In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we are turning up the volume on some important and influential musicians. This playlist features contributions from Minnesota musicians Meghan Kreidler of Kiss the Tiger, Mayda, D’Lourdes, Cydi Like the City, and Isabella Dawis, and regular contributors Youa Vang and Lianna Matt McLernon.

As you listen, read their personal reflections about the music to find out more about the artists with Asian and Pacific Islander backgrounds. Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is the month of May, but this music is for all seasons.

Jhené Aiko - "Eternal Sunshine"

Jhené probably considers herself multiracial versus Asian American – she is 25% Japanese – but when I first saw her, she had similar features I saw in me. I love a lot of her music because of the zen-like feel it has, especially "Eternal Sunshine." This song reminds me that through a lot of challenges and turmoil, I can choose to focus on the good things and to be grateful for what I have. And to also just live to the fullest! It gets me into a calm and reflective state.
-Cydi Yang (AKA Cydi Like the City). Cydi Like the City is a spoken word artist, musician, and dancer who recently was featured in the 2022-2023 Cedar Commissions.

Raveena - "Headaches"

I discovered Indian Punjabi American singer Raveena a few years ago through a Tiny Desk Concert! I so love this song because it's a heartbreak queer love story. When I first saw the music video, I felt this feeling come over me: "Wow! This resonates." (Though I have never been in a queer relationship, this gave me a different narrative versus the usual heterosexual relationship. I'm sure I'll get my heart broken by a beautiful gal one of these days haha!) As a queer Asian-American, finding this song and music video gave me such comfort. - CY

Rina Sawayama - "STFU!"

It's the age of feminine rage, and this song by the Japan-born, London-based pop star Rina Sawayama gives you exactly that. Though mostly known for her bright mainstream hyper-pop anthems like "This Hell" and "Bad Friend," this has always been one of my favorites. It is delightfully colorful in terms of production, jumping from metal instrumentations and bold vocal affectations in its verses to a glittering and cheeky bubblegum chorus. It may seem random, but dang, does it work. It's brave and bold, perfect for a workout playlist or a proper rage session after an argument with your sh*tty ex.
- Danielle Troiano (AKA D'Lourdes). Danielle Troiano is an actor/singer-songwriter and a graduate of the UMN/Guthrie BFA Acting Program. @onthedlourdes on Instagram, @dlourdesmusic on TikTok.

Joji - "Die For You"

Starting out on YouTube, Joji basically runs the internet, with over a billion streams to his biggest hits "SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK" and "Glimpse Of Us." There's something so quintessentially online about the music of this Japanese star, who is now based in the U.S. Melancholic chord structure, lofi-like production, sincere lyrics, and gentle yet specific vocals balanced with the occasional dense electronic production, it's a sound that can only be found post-2016. "Die For You" is a lullaby for those who are learning to love someone from afar, and a song that I recommend for those who enjoy the sads in the summer (but in a cool way, you know, Gen Z-ish). - DT

Japanese Breakfast - "Boyish"

Japanese Breakfast is an indie pop band, often venturing into the dream pop realm sprinkled with folk-ish instrumentations, sewn together with Michelle Zauner’s spacious vocals and deep cutting lyrics. While most of their discography is warmer and funkier than "Boyish," from Soft Sounds From Another Planet, is one of their biggest hits. This is the type of song you play while relaxing by the lake. Still, if you listen any closer, the lyrics give you an immediate punch to the gut. - DT

AUDREY NUNA - "Baby Blues"

AUDREY NUNA is one of the most underrated Korean American artists out there. The Jersey native is an R&B singer and rapper most known for her hype trap rap anthems "damn Right" and "Comic Sans (ft. Jack Harlow)" with several features on the Shang-Chi movie soundtrack. There are few better words to describe her sound other than straight up cool. "Baby Blues" is one of my favorites—it's a smooth and sexy track about someone a little too reckless to defend, with production that begs you to nod your head and make a stank face. She is a dirty artist (in the praiseworthy sense, look it up on Urban Dictionary). - DT

beabadoobee - "Talk"

If you were on TikTok at all in 2020, you probably heard Filipino-British singer-songerwriter beabadoobee in that one song about "a cup of coffee for your head," which has accrued more than a billion streams on Spotify alone. "Talk" is off of her 2022 album Beatopia, which heavily leans into the '90s/early 2000s soft rock world. This track is a perfect storm of her modern bedroom pop vocals and fun indie rock instrumentation. It makes me think of Lindsey Lohan's band in Freaky Friday. It's a playful, youthful track, and something I'll always put on driving with my windows down on a sunny day. - DT

