RICH BRIAN & 88RISING

Sean Miyashiro has a lot of nice things to say about Rich Brian. “Brian is the most beautiful human being in the world,” the 88rising founder and CEO says, dialing into our Zoom call as he heads to Palm Springs for a meeting with Goldenvoice President and CEO Paul Tollett. “He’s just wise beyond his years,” he continues. “He would tell me, ‘I wouldn’t do that.’ Or, ‘Yeah, you should do that.’ I’m literally twice his age. These are just normal life matters. He’s a good friend of mine. He's like a brother. I wouldn't even say little brother. He's just my brother. He’s really evolving creatively and it’s just inspiring to see.” It’s not unusual for Miyashiro to praise any of the artists on 88rising. For anyone who has followed their story over the years, the record label and management company with video production and marketing capabilities has successfully become the brand that empowers Asian artists while simultaneously increasing Asian representation in the music industry. During this call, Miyashiro is focused on the company’s current project, Head In The Clouds Forever, which will take place at Coachella 2022 during Weekend 1 (April 15 – April 17) and Weekend 2 (April 22 – April 24).

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Louisa Meng

EDITION 13 APRIL 2022

APRIL 14, 2022

BY: Eric Diep

88rising at Coachella has been teased since 2020. After the initial lineup announced that 88rising artists Rich Brian, Joji, and NIKI were booked for the festival, there was a lot of intrigue about what “Double Happiness,” which was also listed on the flyer, would entail. But after Coachella 2020 was postponed due to the pandemic, 88rising repurposed the name for their free digital Double Happiness Winter Wonder Festival livestream in December 2020. Miyashiro landed on Head In The Clouds Forever as a call back to the label’s own festival, adding “Forever” as a way to bank on its longevity. For 88rising to have total curatorial control of Head In The Clouds Forever at one of the premier American music festivals says a lot about how far they’ve come and the impact they’ve had on not just Asian culture, but pop culture in general. So, if it's anything like the Head In The Clouds Festival that happens every year, Coachella attendees are in for a special treat. “When I talked to Paul about it, we were just vibing,” Miyashiro says. “We're like, ‘Hey, if we were to do something together at Coachella, which is obviously the biggest music event in the world, most influential, most talked about, what would it be?’ We just were very simply like, ‘Look, why don’t we try to represent yesterday, today, and the future of Asian music?’ One stage. And that kind of very broad, loose vision has come to life with who is going to participate.” “We want the surprise to be like when Destiny’s Child showed up during Beyoncé’s set,” Miyashiro laughs. “We’re trying to have, like, five of those.”

He's really evolving creatively and it's just inspiring to see.

This isn’t Rich Brian’s first time on a festival lineup. But it is certainly the 22-year-old rapper’s biggest one to date, as he and NIKI will become the first two Indonesian solo artists to perform in Coachella’s history. A few days after the Zoom call with Miyashiro, Brian tells me he’s been focusing on making his Coachella debut memorable. He’s also part of what Head In The Clouds Forever is supposed to be, but he doesn’t say much about the details of his set. All he knows is that Miyashiro has been planning it and Miyashiro wants to incorporate as many Asian artists as possible, with elements of storytelling for the audience to witness. When he thinks about the fact that many fans from Indonesia will be flying to the US to see him perform, it makes him wonder about his turnout. After doing some interviews with Indonesian radio stations, the hosts told him how hyped they are about Coachella. It reminded him that having no expectations is a good thing for someone who hasn’t done the festival yet. “I forget how crazy Indonesian people are about seeing Indonesian talent shown on a big international platform,” Brian says. “You know what I mean? It is going to be crazy because it’s Coachella. Before I started making music, I knew a couple of people from Indonesia that would just fly to LA and just go to Coachella. So, imagine having two Indonesian artists playing out there. I think it’s going to be cool.” Miyashiro and Brian realize that Coachella is another historic win for 88rising. It’s a path that started in earnest when Miyashiro was putting together his concept for the collective, with their journeys intertwining the moment Brian wanted in on what Miyashiro was building. This is why the pair don’t share the typical artist-manager relationship. Understanding why they consider each other family goes back to how they met. “Sean is more than a manager,” Brian says. “He has the craziest ideas and he’s really, really driven. I appreciate that about him. It’s nice having someone like that on your side because there are going to be times when you’re kind of lost on what you want to do next in your career. Having someone with such a clear vision and understanding of all the different avenues that you can take in the future really helps.” Brian first caught Miyashiro’s attention thanks to a simple question: How do I microwave bread? The first video that comes up when you type this query into YouTube is of a 15-year-old Rich Brian giving the answer to this question. In the 30-second clip, Brian teaches his viewers how to microwave a sliced piece of white bread. “About 20 seconds,” he says, spending the rest of the clip looking in different directions. After he awkwardly laughs, he gives a deadpan stare at the camera. The timer on the microwave ends conveniently at the same time the video does. “How to microwave #bread” has its own cult following with over 6.6 million views since it was originally uploaded in February 2016 and shows the ingenuity behind Brian’s comedy. Even if Brian created it when he was bored and sick at home, Miyashiro saw potential. “For such a young kid to be able to have the sensibility to just end the video like that at that time, I was like, ‘Man, this kid’s a genius,’” Miyashiro says. “[Los Angeles rapper, actor, and podcaster] Dumbfoundead was sending me all his stuff. That's how we started working together.” “That's so funny,” Brian says upon hearing how many views the video has. “Someone came up to me last night and told me that he loves that video. I can’t believe out of all the music that I’ve made over the years, people still love that video.”

