Why do music?

This piece is merely a short summing-up of some musings I've been having over the past few months, as I've seen my investment - of time, finances, and identity - in music steadily increase. If you're involved in art too, please comment after you read and let me know what motivates you to do your art?

As far as I can tell, the common reasons people commit to a lifestyle in which music - or art of any kind, though music is the field about which I've been thinking the most, as it's also the most personally relevant - takes a high priority, comprise a short list:

1) money - $$$
2) sex - self-explanatory
3) fame - being easily or widely recognized or liked
4) power - becoming credible or well-known enough to be listened to (think Arnold Schwarzenegger - for him, art (acting... of a particular sort) => fame => power)
5) God - for reasons of religious calling or spiritual satisfaction
6) personal artistic satisfaction - you really love your art; you enjoying singing, or acting, etc.
7) being cool - similar to fame, but with more of an edge: being a figure to which others aspire or desire to be like in full or in part.

An 8th category could be "success" - but I'm guessing, when questioned as to the meaning of success, most would answer in some combination of the above 7 categories.

Of course a lot of these could reduce to one another - money leads to power, God leads to personal satisfaction, fame leads to money, being cool leads to sex, and so on. But they are still distinct.

Why think about these categories?

I've been thinking about these categories of motivation as I've been stepping up my own musical output, profile, and aspirations because the question of target is now coming into view: I've started talking to a few small labels, begun thinking about who I want to make music for, why I make music, where I want it to take me - and where I want to take it.

None of these questions can be answered without first knowing, or at least having some sort of handle, on the issue of goals: do I want to reach 5 people, 500, 10 thousand, 50 million? What do I do when I'm reaching them?

When artists catapult to fame without answering these questions, they have public meltdowns, imploding under their own weight: you get a Marilyn Monroe, a Kurt Cobain, a Lindsay Lohan. And so the Korean pop world has a well-covered-up but increasingly alarming pattern of celebrity suicides. People who rise to fame, all the while viewing fame as the ultimate goal, are consumed and spit out by the churning media machines.

But when those who rise to prominence have these questions of goal and drive answered from the start, you get artists like 50 Cent, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and whom it seems like Lady Gaga is becoming: men and women who understood the place for fame and artistic success in a larger picture of personal well-being. They are the ones who managed to use the pop culture/media machine while not succumbing to its ravishes - they may have been used in the process, but it was at least an exchange of sorts, instead of an enslavement.

So, for me, the initial question is: will you pursue music?

It seems that I have answered this question: yes.

The next question: why? And what will you do if - when? - that music becomes something - you become someone - people care about?

Well, let's see:

My self-assessment

1) money - this category is alluring, but ultimately, not a motivating reason. Whether it would be right for me to have significant amounts of money or not is another question: long ago, when I first began making music, I told myself that I would never have music be my primary income stream: I recognized then, as I still do, I think, that relying on the money I make from music is a very quick way to stop enjoying my music. It would be, at least, for me. I think. Whether this is true or not may be up for question in the future: at the moment, however, money is distinctly not the primary motivation for my musical aspirations.

2) sex - nah.

3) fame - This is definitely a highly tempting aspect of musical success, more so than (1) but less than (7). To be well known is intensely appealing to me, for the same reasons, I suspect, that it is to many of people in my generation: popular media has told me, as long as I have been alive, that people who are widely known matter. And hence, I now believe, if I am widely known, I will matter! More well-known, more influential.
As I think about it, I do believe that fame is one of the reasons that I would pursue music. As my rap partner/strategic consultant D-One has often told me: if no one's listening to it, why are you recording it?
There are other motivating reasons - 5-7 being chief for me - for me to pursue music, but I will say this: I hope that my music can become famous among the right circles! They may not be large, and they may not be circles that are well-known, but I do hope that my music will have impact on the right people (finding who the right people are is a topic I want to reserve for a future post - suffice it to say that they don't always look like the people you would have chosen, but they are the people you need to grow to love!). And to do so, it must speak with authority (which I'll touch on next) into at least some group larger than myself.

4) cachet/authority/power - this is part of my hope for music. As I believe my life testifies to, there are deep truths and realities that I believe are important to talk about, bear witness to, experience, and share in community with others - the flip side of this is that there is an intimate privilege in being someone with whom people are willing to open themselves and show vulnerability. In music, especially if you're doing the kind of music that manages to resonate with people on an emotional level, you are given the immense honor of both speaking into people's lives as well as being someone with whom people want to share. This is important to me.