The 5.6.7.8.'s - "Woo Hoo" 

Thank god the quirky genius of Quentin Tarantino introduced American mainstream pop to this all-female Japanese punk rock doo wop group. This was icing on the cake for Kill Bill! For those who don't remember, the band kills it on stage while Gogo (Chiaka Kuriyama) and Uma Thurman are about to brawl. I have actually eaten sushi in that restaurant. It was unreal for me! - Mayda Miller (AKA Mayda. Mayda is a musician and actress based in the Twin Cities with a new album on the way later in 2023. Follow along at YouTube @maydamiller and Instagram @maydamess.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs (featuring Karen O) - "Heads Will Roll" and "Dragon Queen"

There are too many YYY songs that are amazing for me. These two songs really bring such a unique vibe that I always get lost in—and they helped make It's Blitz the band's third (of four) Grammy nominations for best alternative album. Lead singer Karen O, who was born in South Korea, really makes this band in my top 10 rock bands. Her style overall is so inspiring. She could literally wear a cardboard box and look cool. - MM

Smashing Pumpkins (featuring James Iha) - "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"

The first time I heard this song was when I was in junior high. I remember all the pent up anger and confusion that was released. It felt so amazing! I would cut out pictures of the band from Rolling Stone magazine and put them on my wall, on my books, and on my clothes. When I found out that the guitar player, James Iha, was Asian—he's Japanese American—I felt reassured. - MM

Kiss the Tiger - "Grown Ass Woman"

Meghan Kreidler's delivery of this song, especially live, is so genuine. Knowing how strong this local band can rock, her execution of this ballad is equally as powerful. (Editor's Note: ICYMI, Kiss the Tiger made the National Independent Venue Association's inaugural Live List, "a 'most liked' list and artist development initiative from the folks who live for live.") - MM

The Birthday Suits - "38th Parallel 2010"

Local duo Matthew Kazama and Hideo Takahashi slay so hard. Their performance will sucker punch you in the face, and they inspire me to keep building my artistry. Kazama has a ramen place that's pretty good, too. (Editor's Note: Mayda couldn't choose one song, but we couldn't not pick the one they played for the Local Show in 2010.) - MM

Thee Machine Gun Elephant - "Drop"

The sound of this song is just so crisp and forcefully melancholy. The energy and fashion of this Japanese band is so cool to me. It is the kind of song that makes me want to keep going with music. It makes me proud hearing how much care it feels like they put in. - MM

Japanese Breakfast - "Paprika"

The rising success of Michelle Zauner's memoir Crying in H Mart and her band's 2021 album Jubilee seems to run in parallel and suggests that this writer's personal story and art are inextricably intertwined. Zauner's memoir posed a question that I have often asked myself as a biracial Asian woman, "Who am I (or would I be) without the person who gave me my Korean identity?" In Crying in H Mart Zauner confronts the tragic loss of her Korean mother by embracing her identity, and while she navigated this parental loss in previous albums, she hoped to embrace more celebration and joy in Jubilee. "Paprika," track one, is perhaps the most jubilant. It seems to echo the journey she has been on in accepting loss, celebrating the opportunities that sharing her personal story has afforded her, and continuing to question "what else is here?"
-Meghan Kreidler. Kreidler is the lead singer of Twin Cities rock band Kiss the Tiger.

SASAMI - "Skin A Rat"

I discovered SASAMI last year to my great delight. Not long after, her 2022 album Squeeze was playing on repeat. In an interview with The New York Times, Sasami Ashworth made a comment that she was attempting to "appropriate white, male music" with this album, and her attempts were successful. I had never been drawn to the heavier, more industrial metal sounds that Ashworth offers here, but seeing an Asian woman embrace this sonic landscape really changed how I receive the sound. Ashworth took inspiration for both the album cover and her live performances from the Japanese folk creature Nure-onna, a creature who "entices passersby and, depending on whether she judges them to be a good person or not, either lets them go without incident or drains their blood." Lucky for me, I was able to see SASAMI twice in concert last year, and she was wild, lively, and grotesque in the best of ways. -MK

Mitski - "Your Best American Girl"