Miyashiro didn’t know back then that what he initially envisioned would become the 88rising we have today. In 2015, he was working for Vice and thinking about the future. Why wasn’t there a YouTube channel that houses and celebrates Asian creatives in the mainstream? “When we go out in Koreatown, I’m hanging with Dumb,” he remembers. “You got the ill director. Anderson .Paak was around. Sophia Chang. All of these great creatives and they were all hustling and doing their own thing. I was like, ‘Man, if we just created a place on the internet. All this stuff needs to be celebrated. We can create new stuff and it’ll be great because nothing like it really existed at the time.’” Miyashiro was managing Dumbfoundead and Keith Ape in 2015 during the hype of “It G Ma” and its remix. At the time, Brian was trying to build his following on Twitter, following rappers he liked in the hope that they would follow him back. He says Dumbfoundead was the first rapper to follow him, and Brian direct-messaged him with an early demo to check out. Dumbfoundead instantly became a fan, connecting Brian to Miyashiro for the first time via Skype. Brian, who was creating dark, satirical comedy videos on YouTube, was originally approached by 88rising to do similar content for them. He was still toying with the idea of transitioning into music after doing it for fun, thinking that he didn’t want to end up as a social media comic that just did songs to be funny. He eventually discovered his passion for rap music and taught himself how to produce. From there, the transition to music happened more or less organically. When Miyashiro pitched his vision of 88rising to Brian, they clicked even before meeting in person. “They were trying to fly me out to go to South By Southwest in 2016,” Brian remembers. “And that was when I told my mom, ‘Hey, I might be going to the US to do a show.’ She was like, ‘Yeah, you should go.’ But unfortunately, my visa got rejected, so it didn’t happen right away. I remember them talking about the vision of 88rising. I think this is before 88 even had its first video on YouTube. I knew about Dumbfoundead and how Sean was doing stuff with Keith Ape.” “This is something,” Brian realized. “I’m down to be a part of this.”

