“FREAKY” ASIAN AMERICANS, HIP-HOP, AND MUSICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY: AN INTRODUCTION

This introduction uses the life, music, and autobiography of Fresh Kid Ice (from the 2 Live Crew) to frame a central objective in this themed cluster of essays, titled “Asian American Hip-Hop Musical Auto/Biographies,” which extends our understanding of how hip-hop, and more specifically rap, in Asian America are forms of musical autobiography. Along with the contributions in the cluster, this introductory essay begins productive conversations between Asian American studies, hip-hop studies, and life writing studies. Asian American hip-hop musical autobiographies can offer alternative ways for imagining and unsettling a politics of Asian American identity and cultural production in the context of global capitalism, neoliberalism, and hip-hop culture industries as they intersect with Blackness and anti-Blackness, gender, sexuality, multiracial space and place, refugee diasporas, and linguistic expressions.