Filipino DJs 4/11/17

While I was reading this article, I thought it was important that the Filipino DJs were aware that they did not create DJing or hip-hop. It seems like they have a good understanding the of the origins of hip-hop music. One DJ made it clear that they aren’t trying to appropriate the culture. I was extremely intrigued when one of the DJs, Q-Bert, said that whatever he does it to represent the human race, not just the Filipino community. I thought that was interesting because I have noticed that a lot of underground musicians are very prideful of their background and try to represent their culture. I’ve seen this with a few different underground Cambodian rappers and some music artists on YouTube.

I found it interesting that some of the Filipino DJs don’t consider themselves to be Asian. One DJ in particular said that he doesn’t consider Filipinos Asian since their culture was influenced by the Spanish. I can understand why he would think this since their culture is much different than say East Asians. There are various Asian subgroups (i.e. East Asians, South Asians, etc) and each of those have different cultures. I also thought it was interesting that some of the Filipino DJs were feeling negative since some people have no clue who Filipinos are. They said that people often assume they are Chinese or Japanese. I can somewhat relate to this. I identify as Chinese-Cambodian and people (usually non-Asians) assume that I am just Chinese.. Or Filipino when I’m tan. Sometimes when I tell people I’m Cambodian they ask, “what’s that?” There have been times when a white person will stare at me with a confused look on their face and respond with, “I thought Cambodia was in Africa… You don’t look black?” When people say those things it makes me feel that my ethnicity is less important than other ethnicities.