MR. RAP SUPREME

ghostface spinna

This might be of interest to folks: I recently interviewed Jeff "Chairman" Mao of ego trip fame on the eve of the new Miss Rap Supreme show on VH1 (just two weeks in and already with more beef than a Costco butchery).

Surprisingly, despite his high profile as a journalist/writer and DJ/collector, I found relatively few other interviews out there on the interweb and so my conversation with Jeff covered a broad range of topics in terms of his own personal history as well as professional insights on everything from hip-hop to music criticism to what makes compelling reality television. It's a long interview but I think it makes for a good read (biased as I am).

If you're ever in New York, be sure to roll through APT on Saturday night to see Mao and his friends spin.

By the way, this interview launches what I hope will be a series of Q&As I'll be doing for UCLA's fantastic Asia Pacific Arts Magazine. They've become, to me, the premier resource on Asian American arts/culture over the last few and I'm proud to be able to work with them. Coming up soon: an interview with actor Ken Leung from Lost.

--O.W.