How did an Asian girl fall in love with R&B/Neo Soul/Hip-Hop?

By accident? No really, it was by accident.

Like 9.9/10 Asian kid, my twin sister and I were put into piano at the age of 6. My parents wanted to save money and who best to employ for free was our older sister. After a few failed attempts and bucket full of tears (literally), my mom seeked out a non-relative teacher who had more patience and didn't yell as much. Over the next 15 years we did our due diligence and cycled through 3 music teachers, completed The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) syllabus examinations both practical and theoretical all the way up to The Associate of the Royal Conservatory (ARCT) Performer's Syllabus. Can I tell you guys a secret? 1) I still don't know how I passed that and 2) I didn't complete all the theoretical portion - failed, yes FAILED Counterpoint and didn't even attempt Analysis. For those of you who went through RCM will know what I'm talking about. So classical music, and I'm sooo embarassed to admit this, but Hong Kong (HK) 90s pop ruled much of my playlist..that is until the summer of April 2001.

My twin sister and I were throwing a ball around in the apartment that we used to live in. We had Much Music playing in the background and then I heard it - her angelic, unforgettable voice singing "I keep on fallin, in and out of love" followed by the iconic E minor and B minor 7 chords on the piano that no one can mistaken for. I was literally mesmerized, paralyzed and inspired! I fell in love with all things Alicia Keys: her style, her swag , her positivity, her generosity and to this day she still inspires the music I write. It opened up a brand new avenue of music ranging from the sexy Brian McKnight, Jodeci, to The Fugees.. Then I discovered neo soul a term coined by Kedar Massenburg to describe a sub genre of soul that pulls influences from jazz, funk, contemporary R&B, electronica and hip hop. Don't get me wrong, I stilI loved me some Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, 5ive and Spice Girls (I fancied myself as Sporty Spice!) and All Saints but there was a different type of musical swag that I found myself really drawn to, just groovin' to and feelin' when I discovered 702, Boyz II Men (AHHHHH!!), Mint Condition, Tony! Toni! Tone!, Maxwell and the list goes on and on. Exposure to hip-hop also took place during this time with the likes of Notorius Big, Tupac, Missy Elliot and of course Ms. Lauryn Hill. A sound that I am currently experimenting and incorporating into my newest songs - so stay tuned!!

Since then, while I was still playing classical music, I started to experiment through trial and error on my Baldwin piano how to imitate the soulful and intimate deep 7th and 9th chords that a lot of the songs I listened to used. All that theory I took - screw it!! What I learned about R&B/neo soul and hip-hop is that it's all about repetition of chords and can be as little as between 2 chords (as seen in Alicia Key's "Fallin" that topped the Billboard 100 list for 6 weeks!!). My philosophy is this: as long as it sounds, grooves and feels right and my head starts bobbing to the chord progression, I'm golden! This to my content was backed by Brian McKnight who once said, and I'm paraphrasing, it doesn't matter if your chord progressions follow any rules, it just matters what feels right, sounds right and as long as you get to your home key, that's all that matters!

So here I am, an Asian girl writing R&B/neo soul songs and I think I've gotten kinda good at it - I"ll let you guys be the judge of that when I finally release my EP album! When it seems like music keeps going forward, I seem to be moving back in time when in my opinion, a lot of the best music was written. If I hadn't had Much Music playing in the background that summer of April 2001, I probably would be an Asian girl who was just a pharmacist who didn't know what R&B/neo soul/hip hop had to offer!