This is House of Fun Radio, a monthly mixtape available on Substack and SoundCloud. ૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა ♡
Today’s Episode: 60s-80s Disco/Funk/Psych/Rock from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia
Today, we are scratching the surface of South and Southeast Asian musical history with a 52 minute “sampler platter” of some of my favorite 60s-early 80s era funk/disco/rock. Objectively speaking, it is groovy.
Important context if you’re new: I’m South Asian.
Moving on.
I’ve been toying with this particular episode since February, but technically it has been in progress since 2014. I was approaching 20 at the time and deep in the “birth of discourse” era of Tumblr. Honestly, you just had to be there! It was a public forum of people like myself processing their frustration, anger, and grief around their identity in real time. And for me, it was the first time anyone (or any platform) had allowed me to do so.
The result was messy and selfish. I’d lament on people from my childhood who traumatized me in unedited text posts, and get angry at people on the Internet who were simply there to make me feel worse.
And while this was probably not the right way to be radicalized, Tumblr helped me see that many of my experiences growing up South Asian in America were veiled in the insidious force that is racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Up until that point, I sincerely thought the problem was me.
I will be the first to say Tumblr was not a perfect platform (lol), but it was a pre-algorithm world we lived in and that meant it could be a truly curated space and community of people you wanted to see and engage with. I met other South Asians on Tumblr and we bonded over our love of vintage Asian cinema and music. We’d rediscover our parents’ favorite childhood movies and reblog vintage scans of Bollywood stars.
Eventually, my iPod Classic was dominated by Bollywood disco, Vietnamese soul, and Cambodian rock. The music helped me see in my own Indian heritage what has always been there: Taste, romance, humor, and beauty. And over time, the music changed me to see that in myself.
That said, this episode was 📢 hard 📢 to record!!!
Many versions of the tracklist have been curated and re-curated as I attempted to strike the perfect balance of regions and time periods. Scripts were written and rewritten: Once for being a history lesson no one asked for, and again for being too raw in a 2014 kind of way.
And even after all of that, after months of work, I haven’t completely figured out how to talk about this.
Thanks to therapy and IRL community-building, I am not out here raw-dogging racial trauma dumping on the Internet anymore. I have friends to talk to, and one of those journals to write in made from recycled book bindings (cute.) I’m approaching 30 now and relieved to know that I have entered a new phase in my relationship with myself, one that leads with empathy even when I don’t feel like I have it.
However, running this back, I cringe ever so slightly. It’s clear my voice doesn’t have the same confidence that it normally does when I talk about, say, my 2010s twee era lol. Even though I’m obviously reading a script I wrote, I can tell I don’t entirely believe myself.
However, I can’t think of a more realistic way to celebrate AAPI Month than this lol!!
Despite the fact that I am looking forward to burying this in the archives of my Substack, I’m choosing to share it with all of you because there’s something about this that feels potentially historic, like a time capsule of a girl on a journey to love herself. And maybe in a year, or two, or ten, I can listen to this again and understand it for what it is: Someone trying to figure it out.
[Tracklist]
01 Disco Premee by Runa Laila - Bangladesh (1982) / 02 Aap Jaisa Koi by Nazia Hassan - India (1980) / 03 Nỗi Buồn Con Gái by Carol Kim - Vietnam (1968-1974) / 04 Lam Toey Chaweewan by Chaweewan Dumnern - Thailand (1964-1975) / 05 Sari Sari Raat by Nermin Niazi - UK/Pakistan (1984) / 06 Dosti by Nazia Hassan & Zoheb Hassan - Pakistan (1983) / 07 I-Swing Mo Ako by Sharon Cuneta - Philippines (1979) / 08 Malam Kesembilan by Fariz RM - Indonesia (1978) / 09 Aaj Shanibar by Rupa - India (1982) / 10 The Devil Is Loose by Asha Puthli - India (1976) / 11 Superstar by Ros Serey Sothea - Cambodia (1967-1975) / 12 Betapa by Margie Segers - Indonesia (1977)
On Figuring It Out ♡ HoF RADIO 004