SOLA Network is pleased to release its new series “Artists in Motion.” We hope to platform Asian American Christian artists, as well as encourage all artists to root their identities in Christ and use their callings to share art and truth with the world.
In our first installment, SOLA Network interviews rapper and activist Jason Chu (also stylized jason chu). The two discuss how Jason Chu’s Christian journey impacted his art, how the Asian American church can support artists, and more. Check out their conversation below.
Editor’s Note: Below is an automated transcript of their conversation with very light editing. There may be typos and other discrepancies from the video. You can listen to the audio here.
SOLA Network: Welcome to the SOLA Network. Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with rapper and activist Jason Chu. Jason, it’s a pleasure to meet you.
Jason Chu: Hey, it’s great to be with you, man.
SOLA Network: I’m excited. You come recommended by a mutual friend of ours, who’s an amazing guy. And so yeah, I would love to hear your story about how you became a Christian. What is that journey for you like?
Jason Chu: Yeah, so I grew up in a Christian family. But it was very nominal. They were pretty devout. But I was pretty nominal. And actually, like to me, growing up, Christianity was very much just another thing that you do if you’re a good person I’m saying. You go to school, you work hard. You go, you do Science Olympiad, on Saturday morning, you do SAT, whatever. And then Sunday, you go to church, right. And, I was cool. And that was fun.
But then it was just another burden. It was just another thing on the checklist. And so as I got into high school, and as I had, like more and more things on my checklist, I grew to resent it because it was just another thing that I felt like I was supposed to do, right. And my best friend and business partner, Peter often says should is the weakest word in the English language. Because if somebody says I should do something, that usually means I’m not going to do it, or it means I don’t want to do it, but I feel like I have to.
So in high school, as academics, and as life just got more and more pressing, I grew to resent religion, because I felt like religion was something that was only adding more pressures to my life, and not providing anything, not feeding me, not helping me. So I started skipping church and all that and wound up kind of just entirely, discarding religion because I felt like it was just something that was adding to my burdens.
It was fine at first, but I actually had a very troubled high school time, like I was definitely known in my high school as one of the smartest students, and all this, but I was just constantly feeling overwhelmed. And I think I was, I was very depressed, I was going to counselors and all that therapists, and just nothing was relieving that depression. And then I had this really, really, really difficult period, my senior year of high school, I’d gone through a breakup this summer before. And my whole high school career, I was always, like I said, I was known as one of the top students in my high school, but my senior year, things weren’t hitting the way they were before. And that’s tough, right? Because senior year in high school, you’re already under so many needs to perform right? Get into a school, blah, blah, blah, blah. And things just weren’t hitting. And I came to this moment of feeling like I had nothing to lean on. And I was very depressed.
And I wound up there was this sequence, where I had a couple of failures and rejections, and I wound up in an institution, like in a mental institution, just because my parents were concerned, my teachers were concerned, they were Yo, this isn’t Jason Jason is usually pretty happy, pretty full life pretty, pretty, pretty motivated. And you just seem very lackluster. And so they were worried about my mental health and there are a couple of incidents where just you need to go: this is a crisis point. So I was in a mental institution, and I was just sitting there.
And I remember one night, my second night in there, I was lying on my bed, just looking at the ceiling. And I thought, I’ve tried everything I’ve tried performing for teachers and parents and authority figures. I’ve tried trying to pursue what I thought would bring me joy or meaning and contentment. And none of it brought me anything, all of it just got me to this point to where I’m, strung out and I was stressed. So I thought maybe it’s time to give religion another shot. Maybe if I can’t rely on me and I can’t rely on those around me, what else is there? Maybe there’s God, maybe I can reach out.
I had prayed before but this was like my first prayer from the heart, where I remember just reaching out and saying, Hey God, if you’re out there, I really need something right now. I really need a sign or really need something to show me that I’m going to be okay, that there is meaning in my life. I just remember falling asleep, and then I woke up the next day, and I was just feeling happier. I was just feeling for the first time, I was not alone because you know how it is, like friends and parents and everybody can try as much as they want. But in the end, nobody really knows you. You know, people only know what they see of you.
