I couldn’t wait to get out of school, but once I did, I didn’t actually know what I wanted to do with myself. I don’t really know how it happened, but I just started writing music and realized that’s what I wanted to do.
I think it’s our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we’re able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn’s case, we as artists somehow made it ‘cool’ enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
When someone is a musician – trying to make a living off being a public figure – it’s really easy for people to see me as a face on a screen that doesn’t have a personal life.
I think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that’s important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.
Pop artists work really hard, and they might not work for the same things that indie artists do, but they’re still musicians, and they’re still making art.
What I have a problem with is when it becomes another form of tokenization, of shrinking me into a symbol instead of a multilayered, female Asian artist.
Whenever I’ve tried to ingratiate myself to an existing community, I tend to give too much, to become whatever it is they want me to be. It’s something I do automatically – I’ve learnt to immediately adapt.
