Joy Ruckus Club & TRAKTIVIST: Pushing the Limits in the Asian American Music Scene

Joy Ruckus Club recently hosted the World’s Largest Asian American Music Festival in February. Kublai Kwon of Joy Ruckus Club and Richie Menchavez of TRAKTIVIST are actively bringing the Asian American music scene to new heights.

This year's Lunar New Year looked different for many Asian American families. A holiday that typically celebrates new beginnings and health, took on a more significant meaning as many were subject to stay home, which meant creating new ways of celebrating the holiday in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For those who yearned for an experience to generate that feeling of joy and celebration, Joy Ruckus Club 3 (JRC3), the "World’s Largest Asian American Music Festival", was the place to be. Hosted from February 16-21, this five-day festival was held virtually and featured Asian artists including, Run River North and Chloe Tang.

JRC3 invited anyone and everyone to take part in this year's event. The Joy Ruckus Club festival organization had only been in existence for eight months when they presented this third installment of their virtual festivals. They successfully gave the stage to over 180 Asian artists from around the world.

Kublai Kwon, the CEO of Joy Ruckus Club, has innovated a way to promote several Asian artists by using the World Wide Web as his audience, “I settled into the format of what a virtual event can be and I took it to the logical extremes.”

This is not Kublai Kwon’s first time hosting a Lunar New Year event. He helped curate the annual Lunar New Year festival in L.A.'s Chinatown. However, using a virtual format has given Joy Ruckus Club the freedom to not only create an even larger canvas but also host as many events as possible.

“With virtual festivals, you’re not constrained by only doing them annually, you can actually do them as often as you want,” Kwon continued, “What if Coachella happened every three months? How crazy would that be?”

Since the start of his career promoting Asian American musicians in 2001, Kublai Kwon has noticed that there was little to no resources or support for Asian American artists. After taking a step back from the Asian American music scene and establishing himself in the general music industry, he then returned and realized there was almost no one who was actively trying to make a difference by promoting this genre. Kwon’s goal with Joy Ruckus Club is to be the much-needed change within the scene. Kwon explains, “The motivation was seeing this lack of support, this lack of infrastructure within Asian American culture, where there isn’t really any large platform for Asian American artists.”

Joy Ruckus Club is not limited to the restrictions of an annual event. In this new virtual space, they are able to maximize exposure and promote many Asian artists and acts by way of their festivals. Kwon said, “I realized how much of a need there was for this - not just once a year, or because it’s Asian American month, but because this is just needed on a very primal level. And it’s almost my burden because I feel like if I don’t do it, then nobody else will because it’s been proven that way for the last twenty years.”

Kwon made it a point to accredit TRAKTIVIST as a notable exception. They are a website used to promote Asian American artists by cataloging each act individually. “[Richie Manchavez, Founder of TRAKTIVIST] is like the encyclopedia of Asian American music,” said Kwon. He accredited TRAKTIVIST as a significant contributor to the JRC3 event, not only by providing a stage for their artists to perform but by helping to discover and book new artists through their website.

On the topic of TRAKTIVIST, Kwon said, “I find it incredible that [Richie’s] the only one doing what he does as far as curating and documenting all the Asian American music acts. [Richie] even has people on his team that DJ Asian American music. It’s like, where is more of that going on? Why is it only TRAKTIVIST?”

Both of these Los Angeles-based collectives are prime leaders in supporting, promoting, and documenting the Asian American music scene in ways that nobody else is. Kwon says that their mission is to “normalize the idea of being a professional Asian musician.” By building their brand and providing a space for these artists to perform and cultivate as much public attention and material as possible, they have truly made a difference within the community.

“I think what we’re doing now is spreading the seeds so we can grow a forest; I think having Joy Ruckus Club is going to give a lot of young artists of Asian descent the confidence to be able to pursue this as a full-time career route.” Kwon continued, “In previous eras when there hasn’t been that much support, it’s harder to make that leap”.

Joy Ruckus Club and TRAKTIVIST will continue to push the barriers of the Asian music scene exposure, this Summer at their six-day Joy Ruckus Club 4 event. The tentative dates for this next festival are June 21-27 2021. “I think we’re going to have a lot more headliners this time… a lot more big names, more K-Pop stars," says Kwon. With an expected goal of 200 artists in total, Joy Ruckus Club continues to set the bar high and reach even higher.

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