Far East Movement is an electro- hop group consisting of four Asian Americans. Their music career is based in LA. The original member Kev nish, Prohgress, and J-splif were good companions in high school and all grew up in LA K-town. They used to play making music in their basement. They started their music career in 2001 making up a group called Emcees Anonymous. They came up with this group name because it would be a disadvantage being an asian group rapping. However, they changed their mind and renamed their group 'Far East Movement' which comes from their song they made.
Their music career started at local clubs and events in downtown L.A. The thriving downtown L.A scene and wide range of various music highly influenced them. Their earlier music style were more based on Hip-hop. While performing at local clubs, however, they tried to find the middle point between their music style and the demand of people coming to clubs. They used to go to clubs and watch people how they reacted to certain musics with different styles and beats. The songs they recently released are the results. They briged the club music and the mainstream of the Hip-hop.
The group pursue the so-called 'free wired' lifestyle. Living a 'free wired' life means constantly staying interactive and living the lifestyle it promotes. The Internet is one of the means to live a free wired life. They blog, upload works they made and interact with people about their musics. In early days they used to make songs and upload on the internet and waited for replys. A single comment praising their music gave them energy to make new songs. Therefore, it can be said that the internet played a significant role in their music career.
Since the advent of the internet the world seemed to connect people around the world, but in some part of the reality it wasn't the case. It is hard to find popular Asian American musicians in the mainstream of the U.S. music industry. Despite this situation, Far East Movement's 'like a G6' peaked the first place on the Billboard chart hot 100 for two weeks and they are the first Asian American musician to top the chart in 46 years. It may be proceeding in a slow pace, however, the society is changing. The internet not only connected people to each other but also made them more open-minded. People began to see the nature rather than streotypes. Music is one of the means that people can freely express themselves regardless who they are, what skin color they have and of other streotypes. Hip-hop and R&B were used to be regarded as musics performed by African Americans. However, the popularity of the Far East Movement's new song proved that our society has become more generous.
In a way, the success of the new song by the FM can be said that it is an another example of the American Dream. For Asian American,however, it is something different from the typical American Dream they had. The typical one is getting good grades, being graduated from prestigious university and getting a promising job. Pushing their daughters and sons to study is a typical scene that can be found in Asian American families. This certainly discourages many talented Asian Americans,who want to be a musician, from following their dreams. I think that also the members of the group went through this kind of suppression.
However, they kept following their dreams and enjoyed what they could do their best. Their independent, go-getter mindset and willingness to break out of the box made themselves live a free wired life and led to success. Now they are trying to make people live a free wired life through their music.“We want people to feel free to 'geek out' however they feel comfortable and stay wired with us whether partying or home online. Live Free and Stay Wired is where is stems from.” said Kev Nish.
From them I've learned that nothing can stop people, who are constantly following their dreams.Well, it is an old clich but this time it came home to my heart. Even though each people has their own dream, there are many people, who live a different life from their dream and live unsatisfied with it. This is because people unconciously accept the limited mind sets and stereotypes from the society, which make them change their choices. If the members of the Far East Movement had submitted to the streotypes, that Asian Rapper cannot become famous, and had chosen a different life, we would not be able to listen to their great music. Nobody knows what will happen in the future. What people do in the present will only determine the future. It is the reason why we should never give up following our dreams and believe in ourselves.
So Live Free and Stay Wired with the Far East Movement.( Sounds like i'm part of their promo team....)
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