Wang Lee Hom

Wang Lee Hom's brother I suppose.~

Wang Lee Hom is an Chinese-American (born in the U.S.) singer who mostly majors in hip-hop and R&B. That doesn't mean that he's stuck with those 2 categories.

"Wang Leehom's last two albums, Shangri-La and Heroes of Earth, stirred more than a little controversy among Chinese Americans who were offended by Wang's use of the term "chinked-out" to describe his unique blend of Chinese and hip-hop musical elements. Regardless of whether his re-appropriation of the racial slur was justified or not, what's unfortunate is that most of the criticisms were more preoccupied with the word, rather than with the reason Wang decided to use it -- and more importantly, with what Wang was trying to accomplish musically."



Here's a video describing his "true-meaning" on the term "chinked-out." - Now what's the first thing that you think when you hear that term? It's a derogatory term. Why do you think he would use such a label for his music? What is he trying to accomplish by using that label? Some say that he's trying to redefine the term "chinks" by making it light-hearted. No matter what he's trying to do with that label however, we have to think about his current status: As a Chinese-American and superstar, do you think that he has the authority to speak on be-half of all Chinese people? It's more of a speak-for-yourself case. He can call the music whatever he wants, however, was it really necessary to drag an entire population along with it? All we can say is that whatever is trying to redefine, that's totally fine. It's just that the term "chinked-out" is his own viewpoint. It's the same analogy as if a black rapper said that his music was *insert deragatory term here*-out. No, let's just leave it here.