Many artists have done multiple SXSW showcases to get their name out there – sometimes just pleasing old and new fans with their one hit. Instead, Miyashiro thought of a workaround if Brian – then known as Rich Chigga – couldn’t perform live. He created a cultural moment when he facilitated a video shoot at SXSW to bring in Ghostface Killah, Cam’ron, 21 Savage, and others reacting to Brian’s music. Miyashiro says he wasn’t surprised to hear their reactions to Brian. It was the type of East meets West crossover that 88rising sought. “It was really, really trippy,” Brian says of getting their validation. “I was still 16, still haven’t been to the US. I haven’t met any of these rappers yet. I’ve only seen them on YouTube through a screen. [Then I was] seeing them validate my music and cosign my music also through a screen. It felt like I’m watching a YouTube video and then all of a sudden I’m just like, ‘Wait, they’re talking about me.’ That made me excited and made me confident about where the rest of my career is going to go. That was very early on in me working with Sean and Sean is out there at SXSW playing my video for people. I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s a really nice thing to do.'” In addition to “Rappers React to Rich Brian,” the early videos on 88rising’s YouTube channel were meant to curate up-and-coming Asian artists, show vibrant storytelling, and offer cool content that featured Asia’s cultural landscape. Some of their classics include Desiigner performing “Panda” live in Chinese, a mixology series starring Japanese bartender Hiroyasu Kayama, and a short doc on the invisible story of Vietnamese river children. From the outset, 88rising tried to push themselves creatively with no rules or filters. Their independent spirit was the nucleus behind every collaboration with other Asian artists, hoping what they created would inspire the next generation. As 88rising kept raising the bar and shifting their efforts toward spotlighting Asian talent, Rich Brian’s trajectory to rap stardom was going full speed, too. A turning point for Brian came on January 1, 2018, when he officially changed his stage name. “I have been planning to do this forever and I’m so happy to finally do it. I was naive & I made a mistake. New year, new beginning, happy new years,” he tweeted. 2018 was also pivotal for 88rising. The release schedule from that year was a calculated, full-court press with Higher Brothers’ Journey To The West EP, Rich Brian’s Amen, NIKI’s Zephyr EP, the first label compilation Head In The Clouds, and Joji’s Ballads 1. For some of these artists, they were embarking on their first North American tours after never even visiting America before. This was also the year that 88rising announced their inaugural Head In The Clouds Festival as the first stop on their “88 Degrees & Rising” tour, when 88rising’s “Midsummer Madness” was gaining traction. By the time 2019 hit, Brian had all the momentum going into his sophomore album The Sailor. On “Kids,” he raps about the very call that changed his life: “Can't forget about the day that Sean called me / Talkin' 'bout a vision called 88 that he's dreamin' / Man, I love him like a brother, if we fall, we gon' recover / Just a man with a vision who mastered in causin' trouble.” Looking back at his rise, Rich Brian seems destined to create a blueprint for others like him to do it, too. He’s now considered the centerpiece of 88rising and their most recognizable face, cementing himself in history since signing his recording contract in 2016. He’s a certified gold artist for his rap songs “Dat $tick” and “Gospel” and he has successfully gone pop with tracks such as “These Nights” and “Love In My Pocket.” He’s the first Asian artist in history to ever reach No. 1 on the iTunes Hip-Hop Charts with Amen. He’s the first Indonesian artist to hit over 10 million monthly Spotify listeners. He’s featured five times on the soundtrack for Marvel’s first Asian superhero movie, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Not to mention, he’s worked with Wu-Tang Clan members RZA (“Rapapapa”) and Ghostface Killah, the latter appearing on “Dat $tick (Remix)” with Pouya. For Brian, acting seems like a natural progression. You can expect to see him on the silver screen for his first major acting role in Justin Chon’s upcoming music drama film, Jamojaya. Musically, he just dropped a rap heavy EP called Brightside, putting himself in the right headspace for his third album. “I have friends of mine that tell me, ‘Yo, The Sailor was sick, and the production was very just grand and crazy. And it let me know that you can do that. But Amen to me is still very genuine to you,’” Brian says. “Because a lot of Amen was just self-produced, and I wasn’t really in the room working with too many people. To me, when I listen back to Amen, I always just compare it to The Sailor. I'm just like, ‘Yeah, The Sailor is way better because Amen sounds amateurish compared to it.’ But then there are people that appreciate that part of Amen. I'm just trying to come back to that middle ground and come back to my roots, keeping that in mind for whatever I make next.”

