I’m so stoked for my new East/West coast collabo with DanAKADan of afterschoolspecial, one of the hottest bands out of San Diego, CA!
Check us out in this sexy, 80′s-inspired jam:
That Thang
by Jen Kwok and DanAKADan
Directed by Ballard C. Boyd
Music Produced by soce, the elemental wizard
If you like it, please forward to friends!
Awhile ago I secretly recorded these songs with my friend soce, the elemental wizard.
Now they’re here for you to enjoy!
Click to stream or right click and “Save as” to download!
Thanks for listening!
That’s right – this is what Amy Chua would be rapping about if she were to use hip hop to express her views on extreme Asian parenting.
Listen to/Download the Tiger Mom mp3 for FREE:
Jen Kwok – Tiger Mom Rap (2:38)
Written/performed by Jen Kwok. Produced by soce, the elemental wizard
UPDATE: If anyone wants to make a YouTube video of Tiger Mom Rap! (i.e. lyric, sideshow, lip sync, etc.), you have my blessing. Just please send me the link and give proper credit to myself/producer and link back to my website. In return, I will send you Jen Kwok pins, pens and something handmade 
jenkwokfunnygirl[at]gmail.com
Tiger Mom Rap Lyrics
by Jen Kwok
Ungh. Rarr. Ungh. Rarr.
Yo, I’m the tiger mother
Hardcore parenting like no other
But I’m also a professor at Yale
And I got a crazy ass new book on sale
Talkin bout how Chinese mothers are superior
Rest of ya’ll with Montessori are inferior
I don’t allow sleepovers or play dates
My kid’s have fun doing math on a milk crate
Cuz they’re gonna be tough! So tough! After they have been broke down emotionally first.
Chorus:
Let me tell you bout my battle hymn
Piano violin piano violin
Extreme Asian parenting
I raise my kids to be high achievers
Building on their minds all the time like beavers
Cuz DAMN my kids never get less than 100 on a test
If they did I would flip the f*** out
So I found the key to perfection is assimilation
Don’t let my daughters out the house so life’s a simulation
Now I’m selling my techniques like a corporation
And I’m married to a guy named Jed!!!
Chorus:
Let me tell you bout my battle hymn
Piano violin piano violin
Extreme Asian parenting
Hippie western parents are ok with a B-minus
Mediocrity is like the blanket on Linus
I ripped up the birthday card you gave to me
Cuz it’s more Hallmark than Papyrus
I want my kids to feel like Rocky – “Adrian!”
But first they gotta feel like Gollum – “Precious!”
Practice a billion times till you get this
If you’re not perfect you will get an eye infection
So you better keep practicing. Better get perfect. Or else…you will turn into garbage. A large garbage can. They’re gonna pick you up on Sunday and Tuesday nights unless there’s a holiday and you’ll be living at the landfill like Oscar the Grouch.
Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to be good
Well I say 500 bajillion 74 to the pi times infiniti divided – no, not divided….
Chorus:
Let me tell you bout my battle hymn
Piano violin piano violin
Harvard, Columbia and Princeton
Piano violin piano violin
I’ve got to make perfect children
Extreme Asian parenting
I’m crazier than all the other moms
Crazier than Natalie Portman’s mom in Black Swan
Barbara Hershey!!!!! She was so powerful in Beaches
I’m crazier than Joan Crawford
No wire hangers? No wire hangers? No WOODEN hangers! No plastic hangers!
No titanium! Or crochet!
I only like these velvet ones I got from Crate & Barrel
©Jen Kwok 2011
Hey Ya’ll,
I recently shot the music video for my song “Take You Home” with the same dream team behind Date an Asian. It was directed by Ballard C. Boyd and the song was produced by soce, the elemental wizard aka Andrew Singer! This time I have the lovely Miss CKC aka Carolyn Castiglia, spittin a rhyme on this joint! Check out her blog post about the vid shoot for more photos: More behind-the-scenes of “Take You Home”.
Here we are shooting at my fave bar in Greenpoint, BK, The Diamond:
Jen and Carolyn! Photo by Anya Garrett.