But I remember waking up and feeling like wow, for the first time ever, I think, I don’t feel alone. And then I just kept following that route and kept following that path. And, and wound up considering some different religions and all that. But in the end, the story of Jesus was pretty powerful, like this idea that God would condescend to become like a human and go through human struggles and feel loneliness, and feel pain and feel confusion. That was incredible to me. And so I think that’s what sort of got me on the path of actually becoming a Christian actually owning the idea of, of seeing myself as somebody who is trying to move through this life in the company of God, and in the direction that I was created to go in. And that changed a lot. And then that’s been my life since.
SOLA Network: Yeah, I think that that empathy that Christ shows us that God empathizes with us is so powerful. And that is a big theme in your music and your activism. Definitely, how did that Christian journey kind of intertwine with your music and your art form?
Jason Chu: So, my mission statement for my music is speaking hope and healing in a broken world. So this is something that you probably know is that I don’t identify publicly as a Christian musician, right. I’m not a worship artist. I’ve got great friends like Uzuhan and Sam Ock, and MC Jin, and people who are very explicit about wanting to make Christian music. I don’t, for a few reasons that we can go into, but what it is for me is just the ethos of the gospel, kind of underlies everything that I do, the ethos of the gospel underlines everything that I do.
So a lot of my music is not at all overtly religious, and that’s a choice because I want my music to be accessible to anybody, regardless of where they’re coming from. You know, I think that oftentimes, one of the best things about the ways that Christianity is branded in this world is it feels like a club. It feels like Christianity, like Christian music, is music for Christians, versus, to me, the music that I make is just something that I want to create for anybody out there whether or not you’re religious, whether or not you Christianity means anything to you.
Because, in reality, right, I think there’s a lot of people in this world who have been very hurt by Christians, or by Christianity. And I very much would rather be on the outside caring for people than on the inside, asking people to come in first, before we can care for you. But with that said, yeah this message of hope, message of healing, message of empathy is something that, to me, is very rooted in the Gospel.
And not only is the music I make rooted in my Christian beliefs, but the fact that I’m doing music at all really comes down to faith, because as an independent artist, over and over again, you’re going to have times when you feel like you can’t keep going. It’s very, very, very difficult to keep putting music out there, and not having a safety net. You know, I never know whether it’s going to work. But because I feel like there is a vocation, there’s a calling here, of me, engaging with certain topics, or me touching the world in a particular way. I’ve been able to keep going, despite setbacks, despite periods of drought. And still it always, somehow in faith, making that new song, putting out this new album, reaching out and trying to do a tour. And God has always sort of brought the rain.
SOLA Network: That perseverance is so difficult and faith plays such a part in that. Your experience as an Asian American growing up in an Asian American church, did that make embracing art easier in some ways or more difficult? How did that kind of play into your growth as an artist?
Jason Chu: A lot of people say like, Oh, it’s harder because a lot of Asian parents don’t understand this or whatever. And I think that’s true. But I think that oftentimes we fall guilty of self-orientalizing. The reality is you look at any Asian heritage culture whether that’s Filipinos, whether that’s Vietnamese, whether that’s Chinese, whether that’s Taiwanese, Japanese, Korean—all of our cultures are incredibly creative. Some of the world’s greatest art historically and contemporarily, has come from Asian cultures.
So I think that a lot of people say like, oh, man Asians aren’t often creative. That’s really just a racist, White supremacist notion of Asianness. Right? Because the reality is like my grandfather was an author, he was a journalist and a scholar. I think there’s so much in our Asian heritage that can help us create and help us become these generative figures.
With that said I do think that the reality is, and this is true for all people of color in America, is that it is, there’s less of a safety net, right? You look at something like right, like Taylor Swift’s father is the majority shareholder in a bank. When she wanted to do music, they had so many family resources put into that. Same thing with Lana Del Rey, same thing with so many people who go into arts with the safety net.