The concept of a supergroup isn’t new, but it’s never without its intrigue. Artists who’ve thrived on their own come together to form a new project, that when done the right way can grow their success exponentially. More importantly, fans of each artist are over the moon. Recent unions have included Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars’ funk-pop Silk Sonic duo, indie stars Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus’ mighty Boygenius trio, the phenomenal rap pairing of El-P and Killer Mike on Run The Jewels, and now on their second trip down the highway, the super-Texan collaboration of Khruangbin and Leon Bridges. Unlike the mainstream splash of Silk Sonic, the femme-forward space that Boygenius had to carve out for themselves, or the previous history that Run The Jewels had with each other, Khruangbin and Bridges’ union is more akin to the relative obscurity of 1975’s Gil e Jorge. It’s an album where Gilberto Gil and Jorge Ben Jor, two titans of Brazilian samba and tropicalia, recorded music defined less by its tightly-produced magnifications of each artist’s distinction, and more about a spiritual and improvisational alchemy that developed in the studio devoid of any outside forces. With Gil e Jorge, fans of both went nuts. It was an incredibly unexpected, but wholly welcome joining of forces. And that’s exactly what’s in the air right now with Khruangbin and Leon Bridges as their second EP, Texas Moon — the companion piece to 2020’s wildly popular Texas Sun — comes out on February 18th via Dead Oceans.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: LOUISA MENG

EDITION 11 FEBRUARY 2022

APRIL 14, 2022

BY: Adrian Spinelli

It probably doesn't help that these missives are delivered with the same cavalier dismissiveness as his unapologetic explanation for them. To his credit, they come from a pure place: Russ' unabashed love for the art and culture of hip-hop. And recently, he's begun to mellow out a lot. Narratives take a long time to change in entertainment, something Russ knows very well. He isn't holding his breath for a reevaluation coming any time soon. Today, though, he's with his family, enjoying the unseasonal sunshine by his pool "eating Chick-fil-A." As he reveals over the course of an hour-long conversation, this is his usual state of being and where he's most comfortable. Even though he's blowing up in the wake of well-received releases like Zoo, Shake The Snow Globe, the Chomp EP, and his recently released full-length follow-up, Chomp 2, he's actually as humble as can be, surrounding himself with family and friends rather than industry hangers-on and sycophants. This is how he stays grounded and staying grounded is the main thing to which he credits his success. Now, with a decade-long string of independently released projects behind him and a slew of promising future opportunities ahead, Russ is willing to pause for a moment. He’s able to take stock of his career, his popularity, and turning 30, all while reevaluating his own relationship to the success that has come on his own terms.

"I never said anything that was destructive towards the culture. Everything I said was an attempt to move it forward on a positive level.

Writer: Eric Diep @e_diep Designer: DAISY JAMES @DJAMESDESIGN Photographer: Louisa Meng @LOUISAMENG_ Set Design: True Goya @trueeee Lighting: Stefan Ferra @stefanfilmphoto Stylist: Shaojun Chen @elidad

Rich Brian is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Look 1 - Jacket: Palm Angels, Shirt: Kidsuper Studios, Pants: Kidsuper Studios, Shoes: Airfores 1's Look 2 - Sweater: Nanushka, Pants: Supervsn, Shoes: Rhude Look 3 - Jacket: Bode, Hat: Marni, Shirt: Rh45, Pants: Death To Tennis

proof

CONCEPT

Brian first caught Miyashiro’s attention thanks to a simple question: How do I microwave bread? The first video that comes up when you type this query into YouTube is of a 15-year-old Rich Brian giving the answer to this question. In the 30-second clip, Brian teaches his viewers how to microwave a sliced piece of white bread. “About 20 seconds,” he says, spending the rest of the clip looking in different directions. After he awkwardly laughs, he gives a deadpan stare at the camera. The timer on the microwave ends conveniently at the same time the video does. “How to microwave #bread” has its own cult following with over 6.6 million views since it was originally uploaded in February 2016 and shows the ingenuity behind Brian’s comedy. Even if Brian created it when he was bored and sick at home, Miyashiro saw potential. “For such a young kid to be able to have the sensibility to just end the video like that at that time, I was like, ‘Man, this kid’s a genius,’” Miyashiro says. “[Los Angeles rapper, actor, and podcaster] Dumbfoundead was sending me all his stuff. That's how we started working together.” “That's so funny,” Brian says upon hearing how many views the video has. “Someone came up to me last night and told me that he loves that video. I can’t believe out of all the music that I’ve made over the years, people still love that video.”

sean is more than a manager

He has the craziest ideas and he's really, really driven.