5) God - Is God directing me to do music? I think so. I find personal joy in it (more in 6, below), I find it natural, I believe the music I do is not only in line with my faith, but supplementary to it, and I believe that my music is fundamentally about Truth - which, coincidentally, is another name for God in my understanding. So, yes, 5 is a motivation for my music: To remain a venue for spiritual growth and expression of spiritual truths.

6) personal artistic satisfaction - This is also a high priority for my music. I want to make good music. However, I've realized that I am also fairly satisfied with making a plethora of styles of good music, from love songs to old-school lyrical hip-hop, to contemplative new-school joints, and in between. If I could make a VERY WELL produced Far East Movement/Black Eyed Peas kind of party/club joint, I would be happy with that as well! So, personal satisfaction is a high priority. But I'm also easily satisfied.

7) being cool - I do think that being cool is, well, cool. However, as I consider this category, I also realize that I'm more interested in (4) than in (7): if people will permit me to speak into their lives with some degree of trust, I don't care very much whether it's because I'm considered cool, or if it's because of some other reason. So, I would put down (7), but only as a means to (4), thereby indicating that (7) is not truly a motivation for music, but rather a step to the true motivation, which is (4).

So, it seems as though my answers are: I am pursuing music primarily for reasons of (A) fame (within certain accepted limitations), (B) cachet, (C) personal artistic satisfaction, and (D) I find in it a puzzle piece toward my spiritual calling.

The next question is: what if I could obtain (A), but at the cost of sacrificing (B) and (C)? What if I could obtain only 2 of the 3?


If you're a musician or any manner of artist - which of these categories motivates you? Why? What are your thoughts on this entire topic/issue?

Harvard-Yale / Korean Food in New York

An eventful 7 days transpires in New Haven; old relationships begin anew, rivalries spill over throughout the city, and Korean food threatens to (deliciously) overwhelm a trip to New York. All on this week's episode of

American Dream, Chinese Hero.

...

Tuesday11.17.2009

After kicking it with Christian YV for a long minute, I ran into Living
Water, preparing for the Harvard-Yale jam with Harvard's Under
Construction.


Lookin, soundin like a million bucks.

Friday11.20.2009

After a 2 hour flight delay, Janice touched down into
New Haven safe & sound; To celebrate, we headed to
our old favorite spot for a familiar round of dishes.

Saturday11.21.2009

The morning of The Game dawned cool, bright, and
inspirational. Headed to the Living Water alumni
breakfast, I ran into a familiar and sorely-missed
face around campus.


The #1 JOSH I SKY!!!


What a great triad of alums.

Mel dropped by New Haven. Instead of going to The
Game (good call there...), she and I hung lazily around
my apartment, catching up on life the way we used
to during undergrad days.


Mel has been down with Bustout for a minute now.


After catching up, I walked her over to the Omni, one of New Haven's
hotels. Note that even the telephones are bougie.


!

After dinner, a group of the alums, led by my roommate,
congregated in our apartment to nurse full stomachs and, perhaps,
the traces of wounded pride (Harvard: 14; Yale: 10).


Karin, Yang, Wendo.


Amy, Ben, Victor, Josh.


Jwong and Ray!


Nancy Liang came through to reminisce with me and
give me the lowdown on her career moves... killing
em in the investment game.

Monday11.23.2009


On my way to work out in the Pierson-Davenport
gym, I passed a picture of the PC class of 2008,
including this dashing young fellow. Obviously
headed somewhere smart with his life.

That night, a small group of us congregated at
Enping's house for dinner + a movie.


Andrew and James, the very portrait of mutual
trust.


厨师 Ah Joo... gourmet dumplings.

Tuesday11.24.2009

On a sharp Tuesday morning, D.Chen and I headed into
the City to kick it with assorted NJ/NYC friends.

Hitting the city shortly before noon, we hopped on the
uptown 6 and met up with sgkim at the Met, where
we Saw Culture.




The expansive Egypt room. I was so impressed by the clear, crisp design cues,
which stood in bold contrast to the self-conscious and cluttered layout of the rest
of the museum.




What's that, Stephen?


Yes, adorable.






White = sitting on camel = Wise Man
Black = leading camel = Servant
Not cool, Culture. Mad ignorant.


Famous!


Luminous!


Artist painting art of art!


