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Kick Push – Lupe Fiasco: in the piece of the same name in The Last Incantations, a teenage Chinese/Flip American skateboarder relates the story of his relationship with a Somali American girl.
American Terrorist – Lupe Fiasco: back when people thought Lupe was the hope of hip-hop, an invocation of history and politics.
He Loves Me – Jill Scott: “Things That Lose By Being Painted” opens with a Japanese American man and woman in a bar listening to Jill Scott.
Good Kid–Kendrick Lamar: one of my son’s favorites, a beat on his I-pod in “My Son In Ninth Grade.”
Made in America – Toby Keith: on the jukebox in the first section of “Crystal: Down by the Border.”
Yadava Niba – Tony Khalife: great Lebanese American guitarist, whose story I reference in “Peter Wu’s Poem.” I first met Tony at a reading where Elmaz Abinader read with Tony and an Arab American jazz trio and I read with San Jose Taiko.
What’s Goin’ On – Marvin Gaye: the backdrop for the poem, “Song for an Asian American Radical,” which is about the activist Yuri Kochiyama; her friendship with Malcolm X is referenced in “Poem for Patricia Smith Upon My Nomination for the Urban Griots Award.
Begin the Beguine – Ella Fitzgerald: I think of my father listening to “Begin the Beguine” in his youth; it’s associated with “The Great Nisei Novel, circa 1949.”
A Love Supreme – John Coltrane: the Chinese American artist in “Abstract Expressionist” listens to Coltrane as he paints.
Boom Boom Boom – John Lee Hooker: in “Poets of My Youth,” I reference Hooker playing at a bar where I met a woman who claimed she slept with John Berryman; members of Hooker’s band once showed up at a party I was having on the West Bank in Minneapolis.
One Wish – Hiroshima: Garrett Hong once joked that I and Hiroshima constantly try to use Sansei, third generation Japanese American, in our titles.
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