crafting “deep fried beats”10 and lyrics based on their hardscrabble experiences in the kitchens and alleys of Chinatown.11 The duo eventually recruited their old friend the Hunan Bomb to join them in this new enterprise—one designed to create socio-political calamity through hip hop music and unparalleled acts of on-stage bravado.12 Put your hands together for the boys got the wontons and the baby bok choy Makin’ good food everybody can enjoy From New York city to old Hanoi in my right hand my tek-9 in my left hand my fried rice drink my oolong tea on ice smoke the egg roll oh so nice This scholarly work was originally published in The Journal of Symbolic Eggrolls 12 13 HYPHEN FALL.06 021 WOKKING THE WORLD The humanizing and conscious-making impacts of The Notorious MSG. Writer Bernice Yeung rap group—comprised of front man Hong Kong Fever, heartfelt crooner Down Lo-Mein and the silent but strong Hunan Bomb4 — are more accurately likened to Asian American Sidney Poitiers for our post-modern times. The rap group’s socio-political consequence to Asian American identity-making comes, in part, from the members’ humble beginnings in Asia.5 Following the well-documented pattern of 1 Not since Martin Yan have Americans witnessed this rare and effective form of entertainment-cum-culinary cultural diplomacy between Asia and America. 2 It’s possible that the first person to draw this allusion may have posted to the Badminton Central Discussion Forum, www.badmintoncentral.com. 3 With hit songs such as “Straight Outta Canton” and “Chinatown Hustler,” The Notorious MSG deftly capture the ennui and angst experienced by lowwage migrant workers who are constantly overlooked and dismissed by both the corporate entertainment industry and mainstream America at large. Furthermore, the group’s frequent allusions to their sexual conquests and prowess, coupled with their colorful gastronomic analogies for male genitalia (e.g. their “egg rolls”), powerfully counteract decades of Asian male emasculation that have been exacerbated by the Western press and media. See also the entertaining interview with The Notorious MSG from the Web portal the Gothamist, “The Notorious MSG, Original Chinatown Bad Boys,” February 23, 2006. Here’s a snippet: Q: When you’re roaming the streets, what kind of heat do you guys pack? Gas, electric, hot plate? What else do you pack? A: Our most ferocious weapon is the heat that we pack between our legs. Our egg-rolls are like homing missiles, and we have a full-lock on the vagina, captain. 4 These are not, in fact, the performer’s real names. 5 All three men hail from what they call “the ghettoes” of Asia. Before arriving in the United States, Hong Kong Fever, who is originally from Kowloon Bay, admits that he was engaged in some form of criminal behavior that he is now “not proud of.” Down Lo-Mein is from Ping-Tung, Taiwan, where his grandparents ran a prosperous brothel. The Hunan Bomb is a former pit fighter originally from Inchon, South Korea, who developed what is believed to be an unstoppable fighting technique known as the “Kimchee Claw.” The original third member of MSG, Funky Buddha, was also originally from Korea and was rumored to have come from an unsavory background. Funky Buddha was replaced by the Hunan Bomb in October 2005, after Funky Buddha was gunned down in Chinatown. See the TV news report of Funky Buddha’s death on New York 1, accessible on The Notorious MSG’s web site. (There continues to be vigorous debate as to whether or not Funky Buddha’s death is a hoax. But then again, if it was reported on the news, it must be true.) 6 It is rumored that the men of The Notorious MSG were passengers aboard the infamous Golden Venture ship, which smuggled 286 illegal Chinese immigrants in cramped and horrific conditions. 7 E.g. Strain Theory. Look it up, you lazyass. 8 From an interview with The Notorious MSG: HK: When we get here, we discover it is not that easy. You know, we work in the kitchen, we work very hard in the restaurant. We find out about our brothers and sisters getting killed, getting jacked. On the streets. No respect. DLM: ...People treat them like animals. HK: So we find they live like second-class citizens over here. … That become more of our message from our music. To kind of, with our success, we want to give our brothers and sisters in the Chinatown streets, in the ghetto and kitchens all over the world, given them a voice and let their stories be told. … 020 HYPHEN FALL.06 In tapping into the unexplored territory of New York’s Chinatown, The Notorious MSG have come to establish themselves as something of a hip hop tour-de-force, with appearances on MTV and