"Pertti Kekarainen
Finnish, born 1965
TILA (Passage I), 2006
Chromogenic print
...
One of the leading artists of the Helsinki school, a loosely
connected group of photographers associated with Finland's
Academy of Fine Arts, Kakarainen uses the camera to foreground
the process of perception itself. the photographs in his TILA series
are images of architectural spaces-rooms, staircases, doorways,
windows-to which he has added various optical occlusions: extra
shadows, floating spots of color, and larger veils or scrims that
sometimes nearly obscure the original image. These interruptions
in the visual field complicate the act of seeing and encourage a
heightened awareness of the tension between the flatness of the
photograph and the illusion of spatial depth. The Finnish word tila
means many things, from "space" or "place" to "circumstance"
or "state of mind." Kekarainen's gorgeously complex images
convincingly show that the photographic representation of space
is completed in the eye and mind of the viewer."




Detail of above.


Exiting the Met, we motivated our way crosstown via Central Park.


Satchel, corduroy blazer, knit wool tie - vintage
Cashmere scarf - Club Room
Glasses - Bust Out
Shirt - Uniqlo


Midtown Manhattan skyline over Central Park.


Revisiting old haunts.

Hitting 86th and Broadway, we jumped on the 1,
bound for Columbia, where Lucas was lecturing at
4 PM.


Clearly labeled. I appreciate that in a campus.


Waiting around, eating roasted nuts [||] before lecture.

Stephen departed to spend time with an old friend,
David and I sat in on Lucas' lecture, Yoonjoo arrived at
Columbia, and we all linked up for dinner in Ktown at
Kunjip.




SO EXCITED TO FOOD


Yo it is real hard to get D.chen to sit still for a photo.


Dookbaeki bulgolgi, the first time I've had it since the summer in Ilsan.


ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yo


Redmango post-dinner. By this point, my stomach was real insistent.

After we walked Yoonjoo & David to the 34th st 1 train
stop, and made an emergency detour to a certain store,
we saw a large crowd gathering in front of Macy's,
where a large section of the street was cordoned off and,
as we discovered, the site of Thanksgiving Day parade
rehearsals.


Eunju, overcome by excitement and curiosity, hopped on
the barricade to peer inquisitively at the young performers.

After saying goodbye to Eunju & sgkim, I kicked it in
Ktown with Karmen for a little longer, then motivated
my way uptown to Columbia, again, where I hung with
my man Andrew and saw Ji Eun for the first time in 4
years, since we all finished studying in 北京 together.

Super on his grind... real talk, I got to Columbia
around 10 PM, and headed to Lucas' apartment
to spend the night around 2 AM... Andrew was
working on his pset the whole time and kept on
working for hours after I left! Homeboy is really on
track to being an academic baller.

Wednesday11.25.2009

Sleeping in, I woke up in time for lunch with
Andrew & Ji Eun at the only Korean place local to
Columbia, Mill.

I wasn't hungry, having eaten about 3 meals' worth
of bulgolgi and rice the night before, but Ji Eun and
Andrew were having none of it... so they loaded me
down with Bibimbap and a couple pieces of kimbap
from Ji Eun's friend Fei Fei. Thanks guys.






After lunch, I linked up with Lucas again to talk some words for a
brief minute, then we kicked it around campus at Columbia.

Hopping on the downtown 1 around 2:30, I hit Grand Central with
2 minutes to spare for the 2:57 to New Haven.

God's timing truly >>> my own.

YUAG/G-Fid's 21

Join me, if you would, in the contemplation of a thoroughly busying and yet entirely refreshing week(end).

Wednesday11.11.2009


Ms. Lee Philosophises.

Saturday11.14.2009

My parents arrived in town at high noon; realizing that
they had never visited the Yale University Art Gallery,
I gave them a short tour while we waited for the homey
Capt. Joel Lee to arrive in from UMass.


小狗!


Wave 11; it's always amazing to me to see strength and motion
captured in a static medium. This piece embodies so much of what I
consider to be aesthetically pleasing.






三个小孩儿




Reminds me of an enemy from Chrono Trigger.

Sunday11.12.2009

After a sleepless night of sermon preparation and a long day of
fellowship at church, some of the UCW men and I went out to
celebrate Garrett's 21st by eating sushi until we couldn't talk.


Before starting to eat (you do not want to see after).


The ice cream goes down so smooth, it's not as though
it even occupies alimentary space.




In the words of the waitress, upon our fourth round of ice cream,
"So, basically... you want a whole bunch of ice cream."

Go to Sushi Palace on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday; on these three
days, they have in-house green tea ice cream that is super fly.


Digging in.