Music Break: Rapper Rich Brian gets vulnerable about his Asian identity, immigration story

Kimmy Yam for NBC New reports on an Asian American rapper who sings about his immigrant experience:

“The Indonesian-born rapper [Rich Brian] taught himself English through YouTube, mastered dry web humor on Twitter, and discovered the alluring art of hip-hop while in front of his computer screen. . . .  Roughly two years after moving stateside, the artist just concluded `The Sailor’ tour . . . to promote his sophomore album of the same name. The new music is steeped in the weighty themes of Asian identity and the immigrant experience and is, in part, his assessment of his own journey to America. It’s also an ode to those who came before him. . . . In some ways, Rich Brian’s relationship with his heritage largely mirrors the path that so many Asian Americans are familiar with — an initial yearning to be part of a mainstream culture that largely excludes them, a negotiating of different parts of identity, then the eventual arrival at the reclamation of heritage.”

KJ