And I think for myself, and for a lot of other people of color that want to become artists and want to become talent, we don’t have that same safety net. We don’t have generational wealth, we don’t have relatives who have connections in the entertainment industry. And so at first it was, I think, a little difficult for my parents, not to encourage me going into it, because actually as Christians they understand the notion of sacrifice. They understand, hey, I’m doing something for the community. And so really, when I started my career, the way they understood it is, it’s the exact same as a missionary is the exact same as somebody going to seminary is that you take a risk, because you feel like you’re called to do something.
But I do think that just in terms of systemic barriers, it was very confusing and very difficult at first. But fortunately Asian American entertainment has been growing. Fortunately, the Asian American community has been building up more and more infrastructure. And a lot of my touring is on the college circuit because there’s this great network of Asian American college student organizations, who be throwing parties. And getting to tap into the community in that way, has been really encouraging that the more and more content I put out, and the longer I’ve been doing this, the more that the community has supported and really embraced it.
And I was just out at dinner last night with a director and with my boy, Alan Z. We put out this new album together, Face Value. And we were just talking about how it’s been so encouraging to see that as we put out more content, the community embraces it and embraces us, and in faith, it’s worked out.
SOLA Network: That that safety net thing is so huge. And in so many ways, part of the vision of SOLA Network is trying to create that Asian American identifying Christian safety net, right, definitely for people beyond just your local church into kind of the wider Asian American community. And I wonder from your experience, now, especially touring and being in all these different places, what are some ways that you think the Asian American church can step up to support new and emerging or existing artists?
Jason Chu: There’s two pieces of this. The first piece is to let people use their gifts. Really let them do it, you know what I’m saying? Like, don’t let them just play piano for offertory or perform a rap at like your youth worship night, but really embrace them as people who have a gift.
If somebody’s got the gift of prophecy, you don’t just let them put that out like, once a year on prophecy night. You encourage it, and you nurture it. If somebody is going to be very studious and wants to become a doctor, you don’t just encourage them to do that on the weekends. You say, Yo, this is your gifting and this is your calling.
Let’s train you in the same way. Like we got to train and prepare musicians and poets and actors and dancers in ways, not just affirming this as a cool little hobby, but affirming that this and I’m not even talking about this on a social level. I’m talking about this on a theological level. Right?
If somebody has a vocation from God, you don’t view it as like a neat little add on or a little side hobby. You view that as nurturing that it’s a charge to the church, because if we want to reach the world, right? If we want to impact the world, if we want to share the gospel with the world, then we don’t encourage our peoples giftings as like something you do, once you’ve studied, once you’ve gotten an A on a test this, this is the fun hobby you have on the side, we encourage that as a calling on their life.
And then the second point that that’s a corollary to that is we got to, we got to compensate people, we got to compensate people fairly, right. We’re all taking in offerings. I know a lot of churches their budgetary situations are different. But in the same way that you pay for good preaching, you pay for good childcare, you pay for good worship leading or good AV or you should similarly affirm these people’s gifts as professional callings. Right, we have to affirm that these are callings that, again, it’s not an augmentation of what we’re doing. It is the calling of the church to go out and live out God’s giftings and God’s charges on our lives.
And so shoot, I don’t know, like how much would it affirm if there’s like a 15 year old out there who is like, Yo, I really love poetry, and I feel like God’s called me to like, write poems about what I see. We have to uplift that as a professional charge. I think that churches in general, perhaps institutions in general, do very bad jobs at helping artists be sustainable. Right?
This isn’t necessarily true for me, because certain boundaries are set, but I have so many Christian artists, friends, Asian American Christian artists, friends, who say like, basically, churches have a bad reputation for asking people to do things for free. Right. And, and and I understand that some of that is due to financial situations, but we have to give generously.
You know, I’m saying in the same way that a pastor or deacon stands up there, and says, Hey as we offer, remember this offering is a gift. Offering is an opportunity to embrace the fact that God has given us richly and so we return that richly. In the exact same way, when the church is putting together the budget line items, are we just gonna hold on and say, Oh, we don’t have enough to fund this program? We don’t have it because we need to do this, this and that?