performances at respected New York night clubs such as CBGBs and The Knitting Factory. The group has also been profiled by top media organizations such as BBC’s “The World” and the New York Times,13 which have noted the group’s astonishing Horatio Algiers-like rise from Chinatown pot-scrubbers to a renown and influential musical act.14 Through its compelling music and public presence, the group has brought the plight of Asian immigrant workers, as well as the oft-disregarded potency of Asian male masculinity to the forefront of mainstream Western consciousness. For example, their tremendous fashion sense15 imbues their performance with youth and sex appeal. And the fact that the trio raps and makes statements such as “we fucking rock the bitches when we’re on stage” in hop-socky Chinese accents only adds authenticity to their revolutionary musical work. Indeed, in its continued quest to represent the True Experiences of Asian male workers to a larger audience, The Notorious MSG succeeds in disrupting flawed but persistent stereotypes and discourses about Asian Americans. Despite their notable contributions to American life and culture, however, The Notorious MSG remains dissatisfied with their accomplishments, which perhaps reveals their weakness for over-achieving. In fact, Hong Kong Fever has argued that the group will not feel it has achieved the American Dream until it has helped incorporate Asian Americans fully into mainstream media and entertainment. As he has eloquently stated, “We are here to carve a boothole in the Corporate America. We will carve the boothole bigger and bigger until all of our brothers and sisters can fit there. And it is going to be painful. But they will like it.”16 ≤ There are a lot of stories that have not been told that we want to share with the world. It is a perspective that people have not thought about or even seen. We try to bring that to the surface. There is a lot of, I feel, repression and rage in Chinatown that people, from not being able to express themselves fully. … We try to give that expression in our music. e.g. downing shots of soy sauce and smoking egg rolls. The New York Times keenly notes: “The name Notorious MSG is more than a play on that of the Notorious B.I.G., the 1990’s rapper, and on monosodium glutamate, the flavor enhancer used in some Chinese restaurants; it also serves as an acronym for Moo Shu Guys. The name was adopted, said the former workers at a Chinese restaurant, after a run-in with a customer who had made racist comments. … For reasons they declined to specify, the men would not give their real names or say where they lived; they would say only that they were in their 20’s and sought to make music illuminating the hard-knock life that they and their fellow Chinese immigrants often face.” From Julia Wang, “Their HardKnock Life,” The New York Times, June 11, 2006. 14 Another mainstream news organization, Time Out New York, ran a story entitled “Chopschticks” that stated, “Judging by their outfits—and their name— you might think that the band Notorious MSG is a put-on.” (Clearly, this is not the case.) 15 During their live performances, the men of The Notorious MSG typically remove Red Adidas track suits (or some other fly get-up) to reveal the standard restaurant worker uniform of white shirts and black pants. Hong Kong Fever also boldly sports a bowl cut, Down Lo-Mein wears his hair in well-coiffed jheri curls, and the Hunan Bomb’s mop has a studied, punk rock messiness to it. 16 In Hong Kong Fever’s dialect, “boothole” is interchangeable with “butt hole.” Slang for “street credibility.” Their words, not mine. From “FOB for Life”: it’s getting so damn hot in the kitchen people dissin’ jealous of all the ladies we kissin’ now listen to the funky beats you’re missin’ 9 10 11 PHOTO: COURTESY OF MSG THE SIGNIFICANCE OF The Notorious MSG to Asian America cannot be overstated.1 Though some cultural critics have already begun calling the group the “Asian American Beastie Boys,”2 this descriptor does not begin to accord this bold New York Chinatown rap trio proper respect for its role in challenging racist barriers in mainstream entertainment and revolutionizing Asian American media representation3. Indeed, the charming yet virulent Third World migration to developed countries such as the United States for economic opportunities, these young men, who were all teenagers at the time, boarded a cargo ship to the United States in 1993,6 which is where they reportedly met. Upon landing in New York’s Chinatown, they went out in search of the American Dream. Hong Kong Fever and Down Lo-Mein did as so many other hard-working immigrants