Special thanks to Dave and Will at The Diamond! The bar is rockin’ with a huge Nite Brite-ish wall and painting of Michael Landon on the wall . It’s gonna look HAAAWT!
We were styled by the inimitable Johnny “JR” Tabanao, who also styled Date an Asian, and Michael Haayen did the choreography. Also shout out to Gary Mahmoud and David Cope (who you can see in the background), who played the leading men. Yeah…there’s a lil story that goes with this one, but you’ll have to wait till the vid comes out to see!
Also special thanks to the crew that was helping all day: Will Beckley – DP/Cinematographer, Sam Roden – AD, Jeremy Brunjes – Gaffer, Drew Martorelli – PA. And of course Tom for driving the Honda Fit, Joe Valkenburgh for help cleaning/kid duty (there’s another kid!!! It’s CKC’s daughter and she is FABULOUS!), and Greg Moss for help returning equipment/kid duty.
Many thanks to the cast that came out – I will shout them out when the vid arrives!!! It will be coming out mid-April with two live screenings in NYC leading up to its release!
“Take You Home” Music Video Live Screening Dates
Jen Kwok featuring Miss CKC
Directed by Ballard Boyd, Music Produced by soce, the elemental wizard
FRIDAY, APRIL 2 at 7:30 pm (doors at 7pm)
Splurge! at Happy Ending
302 Broome Street (Forsyth/Eldridge)
FREE
This is the AWESOME comedy show hosted by Miss CKC aka Carolyn Castiglia, the brills comic/rapper on “Take You Home”. She has AMAZING comedians on her show. April 2 is Kevin Allison, Ophira Eisenberg, Tom Shillue, Brooke Van Poppelen and Mark Douglas – the video premiere! We’ll be showing a rough cut of the video this evening.
FRIDAY, APRIL 16 at 9pm (doors at 8:30pm)
Mouth-to-Mouth Open Mic at the Asian American Writers Workshop
16 W 32nd St, 10th Fl (Bwy/5th Ave)
$5 suggested donation
This is the monthly open mic I co-host with Ed Lin at the AAWW, the only non-profit org dedicated to supporting Asian American writers. We’ll be showing the official version of the video here. Also, I invite any of you guys to sign up and present your work that night!!! Just show up early (right at 8:30pm or slightly earlier) to sign up for a slot. And you don’t have to be Asian! All writers are welcome – and any style (poetry, music, comedy, etc.). We have everyone from seasoned pros to first-time readers testing out new material (usually with 100+ people in attendance each month)!
Hey dudes!
I’m excited to say that I’m playing with my band again next Friday, Oct 9 at The Blarney Stone!!!
That’s right – I’m plugging in my uke and rockin’ various tunes with Marco Bucelli (drums), Matt Buttermann (guitar) with A Bass Player (bass) and special guest, my boy Soce, The Elemental Wizard. If you’ve ever wanted to hear the live band version of my hit, Date an Asian, this is your chance!!! I’ll be doing songs new and old, funny and “serious”!
We’re opening up for the album release party of my friend/former college flatmate/bandmate, Bracey Smith’s band, Charm Face (isn’t that an awesome name?!?!)! They are big in Japan. Seriously. They just came back from Japan, where they were big.
This is their logo:
They will, like, charm your face off.
(Right outside of Penn Station/MSG by the corner of 31st St and 8th Ave)The party starts at 8pm
The Jen Kwok experience will start at 8:30
The Comfort Food music video premiere will be at 9:30
and Charm Face will start at 9:45
Hey guys,
So I did a lil interview with the folks at MTV Iggy about the “Date an Asian” video, addressing some of the issues of race, answering some questions from YouTube commenters and talking about comedy in general. Check it out here: MTV Iggy Interview
Mad props to Woody and Samantha at MTV Iggy for being so crazy supportive and “getting” the message.
Thank you to all the friends and fans for the overwhelming support of this video! This was a labor of love a year in the making, and I’m so glad that people are enjoying it.
<3 Jen
My new music video, Date an Asian, is a hot (and hilarious) R&B joint about dating Asian men.
