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6. After Sa-i-ku: Korean American Hip-Hop since the Rodney King Uprising
- University of Illinois Press
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6. After Sa-i-ku Korean American Hip-Hop since the Rodney King Uprising The fragmentation of Los Angeles society into myriad splinters was made visible to the rest of the world in April 1992, as incessantly looped newsreels put on ignominious display the rioting, burning, and pillaging of South Central and Koreatown. Angelenos commemorated the tenth anniversary of the 1992 riots with multicultural events that symbolized the promises from all fronts to work toward racial and ethnic harmony. In one staged event, three violinists, one black, one Latino, and one Korean American, played Pachelbel ’s Canon in D in a lot in front of a liquor store at the corner of Florence and Normandie avenues, what was ten years ago the epicenter of the riots. A listener commented, “It was so beautiful. . . . The music brought a sense of unity that I haven’t seen in a while.” Another asked rhetorically: “What better way to bring people together than through music?” But the performance of multiculturalism left some Angelenos unmoved. Even as the strains of Pachelbel’s canon mollified a few onlookers, others, like neighborhood resident Howard Mack, expressed doubt that the last ten years have brought about any improvement in interracial relations or the fruition of plans to redevelop the blighted area: “This is [just] Hollywood. . . . Nothing has changed. . . . Why don’t you come here at 6 o’clock, when the sun goes down, and see reality?”1 Not only do such performances mask the lack of real progress in countering the economic and political disempowerment of the area, but it also seems to me that programming old European music for this occasion misses the point. Contrary to its claim to universality, European classical music does not speak for or to the majority of this polyglot population. Rather, the future of race relations rests on the shoulders of the hip-hop generation, on those who i-xii_1-192_Yang.indd 118 1/7/08 9:52:14 AM After Sa-i-ku 119 have grown up taking for granted their fragmented and multihued environment and have devised new idioms with which to communicate across social and spatial boundaries. Even as debates rage on about the positive/negative contributions of hiphop to American culture, there is a general consensus about its origin in black expressive culture and its potential for engaging in political discourse. Writers on hip-hop point to the confluence of technology, commercialization , and the expressive articulation of black identity as the foundation of a significant oppositional practice.2 As hip-hop’s influence spreads, not only within the United States and to other Afrodiasporic communities but also to nonblack and even non-English-speaking cultures, questions inevitably arise: How does hip-hop translate, in terms of language, music, and meaning, into other cultures? Can hip-hop be harnessed to express political and social aspirations that go against the grain of African American experiences, that may even stand in direct opposition to black identity and politics? Is hiphop by nonblacks an authentic cultural expression, or does such borrowing always involve cultural theft? In considering intercultural practices, earlier studies on hip-hop have focused mostly on the question of white appropriation, exploitation, and consumption of black musical forms, remaining firmly wedded to the binary framework of black versus white that informs most histories and analyses of American popular music.3 Yet the intertwined trajectories of popular music and race relations in the United States are propelled increasingly by those who are neither black nor white. Because of the political meanings frequently read into hip-hop, it is an especially illuminating site of interaction for the two racially and socially distinct groups—Koreans and African Americans— who took center stage in the biggest civil uprising in the United States at the end of the twentieth century. Koreans and African Americans in Los Angeles The 1992 acquittal of the police officers charged with the brutal beating of Rodney King sparked a wave of interethnic violence throughout Los Angeles. In African American communities, anger against the police and the judicial system was transferred and redirected against local, predominantly Korean store owners, inciting arson and mass looting of neighborhood businesses. Korean businesses incurred losses of approximately $460 million, more than half of the city’s total property damages.4 The first day of rioting, April 29, christened in Korean as sa-i-ku, marked a turning point in the lives of Korean immigrants. Watching helplessly as i-xii_1-192_Yang.indd 119 1/7/08...