My anger with this topic started with Jay Park. He recently released his first American single, Soju, under Jay-Z's label Roc Nation. And while this is amazing and I am so proud of him, I am very worried. I'm worried about the people who will only listen to his American and English music. The people who will disregard his highly successful career in Korea. The people who will disregard him as a rapper and R&B singer altogether because of the fact that he is Korean. And see it's not just Jay that I worry about. I worry about these things for the other amazing Asian artists I love, like Joji, Rich Brian, NIKI, Keith Ape, Kris Wu, and Higher Brothers.

So many people are probably wondering why I'm worried about these things. Why do I care so much about the popularity of these artists? At the end of the day, I'm not worried about their popularity, I'm worried about why they're not popular. I'm worried about why people aren't listening to them. I noticed a long time ago why people don't listen to these artists and I've waited a long time to really say something about it.

When I found Jay Park, I fell in love with everything he puts out. I love his cringy songs from 2011, his rap and hip-hop vibes on "Worldwide", his R&B vibes on "Everything You Wanted" and everything in between. So I figured that since he has such a wide variety of music, a lot of my friends who listen to artists with similar vibes would like him. What I found was, for lack of a better word, disappointing.

I get it to an extent. You don't like songs you can't sing along to, songs that are in another language. I get it until I see that you're the first person to sing every word of "Despacito" incorrectly. That you still lose your mind when "Gasolina" comes on in the club. Until I see you blasting "I Like It" by Cardi B. Until I see you trying to convince yourself that your hips don't lie just like Shakira's. I got it until I realized that you don't mind songs in another language, you just don't like songs in an Asian language. And you can't bring up "Gangnam Style", more people made fun of "Gangnam Style" than they really enjoyed it. So when I saw that language wasn't the entire problem, I tried getting people to listen to Jay's English songs like "Me Like Yuh" or "On It." People really loved these songs and would ask who the artist was. The second they found out it was Jay, a predominantly Korean artist, they disregarded him.

I soon kept Jay to myself and tried showing people other Asian artists I liked. The one I mentioned the most was Rich Brian, but just like with Jay people wrote him off. The list goes on with the artists I tried to share, but it ended the same every time. People wrote off every Asian artist I showed them, even though they liked the songs or other artists with the same vibe.

I've come to the conclusion that the average American disregards Asian artists and their music, especially if they're trying to make it in the rap/R&B world, not because they don't like the songs, but because they don't like the fact that these artists are Asian. Many people assume these Asian artists can't compete with American artists because they're Asian. Many people assume the songs will be in other languages and they just can't stand that, but again they're the first to sing every word of Despacito wrong.

What makes everything worse is that these same people are praising artists like Nicki Minaj, Migos, Post Malone, and Famous Dex for using Asian themes in their music. Don't get me wrong I like these songs and I think it's great that these artists are using these themes, if they're doing it in a respective manner, meaning they want to show their appreciation for the culture. It's the people who praise these artists for using Asian themes, but disregard artists from Asia, that I have a problem with. You want the culture, but not the people that made it. You try to justify it by saying Asian people are cultural appropriating by wanting to be a rapper or R&B artist. You're not justified with that, especially if you're praising these commercial artists for using Asian themes in nearly every aspect of their music.

At the end of the day if you're not going to accept Asian artists for who they are as a whole, then don't listen to them. If you won't embrace all the Asian-ness that comes with them, don't listen to them. If you disregard these artists completely because they are Asian, then stop listening to the artists who take pieces of Asian culture to use in their music. You don't get to love pieces of a culture without loving the people who created it. You don't get to love an Asian artist if you're not going to embrace the culture that comes with them.