Or is that another opportunity for you to have faith to give generously and say, Hey yeah, like that 22 year old, who just got out of college and is trying to be a musician, like pay them—iit doesn’t even got to be a lot—let’s pay them 200 bucks a month, and have them like, share and then every quarter, we’ll commission a new song from them. Or that young dude, who’s doing poetry, who’s a slam poet, he’s getting known in the local scene, let’s pay him 300 bucks a quarter. And he’s going to put together a special poem for our Good Friday service and our Easter service and our Christmas service.
If we can do that, how much would that affirm these young artists, while also affirming the priorities of the church that we’re investing, not only in what we’re told the not only in a certain model of Christian ministry, but we are investing our funds and our community’s resources in the places where God is showing fruit?
SOLA Network: You’re talking about affirming that life of the artist, and I think so many churches don’t understand the inner workings of what it means to be an artist, especially the fear and the struggle. But in also many ways, I think the world like you were saying outside of the Church of what it means to be an artist. So often people within the church have this stereotype of what that is like. What would you say to people who don’t know that world—the artists community, the musician community outside of church—what is it they don’t understand that you wish they would understand?
Jason Chu: Yeah, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about the life of an artist or the community of an artist. I think a lot about Christ, and how Christ went to a lot of places that people did not consider good religious places to go. You know, Christ was out there eating dinner with basically like gangsters and thugs—like, tax collectors was basically their version of like, drug dealers. Right? He was out there with, like women who did adult things.
I think so often, the church judges, the judges, I think so often the church judges us by the company we keep versus imagining what it can be like to go and love people and go and relate to people who are not the privileged people of this world. And, and I just think that there’s so much there’s so many spaces where art can be a bridge, right like art is and and for me, you know hip hop hip hop is so religious you look at a chance to rapper or you look at a Kendrick Lamar, or you even look at like people who do not have the cleanest image, but they’re still so interested in redemption, they’re still so interested in in guilt, and in fear and in deliverance and in protection. And I think that so often, we can look at people and assume that we know what’s going on in their lives, when we’re not actually listening to them.
So I think that the church really needs to understand that we are all God’s children, and that there are people out there who are just trying to do the best they can. And our job, at least to me, in my understanding of the Christian life, our job is not to condemn people, our job is for God. Salvation, that song God who got choose to save who got choose to condemn that’s above my paygrade. What I am here to do is to love well, right.
And, and I think that so often we get this twisted view of love. That’s not actually love is manipulation.So often, what I’ve seen, and what I’ve even done myself in my Christian ministry in the past, is, I will love you, if you come to my service, if you come to my outreach service, then oh, then I love on you. If I’m doing an outreach in the streets, and you come up, and you’re willing to pray with me, then I’ll tell you, God loves you. Or, or even something like if you’re ready, if you’re willing to hear that God loves you, then I can give you love. But if that turns you off, then I don’t have anything for you. When the reality is, I mean, like I said, already, so many people have been hurt by the church.
So many people have felt judged by the church, I’ve got so many like friends who have been abused in church, or have been told they didn’t belong? Or I’ve got a lot of queer friends and they have heard so many hateful messages, so many messages of you’re wrong and you’re sinful. And when the reality is we’re all wrong and sinful, right? And the reality is, it’s not on us to judge right, or whatever it is. But I have so many people in my life that have been hurt by religion, that they’re not going to, if you come out and you lead with Hey, brother, can I pray for you? Like, the first thing is like, no, because people prayed for me before have turned out to be very, very, maybe even unintentionally abusive.
One of my slogans is you don’t love people how you want to love; you love people how they’re ready to be loved. Right? And I think that that is something that’s radically changed my understanding of the gospel. And that comes from the Kenotic hymn that comes from this idea that right, Christ came down. When he was equal with God, he did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped and held on to, but rather humbled himself. And is the church ready to humble ourselves? Are we ready to go out and say not like, yo here’s the path to salvation, get on it? Are we ready to go and say, where are you? And how can I come alongside you, in your difficulties and in your pain, and in what you’re going through right now?
SOLA Network: I feel like the niche of being Asian American, as you were mentioning, is something that we’re beginning to embrace now in 2021. In what ways do you feel like being Asian American helps you to be that bridge, not just with other Asian Americans, but with the wider American community?
