Chow Mane relaxes in a patio chair by a busy parking lot. Leaning back, he chuckles, thinking of how his vocal delivery has evolved over the years of his rap career.
“I was a lot more energetic than I am right now,” he says, of his early days making party music. “I was cracking my voice a lot.”
Nowadays, he’s more comfortable delivering playful, storytelling lyrics in his naturally low voice.
“I don’t know exactly where the change happened, but at some point I just talked normal,” he says, laughing. “And I’m like, oh, that sounds kinda nice!”
That self-contentment shows up well in “Bing Ji Ling,” a single from Chow Mane’s new full-length AZN Dragon: Cake Long. With a cover depicting Chow as in the style of Disney’s American Dragon: Jake Long, AZN Dragon serves some true ’90s kids nostalgia while presenting the artist’s best work yet.
Many were first introduced to Chow via “ABG” (aka “Asian Baby Girl”), his 2015 Soundcloud hit. “ABG” managed to go viral as a hot playlist pick for Asian frat parties coast to coast. From there, Chow could have pushed the comedy rap angle to accelerate his growth in the industry. Instead, he chose to invest in his range. His 2019 album SIMMERING ran the gamut of hip hop subgenres and leaned heavily into storytelling.
“I wanted to dip into these avenues, have a storytelling song, a bragging song, an EDM-influenced song,” he shares. “I wanted to show that I’m not this Asian Lil Dicky.”
Whether he weaves them into party anthems or anecdotal confessions, Chow Mane excels in running lines that pin you in a specific memory on your own timeline. On 2020 single “San Jose,” off South Bay Summer, images like, “In the Pekoe parking lot she smoke her Juul and take a sip / Superstars on her feet and my hands on her hip” take the listener right to the era before Juuls were outlawed, and when Pekoe was the gathering spot, before that crowd moved to Tisane (and if you were there, you know why).
Though it’s arguably a cliché for San Jose rappers to release a song called “San Jose,” Chow Mane endows his anthem with playful personality, making light of our city’s more meme-able moments. “So throw your hands in the air like somebody here tryna rob ya,” he raps in the hook, testifying in the opening verse that “Last year they scrapped my Civic for some parts / That used to be my mom’s car, I swear that almost broke her heart.”
As an artist, Chow Mane takes pride in the experience of being a “third-culture” kid—raised in a culture not quite our parents’, and not quite our nation’s. These kids are privy to the references Chow generously pours into his lyrics, from the party hardy “But where your friends, where your pills, where your pepcid at? / Her girlfriend got it in her purse, and she just left,” to the everyday joy of: “Ball of sesame, full of red bean / And the check please, 哇, 很便宜” (“Wow, cheap”).
Far from using fiction for material, Chow’s discography shows an artist who is neither hero, victim, golden child or player. He’s a conscious observer, churning out impressive verses from his own life, the soundtracks to feelings that deserve their own nuanced portrait. And as he’s always done, Chow also describes the experiences of older generations—the ones whose migration journeys allowed his own subculture to form. Recalling his EP Mooncakes (2017), which pays homage to the struggles of his low-income immigrant family, “Shanghai Summers,” the last track on AZN Dragon, shares an intimate gaze into his mother’s life.
In San Jose, a certain scrappiness is necessary to survive as an artist. Since his viral success at 21, Chow Mane has shown himself more than capable of improvisation. From low-budget, DIY music videos and the blessed variety of his early mixtapes, to the swagger of AZN Dragon, he’s handled it all with a breezy prolificacy.
And though his continued investment in the wider community of “third culture” artists like himself has put him in collaboration with producers as far away as Japan, his raspy vocals always glide with a bounce the Bay Area can be proud to call its own.
AZN Dragon: Cake Long
Chow Mane
Now Streaming
