Electric Wasteland

I admired Nicholas Tse for doing something other than typical Canto-pop when he burst onto the music scene in Hong Kong. Don’t follow much Chinese music now but he’s apparently been through a lot of drama lately. In the following podcast, he gives an interview (in English) about his trials and tribulations. For someone who’s been scrutinized by the Hong Kong paparazzi, he’s fairly candid, but still seems to hold back a little on certain topics.

Nicholas Tse Interview

You can’t feel too bad for him since he was given an opportunity to do something he’s passionate about and make a living out of it, but he does approach the topic of the music industry that I want to expand upon. In America, the film industry is fairly bad when it comes to representation of Asian Americans but the music industry is as bad, if not worse. The prospects for Nicholas to get signed with a major label and get the company to give him the push to get airplay in America would be nearly nil. For many Asian Americans who want to pursue a career in music, they inevitably have to go overseas to try to enter a market that doesn’t have established prejudices and may give them a chance, however small.