Jason Chu: Yeah, I mean, I think this is something that I talk about a lot with my artists collaborators, is that we have to love our full selves. And the more we understand ourselves, the more we own our identity, the more we own our background, the better art we can create.
Again, I think about Jesus and Jesus fully owned Jesus Himself. You read the Bible, and in Jesus’s interactions, he was extremely aware, when he spoke with different kinds of people that he was a Jewish man. And that he was from a working class background, he was from a certain neighborhood, even he was from a certain city and his interactions are filled with an awareness of context.
So similarly, for Asian Americans, do we know that we’re Asian American? Do we know what Asian American means? Do we understand that Asian American is an identity with 170 years of history? And then it was created to describe this pan-ethnic experience of being fully belonging to America, but also very much cast as a foreigner as an outsider in America? Do we understand and own all of that? Or are we trying to hide from ourselves?
Are we trying to say, Oh, I’m not Asian, I’m just American? Are we trying to say, Oh, Asian culture is this thing, and American culture is this thing? Or do we understand and own the fullness of being Asian Americans, who are seen as foreign in our own home country, but who also have access to all this culture and heritage from Asia? And do we see ourselves as part of a community?
Or are we at the risk of just saying, Oh I’m not part of that community. This is just me. Because as soon as you do that, I think actually, you’re disregarding something that God gave you. In the same way that like, you look, all of the disciples in the Bible were acutely and Jesus was acutely aware of what all of their stories were. Jesus had super liberal left wing acJewish activists, he had thugs and gangsters, tax collectors, he had women that were very marginalized in that society. The church was founded on Christ relating to people who are marginalized in their society, and not just as individuals, but him understanding what it meant for them in their bodies to be moving around this imperially dominated society.
Who are we in our time to say, Oh, I’m not Asian, I’m just Christian, or even one of the saddest things that happens is because of what I think is an incomplete theology, we say, I’m not Asian American, I’m just a Christian. The Christian identity has replaced other identities but that’s never in the Bible. When you become Christian, it doesn’t replace being Roman, or being Greek or being Jewish, or being anything, male, female. What it does is it sanctifies and it redeems those identities. And if we don’t understand that, then our theology is always going to be incomplete, because we’re going to be constantly trying to discard these gifts that God gave us.
It’s a gift like Sandra Oh said, it’s an honor to be Asian it’s an honor to be a woman. It’s an honor to be poor or wealthy, whoever God created you to be. It’s an honor to be that, and being Christian doesn’t erase those identities. But it lets us use them in ways that heal us. And our for the kingdom.
SOLA Network: I should have worn that shirt; I have that shirt. (Both laugh.) We come back to empathy and curiosity for identity that flows from your own, right now in your progression as an artist, what are the themes and what are the thoughts that are fascinating to you right now that you’ve been digging into?
Jason Chu: The themes that I’ve been digging into as an artist are a lot of identity, a lot of history. I’ve been very obsessed with Asian American history. Recently, this album we put out just last month during AAPI Heritage Month. It’s called Face Value, and it’s 15 tracks that are all about Asian American history, heritage, and culture and figures.
As somebody who grew up listening to hip hop and rap music, I grew up listening to Black people talking about Blackness, talking about the strength that they get from knowing Black history. And I think that an issue is that Blackness is often marginalized and is often oppressed, and is often cast as negative. Asian Americanness is often erased. So the difference is, not only do we need to reclaim a history, we don’t even know our history because it’s never taught to us.
1992, 4.25 the LA Uprising. Japanese American incarceration, Larry Itliong, Filipino laborers striking and forming the first agricultural labor union, Yuri Kochiyama and Grace Lee Boggs and the work that they did with Black communities, the Black Panthers and the Detroit Black community, to in solidarity and to uplift our communities. That was not taught to us unless you have certain mentors and certain figures in your life.