For me, it's the music video that really hits for this song. You see Mitski making flirty eyes at a cute white dude across the way. You think they're digging each other, but all of a sudden this white girl, wearing suede fringe and a floral crown á la ’70s hippie meets Native appropriation, comes in and starts making out with the guy. Left on her own, Mitski starts making out with her own body while homeboy and homegirl continue at it in a feral manner that, to me, represents the often suffocating effects of whiteness in America and the white male gaze on female Asian bodies. What's a girl left to do but consider her own desirability and then end up being ashamed of it? Ultimately, she rocks out with the "noise" in the background and ends up going her own way, echoing her journey as a self-possessed artist who has shaped her career by resisting the mainstream. -MK

Night - “Tuina Ko Chha Hai Bhara”

Formerly a metal band, today a vocal advocate for traditional Nepali music, the band Night ingeniously blends old and new. This track is off their must-listen album Ani Ukali Sangai Orali, which combines traditional Nepali instruments, pop/rock harmonies, and nature soundscapes to stunning effect.
- Isabella Dawis. Isabella Dawis is a Filipina-American writer and performer based in Minneapolis, who collaborates on new musicals, operas, and plays. She is currently a 2023-25 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and a 2023 Artist-In-Residence at Loghaven. Learn more at isabelladawis.com.

Black Eyed Peas - “Bebot”

This song was an awakening for me as a Filipina tween—the first time I heard rap in Tagalog. I was especially excited about the shoutout to chicken adobo. (“Filipino! Filipino!”) -ID

Kaoly Asano and Me-Lee Hay - “The Resonance of Eleven”

This track is off the just-released soundtrack to Finding Her Beat, a documentary about how the Twin Cities’ own TaikoArts Midwest brought together a group of world-class taiko drummers—strikingly, all women—to share the stage for one night. It’s an enlightening and moving film, and it’ll get you hooked on Japanese taiko drumming. -ID

Mike Velarde Jr., played by Angelo Favis - “Minamahal Kita”

When I think of Filipino music, I think of guitar — a long-lasting cultural import from Spanish colonization. This traditional love song (kundiman) from 1940 is a favorite of my grandparents, which we often sing and play at family gatherings. -ID

Tidtaya Sinutoke and Isabella Dawis, sung by Gemma Nha - “Outside”

In the new musical Half the Sky, a Thai-American woman sets out to reach the top of Mount Everest. Aurelie, one of very few Asian female leading characters in musical theater, is climbing in honor of her late sister—and in defiance of death. In this bilingual eleven o’clock number, she readies herself to attempt the summit. -ID

ONE OK ROCK - "Save Yourself"

ONE OK ROCK's first international hit was 2012's "The Beginning," and since then, they've been building a fanbase around the world. The fact that they opened for Muse during its international 2022/23 tour doesn't hurt. I saw them for the second time in 2022, and as an adopted kid from China who regularly feels like an Asian American fraud, I was (maybe childishly) comforted by the number of Asian Americans and Asians packing the soldout Fillmore. Like... maybe the spectrum of experiences might be large enough where I didn't have to ask "How Asian do I have to be to call myself an Asian American fan?" Then the concert kicked off with Takahiro Moriuchi's eviscerating vocals singing "Save Yourself," and the rest of the night was history. 
-Lianna Matt McLernon. McLernon is the marketing & communications director at Theater Mu and a Twin Cities writer who loves covering the arts.

D'Lourdes - "Wait for Me"

My head says to write about D'Lourdes' "How Did You Get So Good?" for its mash of genre influences and its viral "fuzzy duck" line, but my heart says "Wait for Me." Shades of sweetness, melancholy, and hope wash over the song's yearning words, "Wait for me / hurry up and wait for me / I wanna be the person that I know I can be / help me." Although she rocks out in songs like "Catholic Guilt," there's a quiet strength that brews here that unleashes itself in beautiful ways. -LM

BLACKPINK - “‘뚜두뚜두 (DDU-DU DDU-DU)’ M/V”

With their management contract ending in August of 2023, the future is uncertain for Blackpink and Blinks, their fans. The group has changed the South Korean musical landscape since forming in 2016, with their Coachella debut in 2019 being pivotal in their careers. There are many factors in their success, some of it inexplicable, but perhaps it’s their group chemistry that draws you in. The quartet takes no guff, but are playful and immensely mature all at once. I have often held dance parties centering around their YouTube videos with my 9-year-old niece (sorry downstairs neighbors). At the core they are simply fascinating – and fun – to watch.
-Youa Vang. In addition to covering the local music scene for The Current and Minneapolis-St. Paul magazine, Vang creates beautiful and hilarious crafts as Third Daughter Restless Daughter with her sister, Wone Vang. A piece, “paj ntaub” by their mother, See Vang, is incorporated into this playlist’s artwork.

