Love Far East Movement? We sure do. Not only did Audrey writer (and Awful Truth columnist) Paul Nakayama get to hang out with the boys in Tokyo during their world tour with Lady Gaga (and lived to tell us about it), he got them to open up their hearts and spill their secrets about dating long distance in our Summer Issue‘s Awful Truth column.
Here, we give you a sneak peek of the goods:
Hip-Hop Groundswell by Paul Nakayama
Far East Moment is tirelessly trying to bring their brand of hip-hop and electronic music to the masses from the group up — and it’s working.
Far East Movement. Photo by Paul Sun/The Social Trust.
It was a fortunate coincidence that brought me to Tokyo the same week that Far East Movement (FM) was opening for Lady Gaga during the Japan leg of her world tour. The group members were kind enough to offer tickets to the show. As they hit the stage in LED-illuminated astronaut helmets, the crowd went from warm to wild for FM’s unique and infectious dance blend of hip-hop and electronica. I stood up and looked around the enormous Yokohama Arena. It was a proud moment to see these Los Angeles natives performing to a sold-out show on the other side of the world. Just last year, I danced whenever I heard their single in a club. “This is my jam,” I told my friends. Never mind that my song was “Girls on the Dance Floor.”
It’s 2 a.m. in a back-alley bar in Shibuya, Tokyo. I’m sipping on cheap whisky as a permanent cloud of cigarette smoke looms over us. I’m with FM and their producers, the Stereotypes, as we celebrate the last night of the tour. There’s a lot of chatter, because just an hour earlier, they had to evacuate their hotel due to a ruptured gas line. In the corner, a woman is passed out with a dog in her lap. Our bartender spontaneously decides to take off his clothes and spin on a stripper pole that magically appears. This interview starts rolling against the chaotic backdrop of Tokyo by night. Witnessing FM’s old-fashioned hard work inspired me to dig deeper with Kev Nish, Prohgress, J-Splif and DJ Virman. You see, just four hours earlier, I saw them hustling outside the Arena, converting a sea of Lady Gaga lookalikes into new fans, and I needed to hear their story.
Want to read more (and find out Far East Movement’s take on long distance relationships)? Get the inside story in our Summer 2010 issue, available here.