So something that I’ve been very fascinated by recently, is this idea of how do we construct a vision of Asian Americanness that is empowering, and that is richly rooted in what’s come before us. I think a lot about the idea of owning our ancestors’ stories. And by ancestors, I don’t mean biologically because a lot of us, our families came in the 70s in the 80s. But there’s this whole 170 year history from like, 1860 1870, of Asian America, that is also our ancestors in the same way that if you’re Jewish, you see the story of Moses as your story. If you’re Jewish, you see the Holocaust as your story.
There are so many Asian American stories that are ours to own, even if by lineage our family didn’t participate. But that’s still something that our people went through. And if we can own the stories of our people that gives us so much more confidence, so much more resources to draw from when we’re confronting anti-Asian hate. when we’re confronting killings, or shootings, or microaggression or verbal racism on the street. We have 170 years of people who are fighting, who are resisting, who are suing who we’re building, to draw that strength from.
And I think that’s so important for Asian Americans and Asian American Christians, right? Our God is a God of history. Our God is a God who remembers. God isn’t just a God who sees and forgets. God is a God who sees and holds all of our experiences, all of the fullness of our community experiences. It’s so important for us to understand that God wants us to own it.
I’m not saying that everybody has to be like an Asian American studies major. But what I’m saying is that, if that is something that piques your curiosity, that’s not a-theological. There is a theology of history that works to let us dive into it and to see that as part of what God has provided, the goodness that God has given us.
SOLA Network: One of the big things that you’re into is artists encouraging and empowering other artists. What are examples of artists that have encouraged you and how do you try to internalize that and pass that on?
Jason Chu: I’ve got so many artist mentors. I would not be where I am and I definitely would not be still doing music if it weren’t for my mentors. People like Beau Sia, like Ariana Bosco, like Craig Taubman like Ken Fong, like Daniel Lee, like Diana. I have so many mentors who have helped me keep going, who’ve taught me game.
It’s so important for us to find mentorship. In Christian circles, the word is discipleship, right? And discipleship is not something that only has a spiritual connotation. But I think it literally just means student, and I’ve studied at the feet of so many people in generations before. It’s so important to know that that lineage doesn’t just end. I am not the Omega of that; I’m not the apotheosis. I’m just another link in the chain.
So another one of my slogans that I tell often to my close team and my friends is that we’re not the first ones to do this. Anytime somebody tells you, Yo, I’m the first Asian to do this.
I really had a pet peeve in this last year of anti-Asian racism. Too many Asians were saying something like Yo, Asians, we’ve been silent for too long; it’s time for us to finally speak up. And the issue is that I don’t know who you were, but my mentors were never silent. My mentors have been fighting since the 60s, since the 70s. Somebody like Warren Furutani was out there. He founded the Manzanar pilgrimage in the 70s in order for people to reclaim the history of Japanese American incarceration. And so we’re not the first to do it.
We’re also not going to be the last to do it. We’re the ones who are doing it right now so that means we got to do it well, we got to learn from the people who came before us, and we got to be ready to pass the torch forward when that time comes. You know, I still have decades left in this game, but if I take all this wisdom and knowledge from my elders, and then I just hold it, I’m just a dead end, I’m just a cul de sac. That’s not what the game is about. The game is about making a sustainable community going forward into future generations.
SOLA Network: We talk about church and art intersecting. These young artists who are growing up in the Asian American church, maybe similar to you where you’re hurt and, and things by that: what would you say to encourage that 12-13 year old that’s just beginning that journey?
Jason Chu: If there’s a young Asian American artist in the church right now, what I would say is, it’s going to be really hard. That’s the first thing I’m gonna say is that it is not easy. You know, making stuff on its own is not easy. Sharing stuff is not easy. If you share something, and it goes really well, make the next something else that hits that, well, none of it is easy. But that’s just the game. That’s just this journey through life.
Nothing good is easy. Marriage is not easy. Ministry is not easy, school is not easy, family is not easy. Be aware. This is fun, and definitely have fun doing it, but if you really feel that art—whether that’s music, or dance, or painting or anything, digital work—we start doing it because it’s fun, but we don’t stay doing it because it’s fun. We stay doing it because it’s our life goal. It’s our calling on us.