Bloodmoon “Disarm”

If you saw a commercial or watched a movie in the early 2010s, you might have heard the sweet falsetto that belongs to Dougy Mandagi of The Temper Trap. In early 2022, the lead singer reemerged with a new project under the moniker Bloodmoon. The new music is informed by his past songwriting, but with a gloss of the elation of someone who has stayed up all night having a good time and is now basking in the emerging sunrise. -YV

Beadadoobee “Coffee”

Beadadoobee’s songs capture the very essence of what it feels like to be young, naive, and free. “Coffee” transports me back to the early days of lockdowns when it made its rounds on TikTok as we huddled in our homes and tried to find connection through our little screens. It can make me feel so sad and so happy at the same time, and the muted recording is so soft and comforting – like a warm cup of coffee. -YV

LOTT “Parking On the Grass”

The void Twin Cities singer and violinist Leah Ottman left behind with her passing in late 2020 is vast. Her legacy of music is hauntingly beautiful and reminds us how ephemeral life is. With “Parking on the Grass” she created large rooms of sounds and invited you to catch a glimpse into her Inception world that she constructed in her head. -YV

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down - “Temple”

In “Temple,” Thao & The Get Down Stay Down tell the story of many Vietnamese people and how many homes and families were lost in the blink of an eye because of war. It also shares the trauma and eventual resiliency many Southeast Asians have had to endure and how it resonates throughout generations. -YV

Priscilla Ahn - “Dream” 

A song can enhance a scene in a movie and elevate it to something so much better. We saw it with Garden State and Guardians of the Galaxy. In 2009, the movie Love Happens barely made a blip when it premiered, but during a turning point in the film, a simple, poignant song by Priscilla Ahn opened up the scene and lit up the story. With it, Ahn showcased that if you want to be vulnerable, you have to zoom in as close as you can. -YV

Mitski “Nobody”

Mitski’s music is often so bright and cheery, but her lyrics are immediately grounding. When she sings, “I’m so lonely, so I open the window to hear sounds of people” you feel it in your gut. She grabs you by your shirt lapels and sings right into your face. -YV

Kishi Bashi - “For Every Voice That Never Sang”

Kaoru Ishibashi, who performs as Kishi Bashi, has a voice and music that carry the weight of generations. “For Every Voice That Never Sang” came from Morning Edition’s Song Project on NPR, asking artists to write work centering around the COVID era. Ishibashi, whose parents are both from Japan, found this story during a cross-country trip with his daughter, exploring the diaspora and history of hate and racism many Asian cultures have had to endure in the United States. I have found that the more we talk about our experiences, the more we find we are not alone. -YV

BTS - “Butter”

The work of BTS surpasses generations, pulling in the young and old alike. Each album is so distinctly different, and on “Butter” they once again share just how talented they are at crafting a pure pop song. The only thing smoother than butter is this group’s skin. Must be their Korean skin care products. -YV

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - “Maps”

In the “Maps” music video, the set quiets to the bright guitar while the drums kick in. Singer Karen O unblinkingly stares out into the audience, undulating back and forth as she dives headfirst into the saddest lyrics you’ve ever heard. They’re not even profoundly sad, but the tears streaming down her face will break your heart. The first time I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform this song, I just knew her intensity could build and tear down cities and no one will ever be as cool as Karen O. -YV

No Party for Cao Dong - “床 Lie”

This Taiwanese group has a knack for composing densely lush music that has smart, concise lyrics and beats that oscillate between disco and grunge. Following the tragic death of their drummer Tsai Yi-fan in October of 2022, they have returned this spring with new music.  “床 Lie” has already earned almost two million streams on Spotify since its release mid-April. This song is infused with innovation, knife-sharp assemblage and straight-to-the-point coherency that most bands would kill for. -YV

This feature is part of The Current’s 89 Days series, helping you enjoy the best of the season with weekly guides to events, entertainment, and recreation in the Twin Cities.