...

"this is something,"

"I'm down to be a part of this."

brian realized.

By the time 2019 hit, Brian had all the momentum going into his sophomore album The Sailor. On “Kids,” he raps about the very call that changed his life: “Can't forget about the day that Sean called me / Talkin' 'bout a vision called 88 that he's dreamin' / Man, I love him like a brother, if we fall, we gon' recover / Just a man with a vision who mastered in causin' trouble.” Looking back at his rise, Rich Brian seems destined to create a blueprint for others like him to do it, too. He’s now considered the centerpiece of 88rising and their most recognizable face, cementing himself in history since signing his recording contract in 2016. He’s a certified gold artist for his rap songs “Dat $tick” and “Gospel” and he has successfully gone pop with tracks such as “These Nights” and “Love In My Pocket.” He’s the first Asian artist in history to ever reach No. 1 on the iTunes Hip-Hop Charts with Amen. He’s the first Indonesian artist to hit over 10 million monthly Spotify listeners. He’s featured five times on the soundtrack for Marvel’s first Asian superhero movie, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. Not to mention, he’s worked with Wu-Tang Clan members RZA (“Rapapapa”) and Ghostface Killah, the latter appearing on “Dat $tick (Remix)” with Pouya. For Brian, acting seems like a natural progression. You can expect to see him on the silver screen for his first major acting role in Justin Chon’s upcoming music drama film, Jamojaya. Musically, he just dropped a rap heavy EP called Brightside, putting himself in the right headspace for his third album. “I have friends of mine that tell me, ‘Yo, The Sailor was sick, and the production was very just grand and crazy. And it let me know that you can do that. But Amen to me is still very genuine to you,’” Brian says. “Because a lot of Amen was just self-produced, and I wasn’t really in the room working with too many people. To me, when I listen back to Amen, I always just compare it to The Sailor. I'm just like, ‘Yeah, The Sailor is way better because Amen sounds amateurish compared to it.’ But then there are people that appreciate that part of Amen. I'm just trying to come back to that middle ground and come back to my roots, keeping that in mind for whatever I make next.”

I never really think of us as a label,

i think of us as

a collection of artists

When asked what’s the one thing 88rising has done for the Asian community since the company’s creation in 2015, Brian says it’s given people the idea of possibility. He uses an example of seeing Indonesian actor Joe Taslim from 2011’s The Raid get cast in 2013’s Fast & Furious 6, watching videos of him at a red carpet in LA while in Indonesia. “I remember feeling so motivated and so driven,” Brian says. “I wanted to be there as well. It’s like this big FOMO feeling. I feel like 88rising does that. That’s always been our goal. I feel like we do that for people.” With the Coachella performances by 88rising artists, Head In The Clouds Forever, and the next Head In The Clouds Festival (one announced in LA on August 20-21, another teased for Jakarta later this year), 88rising are continuing to do the work to make sure Asians are seen on the global stage. Miyashiro has lofty plans for 88rising aside from “everyone” dropping projects this year, emphasizing Jackson Wang’s proper album and the third label compilation, Head In The Clouds 3. They want to become filmmakers, telling stories and developing rich ideas. “I never really think of us as a label, I think of us as a collective of artists,” Miyashiro says. “The label is just a function of putting out music. But before that, we are a collective of artists that want to put out good stuff. It's about us all coming together, too. And that's why Head In The Clouds Forever is so dope because that’s just a live, living, and breathing interpretation of what this company wants to be.” “For me, just the short of it, if the creative isn’t good and you’re not putting out dope stuff that’s going to move people, then it’s meaningless,” he continues. “It’s all meaningless. When you talk about Coachella and that opportunity and what that represents and everything else that we’re trying to do in the future, the mindset of why we started is very much [the same]. Frankly, we wear our hearts on our sleeves in what we do. We really do. It all ladders back to what’s the intent. So, I think it evolves and it grows, but the ethos is always the same.” But with everything that 88rising has accomplished, satisfaction and complacence are never an option. The hustle never stops. “You might say we’re making history or we’re the thought leaders,” Miyashiro says. “I don’t think of us like that. We're at the bottom of the mountain. You know what I mean? We have a chip on our shoulder. We're the underdogs. We always have that mentality, and I don't even know if that's good, but that's the truth. We always feel like we’re chasing ourselves a little bit, but we have these amazing opportunities. I think that we get these opportunities to create because of the intent of our company. It's obvious. We don’t have to say it, we just do it. I don't want to talk about what we want to do. I just want to do it.”