So just make things. Make as much as you can, share as much as you can. And as you go, you’re gonna learn other skills, you’re going to learn how to communicate, how to brand, how to market, how to perform well. But if you’re young, and you’re just starting out, the number one thing is, when it’s fun, and even when it’s not, just keep making things so that you can get to a point where you just keep leveling up your craft.
SOLA Network: SOLA Network also speaks to a lot of older second generation, even first-generation immigrants. My mother-in-law, who’s 70 years old, just learned how to draw. She’s taking drawing classes in her retirement. There’s a lot of Asian Americans older than us that art has been relegated to just something that’s just a hobby. What value would you say is new and emerging art in the lives of 40 year olds, 50 year olds?
Jason Chu: There are two different and related things, there’s art and there’s entertainment. Entertainment to me is you’ve got something that you make, that you think people will like. Art is you’ve got something that you’ve made that you think is true and helpful, whether or not people like it. I think that the beauty of art is that it teaches us to be more honest about what we’re seeing. The beauty of art is that it’s a way of showing people in a beautiful and pleasant way, something true about the world, or at least something true to us.
So if you’re getting into art right now, at whatever stage of life. This is very important: Not everybody’s called to art vocationally. I was just talking about my friend, Paul Dahteh, who’s an incredible violinist that art can be many things for many people. You’re not less of an artist if you’re making your money somewhere else. You’re not less of an artist if you are just practicing it in your own bedroom. You’re less of an artist if you are lying; you’re less of an artist if you’re creating something just because you think it’s gonna get you famous or gonna get you liked, or if you’re pandering. But as long as you’re creating something that is honest, to the degree that you can be, and that is beautiful to the degree that you can make things, then I think that’s good art.
Art, I think fundamentally exists to feed us and feed our community. Not necessarily financially always. But art feeds the soul. My friend, Makoto Fujimura, who is a very well-known fine artist, once said something to me along the lines of other things that answer the question of what is life; art answers the question of why we live. Art exists to give us this beautiful reminder of the journey of life. Art feeds the soul. You know, it’s what Makoto calls creation care.
SOLA Network: Let’s talk about your recent creation, Face Value. As you were putting it together, you kind of had this idea of what it was going to be. But what were some of the surprises that came up in that creation process?
Jason Chu: I think the number one thing that I think of is that we had so many incredible artists join with us to do this. So my friend Alan and I were the co-lead artists, but we had Ronnie Chang and Dante Bosco and Ruby Ibarra and AJ Raphael and Humble the Poet and, and we had almost 15 features on this record.
The best thing was pulling together this community of artists who wanted to create together. Going in, we knew if we’re telling the Asian American story, Face Value is 15 tracks, every one on a different subject from Asian American history, whether that was legal challenges, whether that was a yellow peril, model minority, martial arts we’ve got all these different themes. And we knew that we could not speak for the community, right? If I think you got to be very skeptical anytime somebody says I speak for the community. But we got to speak with the community. We had women and men, South Asian, Southeast Asian East Asian Americans, all coming together to paint a little bit of a portrait of 170 years of Asian American history. And so that was the biggest pleasant surprise was that so many top-tier people were down to lend their voices and lend their words to this album. Because starting out you always gotta wonder yo I’ve got friends out there, but I don’t know if they’d be into this. But we had so many. Literally like Ronnie was, I think he was in Hawaii shooting for young rock, or this new Doogie Howser series. And he was literally in his trailer recording a monologue for us and sending it over to us to get mixed and mastered. And Dante was on set. But they all were like, Yo, this is a meaningful project yeah, of course, I’d be a part of it.
SOLA Network: In your individual faith and life, how did this project kind of shine a light? We talked about knowing yourself. I feel like every time you make a new piece of art, you’re like, I know myself, and then you’re like, Oh, I didn’t know. Like, I didn’t know this part of me. How do you think that this record kind of helped you to discover things about who you are?
Jason Chu: My academic mentor, Dr. Daniel D. Lee, at Fuller Seminary. We talk so much about Asian American history and Asian American theology, that going into it, I think I had a lot of ideas. And I already knew a lot of the raw material. But what was really interesting is when you try, right, the process of art is you take all these ideas in these facts, and then try to make it beautiful, right? It’s not a textbook. It’s not a TED talk. It’s a song.