Here it is:
After fun ass day of shooting and a star studded live premiere at Sulu Series, this video is ready for all the world to see!!!
We hope that you enjoy it, and please please please help promote it!!!
HELP PROMOTE DATE AN ASIAN:
1. Email this vid to all your peeps, groups and listservs:
2. Post the video link to facebook, Twitter, MySpace, tumblr, blogs, etc!
3. Embed the video wherever you can!
4. “Favorite”, share, leave comments, “thumb up” on YouTube!
5. Stream the video on a laptop strapped to your chest!
Asian men are finally gettin’ their due, so please spread the love!!!
http://www.dateanasian.net
(designed by the lovely Donna Kwok).
Thank you to everyone who helped make this video happen!
<3
Jen
My dear Tommy went back home to Staten Island for the weekend, and I was left to my own devices.
Friday Night:
Stayed home to nurse the contrails of my never-ending flu from last weekend. I ended up drinking about six servings of miso soup, while watching the following: five hours of Bravo (split between Real Housewives of Atlanta and Las Vegas Taxi Cab Confessions), an episode of Amazing Wedding Cakes, an episode of Bridezillas, Gwyneth Paltrow’s View from the Top, and a horrible Lifetime movie about a Mormon love quadrilateral starring Jennie Garth called A Loss of Innocence.
Oh Jenny....
So basically, I drank two gallons of salt water and had estrogen pumped through the television, into my eyeballs. It was horrible. I might as well have cut myself or eaten a quart of Rocky Road Ice Cream while dressing up my Barbie doll collection. I literally watched TV for 9 hours. It started at 7pm and lasted until 4am. WHAT KIND OF FREAK AM I?!?!
Saturday:
Went to brunch with Adina in the East Village, wandered around Urban Outfitters, and picked up my books on reserve from Greenpoint Library. And you know what? It turns out there’s another Jennifer Kwok who goes to my branch! I know this because I certainly did not order a Japanese manga written in Japanese with no pictures in it (seriously, what is that? )! Then I went home and started reading my actual somehow-in-my-mind-less-dorkier book choice, The Golden Compass. Then, realizing that I probably shouldn’t have ANY more miso for the rest of my life because I had consumed about 12,000 grams of sodium the night before, I decided to order in a Papacitos fish burrito.
FISH!!!
I ate this while watching Kubrick’s Lolita and marveling at the great acting – Peter Sellers rocks it in this movie (and James Mason and Shelly Winters are no schlubs either). After the movie, I fulfilled my weeklong craving for Haagen Daaz and bought a pint of Bailey’s flavored ice cream at my local pseudo-gourmet grocery market. I went to bed EARLY – like 9pm, after Friday night’s fiasco.
Sunday:
Woke up relatively early after 12 hours’ sleep and started going through emails. I grabbed a shower, ran some errands at Rite Aid (where they already have Halloween stuff up, BTW – horrifying!!!!) and bought a couple donuts and coffee from Peter Pan’s, which is now infamous for its Donut Ice Cream Sandwiches. Got back home and edited/practiced my verse for “Trapped in a Dungeon”, a guest-rap-laden song by my buddy Soce, The Elemental Wizard. Then I wrote and practiced my rap verse of a song we’re doing together, “Ride the Bus”, which will be released as a B-side to my single (also produced by and featuring Soce), “Date an Asian”.
After all that musical mayhem, I made some No Pudge Brownies and cleaned the house before my Tommy came home (it’s all the Mad Men watching that’s got me acting like robo-live-in-girlfriend).
No effing PUDGE - that's what I said!
Actually, the brownies were for my former boss, who is letting us stay at her house during our vacation, and Soce, who is hard at work producing all these awesome tracks! I headed over to Manhattan (going from the G to the 7 because there is no service to Manhattan from 23-Ely Ave for the fourth weekend in a row) and met with my former boss to grab keys, directions, etc. Then I headed downtown to record my rhymes with Soce.
Continuing with the self abuse, I came home not having eaten any dinner – BUT buying a goddamn Van Leeuwen ice cream while waiting for the bus on Bedford Ave. WHY?!?!?!?! Ugh, that ice cream is so good it’s hard for me to eat other ice cream now…. It didn’t melt once while I was waiting 15 minutes for that bus – not a square millimeter of it. It’s perfect!!!!
