Hear Sofar’s Asian American & Pacific Islander Voices playlist: Spotify | YouTube
Today marks the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a celebration that comes in the midst of recent unfathomable violence against AAPI people across America. Such violence encourages fear, panic, and retreat from our heritage —but I think our community is stronger than the events that attempt to break our ties.
Here at Sofar, we’ve put together a playlist of AAPI voices from the community. In this playlist, and from these artists, I sense the same desire that I believe drives so many people within our community — the desire to gather people together and celebrate our ties to each other. The songs are oftentimes nostalgic (“u & i” by Scholar & Sierra Lucia), sometimes dance-inducing (“Fear” by Shilpa Ananth), mostly genre-defying (“Wildfeather” by J.B. Boone), and occasionally romantic (“She Loves Me” by Nysza).
The production of art, music, and literature, along with the daily gifts we bring to each other in the form of food, love, and care, give me faith in that solidarity. We live on — and thus, we are meant to live on, together. Over the years, I have begun to hear more and more voices from the AAPI community in the midst of a white-centric music industry. Won’t you celebrate these artists with us?
Words by Young Fenimore Lee
