Relief concert celebrating Asian American identity live-streams Saturday

To celebrate Asian American Pacific Heritage Month, an eight-hour relief concert is scheduled to be live-streamed Saturday.

The “Identity: Project Blue Marble” concert will be shown 2 p.m. on Amazon Music’s Twitch channel and Amazon Music’s YouTube channel. First launched in 2016, the Identity series is to recognize the diversity of the Asian American and Pacific Islander groups.

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, it’s the first time the concert will be streamed digitally.

The concert will also raise money for the United Way’s COVID-19 community response and recovery funds, in hopes of reaching a goal of $25,000. Proceeds will be used to provide protective gear and food for the community. More than $10,000 has been raised so far.

The line-up features musicians Far East Movement, Miyavi, Raja Kumari, MILCK, Lyrics Born, Yuna, Phum Viphurit, and Jay Park, among others. Special guests, including former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, Jeremy Lin, Ronny Chieng, poet Rupi Kaur and Wong Fu Productions, will be tuning in for public service announcements.

The importance of the series is to find an opportunity to create community among Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and also non-Asian audiences, said Dan Matthews with the Pacific Bridge Arts Foundation, one of the concert organizers.

“We make sure we do to have a variety of acts,” Matthews said. “This is not just Asian Americans, but an opportunity (for all) to come together to celebrate. It is important for this year and other years and make sure we got a diverse lineup.”

Tom Shimura, better known by his stage name Lyrics Born, is a Japanese-American rapper who grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and Berkeley, California and studied at UC Davis. Currently based in the Bay Area, Shimura said he is honored to be a part of line-up for a great cause.

In light of the coronavirus pandemic and the rising xenophobia as a result of misinformation, Shimura said Asian Americans need to be very vocal about offensive or wrongful accusations, and more importantly, to never stop being themselves.

“As people of color, we grapple with our identity every single day,” Shimura said. “Historically we have been omitted from participating in mainstream American life, and I think that we may not realize it or understand it, and we may not admit it, but it affects us in various degrees of traumas associated with that.”

But Shimura said he is happy about the community being able to persevere and help each other. “It is the key to the future. We make sure we protect, encourage and support each other. That’s why I’m so excited about the Identity concert.”

Candace Kwan, a writer based in Seattle, said she appreciates the inclusive line-up and how accessible the event will be.

As a fan of hip-hop group Far East Movement for almost a decade, Kwan said she is proud of them for stepping up and bringing Asian Americans together by creating a platform to share their work. Their company Transparent Arts, which co-organized the concert, focuses a lot on cultivating Asian talent.

“Sometimes, it is up to us as people of color to create our own opportunities,” Kwan said.

In early May, Asian hip-hop and pop collective 88rising hosted the Asian Rising Forever festival, spotlighting Asian talent from around the globe, from Los Angeles to Seoul and Jakarta. All donations went to the civil rights advocacy organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice.

As a artist making music and producing records for almost three decades, Shimura said representation is absolutely necessary.

“It’s also important that we are responsible to create our values in the world as artists,” he said. “It should not be dependent on a larger mainstream machine to create a ‘big break’. It is up to us to expose our talents to the world.”

“Let’s hope that generations to come see more and more of themselves on screen,” Kwan said.

This story was originally published May 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.