Stupid Van Leeuwen, you hurt so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally, I got home and found my dear Tommy there, uploading a ton of pictures of his weekend at home, along with adorable 10 second videos of his dog running around and drinking water – videos that, BTW, would probably get more YouTube hits than all my videos combined!
It was nice to be kind of left alone this weekend, but between the miso/ice cream diet and 9-hour lady film festival, I really don’t think I’d last very long. However, it was superfun to indulge, and I was glad to channel my inner rap star and try a new outlet for my creativity.
And now, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to go to bed just yet. But…a girl has to try.
Good night!
The “Date an Asian” music video premiere last night at Sulu Series was AWESOME!!!
The evening started off with amazing spoken word/poetry from Jenny C. Lares, Simone Jacobson and special guest Marco Mercado.
Marco Mercado
Supercool band Paperdoll also rocked the house with some original songs – and a fantastic cover of A-Ha!
We rolled into the music video premiere, which elicited a lot of positive responses – from laughter to “awws” to people genuinely being touched by the tribute to Asian guys, it was amazing to see such great reactions to a project that has been in the works for almost a year.
After the video premiered, we had had a bunch of great performances from the guys of “Date an Asian”, who are some of NY’s top Asian male performers:
YouJean Chang got the crowd going with his hilarious, racially charged humor.
Air Tabigue did a bunch of amazing new material after literally hopping off a plane from Vegas to make the show – what a guy!
Air Tabigue
Comedy improv group Asian Flush also had its world premiere last night! The all-Asian, all-dude group consists of: Joel Arandia, Keith Huang, Roy Koshy, Binu Paulose, Nikhil Rao, and Jamaal Sedayao.
Narinder Singh kept the crowd going with his cunning one-liners, which I dubbed “non-Sikh-uiturs”, teehee!
Narinder Singh
Phil Nee, the Godfather of Asian Comedy (who plays my dad in the video!), totally lived up to his name and annihilated the crowd with his set.
Finally, The Part-Time Models dance crew brought down the house for the grand finale!!!
All in all, it was such a great night, and I want to thank everyone again for making “Date an Asian” possible. The song and music video were a TON of fun to make, and it’s such a damn thrill to finally have it out in the world!
Moi
Also, a massive shoutout to the Sulu and Bowery Poetry Club crew: mucho thanks to Taiyo Na for giving a home to Asian American artists – Sulu Series coming up on 5 years!!! Thank you to DJ Boo for manning the turntables, Nick for teching up a storm, and the lovely Diane O’Debra for keeping us well hydrated.
Look for the video in the coming days, very soon!!!
AND, if you have a hankering for a LIVE performance of “Date an Asian” with myself and Soce, come to K-Date on Thurs, 8/20 at Comix! Click on “Shows” for full details about this hit Asian matchmaking show!!!
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DATE AN ASIAN PREMIERE!!!
Sun, Aug 16 at 8pm
Sulu Series
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery Street (Between Houston and Bleecker)
$8/$5 w/ student ID
http://myspace.com/suluser
ies
Live premiere of the “Date an Asian” music video by Jen Kwok, featuring Soce The Elemental Wizard and directed by Ballard Boyd.
Featuring stand-up performances from: Narinder Singh, Eugene Chang, Tommy Hudson and Phil Nee. Featuring improv from Keith Huang, Jamaal Sedayao, Binu Paulose, Joel Arandia and Roy Koshy. Plus dance crew Part-Time Models!
K-DATE COMIX
Thurs, Aug 20 at 9:30pm
Comix
353 W 14th St (at 9th Ave)
$15 online, $20 at the door
www.comixny.com
The one and only matchmaking comedy show! Comics perform, then pair up members of the audience! Hosted by funny and fabulously talented comedian Helen Hong! The hit show regularly sells out the 120+ seat Comix main stage, and was just featured in The New York Times.
Photos by Keith Huang
Sulu Flyer by DJ Boo
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