Texas’ YAR Fest helps A+PI music artists build community

In Austin, Texas, you rarely see more than a handful of non-related Asian Americans together outside of select supermarkets or a university library—much less Asian American musicians. So when I step inside Texas’s first Asian music festival, it feels like walking into the first day of kindergarten and recognizing all my buddies from preschool (sans anyone who would make stinky lunch jokes).

The 1214 YAR (Young Asians Represent) Festival & Night Market, which took place on Saturday and Sunday at the Round Rock Amp just 20 minutes outside of Austin, boasted a sonically diverse lineup including Korean American musician and dancer Justin Park, Indonesian singer AGNEZ MO, online influencers-turned-boy band North Star Boys, pop-punk princess Rei Ami, and Taiwanese crooner KIRE. What makes this festival stand out from its coastal counterpart, Head in the Clouds, is its focus on up-and-coming local artists; more than half the performers, like Jonavi, Francene Rouelle, and Rococo Disco, are based out of Texas.

The festival also included a wide array of local Asian food vendors, such as Asian Streetness and Tony’s Dumpling Bar, to offer an adjoining night market experience. This proved a very family-friendly idea for the day-long weekend festival; young parents could occupy sticky-fingered children with rolled Thai ice cream from Rollie Rolls and savory crepes from Triple Z, while rocking out to a set. The food vendor selection was just as encompassing as the setlist, ranging from a to-order dumpling bar and Vietnamese street food, to Filipino BBQ and Lao-inspired tacos. I went for crispy fried pork belly from VKdelicious, which has enough melt-in-your-mouth, crunchy-layered goodness to feed two people—all for $20. 

I caught up with a few of these artists at YAR Fest, where we talked about their music, the rising cross-continental influences between Asian and Asian American artists, and the benefits of recording with no pants on. 

These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.

Jonavi: Artistry takes a village

Festival organizers’ decision to spotlight local artists gives Texas-based AA+PI musicians the opportunity to network not just with bigger names, but with each other. