Last night was the AM Classic event which I attended and I’m glad I did. There just aren’t enough Asian Americans in mainstream media, and last night I was able to meet and see some of the most amazing Asian American artists around. It’s pretty good to be me for night to say the least.

Well first off I arrived a little early before all the performance which wasn’t too bad all. I got to see some of the artists practice in addition to meeting Direct from Magnetic North. I nearly screamed like a little girl but I was able to keep my composure. Turns out he actually attended our Rebuilding the Bridge event. Originally we wanted Magnetic North to perform at RTB but we thought they were unavailable. You can’t imagine my disappointed when I found out.

Fast forwarding to the performances, I started out in Room 2 to listen to Cynthia Lin. Like I said in my Weekly Music Round Up, she’s similar to Norah Jones. It was very laid back in comparison to the Room 1 where Lyraflip, YouthinAsia and Dumbfoundead were performing. Everyone was quiet, listening in on her bubbly songs about love and life, it was really nice to just sit down and relax because it was going to be the only time for the rest of the night.

I ran back and forth between each room catching short listens of each artist singing various tracks. My gut was telling me to stay in Room 2 because I’m not an avid hip hop fan but the hip hop artists performing were talented (not that I’m surprised). One song in particular that I enjoyed was Dumbfoundead – Internet Pimp. The lyrics were about how he pimps on internet hoes but really in the end his just some guy living in his mom’s house. I couldn’t stop laughing considering I’m an internet geek and he made a lot of references to various things.

Sidenote: I was walking through the crowd to get to the other room and all of a sudden this guy puts up his hand like he wants a high five. I complied considering I love high fives (man he had some soft hands). Little did I know at the time that he was actually one of the performers, Hydroponikz.

Anyways the rest of the night was also very humorous. All the artists managed to be comedic even though they looked very serious at times. When I was listening to Jay Legaspi, he was singing another artist’s song which the crowd knew (except me) and the people behind me started singing along. Apparently they were loud enough for him to hear so Jay Legaspi managed to fit in a random line giving them a shout out causing the crowd to burst into laughter.

Unfortunately, I was unable to stay for the rest of the night (left at 12, event ended at 4AM) but I did manage to catch Deep Foundation, Koba (performed at the AA Film Lab pre 72 hour shootout party) and Hydroponikz (the guy I randomly high fived). Glad I did, because they were all very prideful of being Asian and being a hip hop artist which was what the event was for. They all have some amazing tracks which I couldn’t remember the names to but if your curious check out their Myspace listed on the AM Classic page. They’re definitely worth the listen and if you like them enough, buy their CD. I was only able to buy one (Dumbfoundead) thanks to Hoc because I didn’t have any cash on me whatsoever. Youthinasia asked me to buy one of hers and I felt so bad that I couldn’t. Sorry!

All in all, the night was worthwhile and now I have some new songs to add to my playlist. I always keep saying they should do an Asian artist tour and they finally have through the Asian Hip Hop Summit. Apparently they do it every year and I’m just late. Heh! I’ll be sure to catch it next year around.

For more photos, visit my AM Classic Flickr Album