I don't want to talk about what we want to do.

i just want to do it.

He's really evolving creatively and it's just inspiring to see.

sean is more than a manager

“Sean is more than a manager,” Brian says. “He has the craziest ideas and he’s really, really driven. I appreciate that about him. It’s nice having someone like that on your side because there are going to be times when you’re kind of lost on what you want to do next in your career. Having someone with such a clear vision and understanding of all the different avenues that you can take in the future really helps.” Brian first caught Miyashiro’s attention thanks to a simple question: How do I microwave bread? The first video that comes up when you type this query into YouTube is of a 15-year-old Rich Brian giving the answer to this question. In the 30-second clip, Brian teaches his viewers how to microwave a sliced piece of white bread. “About 20 seconds,” he says, spending the rest of the clip looking in different directions. After he awkwardly laughs, he gives a deadpan stare at the camera. The timer on the microwave ends conveniently at the same time the video does.

sean is more than a manager

“How to microwave #bread” has its own cult following with over 6.6 million views since it was originally uploaded in February 2016 and shows the ingenuity behind Brian’s comedy. Even if Brian created it when he was bored and sick at home, Miyashiro saw potential. “For such a young kid to be able to have the sensibility to just end the video like that at that time, I was like, ‘Man, this kid’s a genius,’” Miyashiro says. “[Los Angeles rapper, actor, and podcaster] Dumbfoundead was sending me all his stuff. That's how we started working together.” “That's so funny,” Brian says upon hearing how many views the video has. “Someone came up to me last night and told me that he loves that video. I can’t believe out of all the music that I’ve made over the years, people still love that video.” Miyashiro didn’t know back then that what he initially envisioned would become the 88rising we have today. In 2015, he was working for Vice and thinking about the future. Why wasn’t there a YouTube channel that houses and celebrates Asian creatives in the mainstream? “When we go out in Koreatown, I’m hanging with Dumb,” he remembers. “You got the ill director. Anderson .Paak was around. Sophia Chang. All of these great creatives and they were all hustling and doing their own thing. I was like, ‘Man, if we just created a place on the internet. All this stuff needs to be celebrated. We can create new stuff and it’ll be great because nothing like it really existed at the time.’” Miyashiro was managing Dumbfoundead and Keith Ape in 2015 during the hype of “It G Ma” and its remix. At the time, Brian was trying to build his following on Twitter, following rappers he liked in the hope that they would follow him back. He says Dumbfoundead was the first rapper to follow him, and Brian direct-messaged him with an early demo to check out. Dumbfoundead instantly became a fan, connecting Brian to Miyashiro for the first time via Skype. Brian, who was creating dark, satirical comedy videos on YouTube, was originally approached by 88rising to do similar content for them. He was still toying with the idea of transitioning into music after doing it for fun, thinking that he didn’t want to end up as a social media comic that just did songs to be funny. He eventually discovered his passion for rap music and taught himself how to produce. From there, the transition to music happened more or less organically. When Miyashiro pitched his vision of 88rising to Brian, they clicked even before meeting in person. “They were trying to fly me out to go to South By Southwest in 2016,” Brian remembers. “And that was when I told my mom, ‘Hey, I might be going to the US to do a show.’ She was like, ‘Yeah, you should go.’ But unfortunately, my visa got rejected, so it didn’t happen right away. I remember them talking about the vision of 88rising. I think this is before 88 even had its first video on YouTube. I knew about Dumbfoundead and how Sean was doing stuff with Keith Ape.” “This is something,” Brian realized. “I’m down to be a part of this.”