And I think that that was really interesting was taking all these ideas and facts that I know from Asian American Studies and Asian American theology, and then trying to make them into songs that just sound good. You know, I’ve got friends who DM’d who were like, Yo, I listened to this record, and like, yo, it’s so good. I just been playing him while I drive around. And to me, that’s the biggest honor actually, the biggest honor is when you can create something that’s meaningful and thoughtful. And it just fits into people’s lives naturally.
Like, I think there’s a lot of great information out there. You know, if you want to listen to a TED talk, if you want to listen to a podcast, those are all out there. But to condense all that information into like a two-and-a-half-minute song is almost more difficult because it’s got to sound good and you don’t want to go over people’s heads, and you don’t want to be preachy, and you don’t want to be didactic, but you also want to be substantial. And the fact that we were able to do all that, really, it took it I think from theoretical knowledge to practical knowledge: How do I harness the struggles of generations of Asian Americans before into just making a good song? know how to make a lecture out of that. I know how to make a workshop out of that. But when we can just make music that inspires and encourages people becomes the soundtrack to their life. That’s another step of knowing how to take this information, and not just sound like a big brain, but, but integrated into what life actually looks like.
SOLA Network: What a great picture of sanctification and the Holy Spirit’s work in our life. It’s taking all the things about us and making something beautiful. That’s so powerful. Couple of last questions. What art Asian American, Christian. or otherwise what art is giving you life right now?
Jason Chu: What art is giving me life right now? I’ve been listening to a lot of Brooklyn drill music like the Brooklyn scene got a lot of cool stuff, man. Bizzy Banks, Young M.A, Sheff G—all these young artists out of Brooklyn just sound really good. Polo G from Chicago. He got a new album coming out soon, Hall of Fame. I love Polo G. I think his melodies are so good.
What else am I really inspired by? Fear of God, the clothing line. I think Jerry Lorenzo makes really beautiful stuff. Like all those clothes you see back there behind the camera, those are all fear of God. My best friend, Jason Poon. He’s getting into clothing. And I think his designs are really cool. Yeah, I guess I just, I just draw inspiration from a lot of different mediums from, from rap music to like fashion and clothing, to like, just dope stuff that my friends are putting out. And my friend Bohan Phoenix just put out a new single. My friends Uzuhan and Sarah Kang have been putting out a lot of great music. I’m just excited whenever somebody makes something that just feels good.
Right now, for me, the number one compliment is like, if something can just be the soundtrack to my life when I’m working out, when I’m exercising, when I’m going out, if there’s something that just fits seamlessly into my life, and just feels like it can soundtrack it. That to me is really exciting. Because it means that those artists tapped into something that is that I’m already feeling and they found a way to express it and create something that matches just my lifestyle.
SOLA Network: At SOLA Network, we are committed to the emerging Asian American Christian generation in wanting to empower them and wanting to bless them. We know we’re not the first, humble enough to know we’re not the first. In your experience, who’s out there? Who’s doing it? What are the groups of people who are gonna watch this? Where would you send them next? What’s like, Hey, you should really check this out.
Jason Chu: Yeah, so I’d say number one, Face Value, the new album is streaming everywhere, anywhere you listen to music, please look for Face Value by Jason Chu, and Alan Z. I say also definitely look at our friends like Uzuhan, Sam Ock, Sara Kang, who are all making some really good stuff. Look up. Makoto Fujimura and his work with his new thing is called the Kintsugi Academy.
If you have not, the number one thing if you’re a young Asian American artist is definitely read the book Creation Care by Makoto Fujimura. Because that will give you a theology of art and a vision of Christian art that I think is very different than other messages you might have received.
SOLA Network: Well, Jason Chu, thank you so much for this interview. I’m just blown away. I can’t wait to see what God is going to use you for more art for more activism in the future. It’s been a pleasure.
Jason Chu: Hey, it was my pleasure to be with you.