do: They took thankless jobs as delivery boys, waiters and chefs at a take-out restaurant in New York’s Chinatown called the Crazy Wok. (The Hunan Bomb initially parted ways with his Chinese friends for a period of time and went back to underground pit fighting, where he was undefeated for many years.) But as a result of experiencing what some scholars have come to call “racial discrimination” and “cultural ignorance,” immigrant life would prove to be challenging for Hong Kong Fever and Down Lo-Mein. Criminology theories7 would predict that the twosome would not be able to resist the call of the criminal underground, and indeed, they could not. Both men joined a Chinatown gang called The Dumpling Killaz, which was known for running the Chinatown mahjong circuit, but they soon discovered that mayhem and destruction did not help them properly express the rage and frustration they felt as disrespected and dehumanized immigrant restaurant workers.8 Though they would eventually stage a violent coup and disband the criminal organization, arguably, it is their experience with gang life that helped the duo establish the necessary “street cred”9 to launch a hip hop group that could garner the respect of an unforgiving multicultural society. Using simple equipment such as the Roland D-20 keyboard and a Tascan 4-track recorder, the musical duo began crafting “deep fried beats”10 and lyrics based on their hardscrabble experiences in the kitchens and alleys of Chinatown.11 The duo eventually recruited their old friend the Hunan Bomb to join them in this new enterprise—one designed to create socio-political calamity through hip hop music and unparalleled acts of on-stage bravado.12 Put your hands together for the boys got the wontons and the baby bok choy Makin’ good food everybody can enjoy From New York city to old Hanoi in my right hand my tek-9 in my left hand my fried rice drink my oolong tea on ice smoke the egg roll oh so nice This scholarly work was originally published in The Journal of Symbolic Eggrolls 12 13 HYPHEN FALL.06 021 T he showcase promoted a number of underground Asian bands, but most of the audience at the Knitting Factory in TriBeCa on this Sunday night had come out to see a threeman rap group, the Notorious MSG, whose account of an unusual trajectory from the kitchens of Chinatown restaurants to the local stage was the big draw. By 9 p.m., with fists and camcorders raised, the crowd cheered as the group bounded onto the stage. They were outfitted in matching black Adidas tracksuits, sunglasses, and three distinct hairstyles: Jheri-curled mullet, frizzy dreadlocks and bowl cut. Tossing back flasks of soy sauce, they opened with ‘’Straight Out of Canton’’: Just coming out the ghetto with an egg roll Got a .57 magnum feelin loco And you know I never go solo Got your Hunan Bomb and your boy D-lo. In the middle of the song, they stripped down to white tank tops, black pants and aprons, pretty much the universal uniform of restaurant workers -- prompting a chorus of whistles. Between songs, they regaled the crowd with visual gags, like lighting up and smoking a gag egg roll, and with personal tales of heartache over a girl with a dim-sum pushcart. ‘’It was an assault on the senses,’’ said Michael Nuñez, 31, a freelance art producer who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. ‘’Seeing them live, clearly, that is the only way to soak in what MSG are all about.’’ The name Notorious MSG is more than a play on that of the Notorious B.I.G., the 1990’s rapper, and on monosodium glutamate, the flavor enhancer used in some Chinese restaurants; it also serves as an acronym for Moo Shu Guys. The name was adopted, said the former workers at a Chinese restaurant, after a run-in with a customer who had made racist comments. The members of MSG -- who go by Down-Lo Mein, Hong Kong Fever and the Hunan Bomb -- say they first met in 1993 on a ship that smuggled them into the United States, stayed in touch through the network of restaurant jobs in Chinatown and started the band in 2000. For reasons they declined to specify, the men would not give their real names or say where they lived; they would say only that they were in their 20’s and sought to make music illuminating the hard-knock life that they and their fellow Chinese immigrants often face. ‘’When you go to Chinatown, you see all the hustlers out there trying to get by every day, selling fish, DVD’s, bags, make a little cheddar,’’ Hong Kong Fever said. ‘’They call Harlem home of the hustler. Well, Chinatown is the mother to the hustler.’’ JULIA WANG HOUSTON CHRONICLE SEPTEMBER 2007 HOUSTON PRESS SEPTEMBER 2007 SING TAO METRO MAY 2006