Thousands of Angelenos will join Councilmember David Ryu and Mayor Eric Garcetti on the steps of City Hall for Pacific Bridge, a free and open-to-the-public concert to celebrate the end of Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (LAAPAHM).
For the last three decades, the City of Los Angeles has held a series of events throughout the month of May to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) and highlight the significant contributions that Asian Pacific Americans (APA) have made to the city’s past, present and future. (Visit http://apahm.lacity.org)
This high-energy, family-friendly festival invites some of the most renowned APA artists and entertainers for an evening of celebration and live performances with MC Jenny Yang from BuzzFeed. Hip-hop and R&B singer Jhené Aiko will be headlining this year’s concert.
In addition to live performances and entertainment, Pacific Bridge will feature some of Southern California’s most popular food trucks.
The event will take place Saturday, May 21, from 6 to 9:30 p.m. at City Hall, 200 N. Spring St.
The entertainment lineup is as follows:
• Jhené Aiko is a Los Angeles-born, Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter who has experienced multiple successes on the U.S. Billboard 200 Chart, including her platinum single “The Worst.” Her debut EP, “Sail Out,” as well as her debut full-length album, “Souled Out,” both hit No.1 on the R&B Billboard Charts. She is of Japanese, African, European and Native American descent and is influenced by classic R&B and hip-hop. Billboard described her music as “intimate conversations [with] vocals lithe enough to seduce mixed with sharp lyricism and wordplay.” She will be touring starting July with Snoop Dog, Wiz Khalifa and many more influential music artists on their High Road Summer Tour.
• Jenny Yang is a Los Angeles-based writer and standup comedian who produces the first-ever mostly female Asian American standup comedy tour, Disoriented Comedy, and The Comedy Comedy Festival: A Comedy Festival. She is a frequent collaborator on viral Buzzfeed videos that have amassed over 20 million combined views, and digital comedy platforms including Comedy Central (“White Flight”), Cracked.com, and Fusion. Drawing from her former career in politics, she is a regular commentator on politics and pop culture with contributions featured in National Public Radio, The Guardian, NBC News, BBC News, Al Jazeera America, Complex Magazine, Southern California Public Radio, ISAtv, Bitch Magazine, and Pivot TV. Yang was dubbed one of L.A.’s “most fascinating people” of 2015 in LA Weekly’s annual “People” issue.
• Awkwafina is a Queens-born rapper, comedienne and actress. She is best known for her viral music videos with a feminist tint, and has been featured in The New York Times, Vice/Noisey, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, NBC News, Jezebel, Gawker and more. She is currently a featured cast member on MTV’s “Girl Code” and will appear in the upcoming films “Neighbors 2” and “Dude.” She currently resides in Brooklyn.
• Jonathan Park (a.k.a. Dumbfoundead), in less than a decade, has built a legendary history in the L.A. hip-hop scene. While he grew up listening to all genres of music, the hip-hop scene in the ’90s bustling, and through that Dumbfoundead found his initial hip-hop clique that clicked and clacked from a Macarthur Park community center to Project Blowed, an open-mic workshop in South Central L.A. Dumbfoundead developed his skills with an exponential rise to local and even national acclaim with everything from rap battle videos with views in the millions, to spotlights on shows like “Last Call with Carson Daly,” to most recently his curator role in one of K-town’s most happening parties, Spamneggs, alongside Far East Movement and Tokimonsta.
• Tribal Theory of San Diego has established themselves as the originals of urban reggae music, continuously producing fresh musical compositions that are undeniable masterpieces. Formed in 2005, Tribal Theory’s signature is the fusion of their Pacific Island culture with the feel-good vibes of reggae, grittiness of urban ska, and the soulful harmonies of R&B. This hybrid sound has the depth and versatility to span many different genres, including island reggae, alternative, roots, and world music.
• Run River North. Since the band’s beginnings just over four years ago, their rise has been steadily spectacular, marked by appearances on national television, sold-out shows at historic venues, tours with rock-and-roll royalty, and heaps of praise from fans and critics alike. As they blossomed, they embraced their initially folk-driven sound, which found its harmonic home alongside rootsy, foot stomping, sing-along-leading peers like Mumford & Sons, The Head and the Heart, and Of Monsters and Men. Powered by the acoustic-guitar-and-vocals songwriting of frontman Alex Hwang, their 2014 self-titled debut record, produced by Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, Modest Mouse, Band of Horses), was released with their lineup rounded out by the strings duo of Daniel Chae and Jennifer Rim, Joe Chun on bass, Sally Kang on keys, and John Chong on drums.
• Joseph Vincent is an acoustic artist striving to make a name for himself in the world of music. He has played large L.A. venues, including The House of Blues, The Knitting Factory, El Rey Theatre, The Roxy Theatre, and The Troubadour, and also plays at smaller, more intimate venues and local coffee shops. His tunes can also be found streaming through the World Wide Web, with over 400,000 subscribers on YouTube. Proud of his Filipino heritage, Vincent performed at the 17th annual Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture in August 2008, playing his music for the thousands of ears in attendance. In the summer of 2009, he traveled to the Philippines and played his first show overseas at My Brother’s Mustache, a folk bar in Quezon City. He entered Kababayan Superstar, a contest produced by Kababayan LA-18, Southern California’s local Filipino news station, and won.
• Kevin Oh is a New York-based singer-songwriter. After graduating from Dartmouth College, he set his mind to compete on the major South Korean music television program “Mnet Super Star K7” in 2015 to further his career in music. After months of competition, he won the final round, claiming the prize, album release, and a special stage appearance at the 2015 Mnet Asian Music Awards in Hong Kong.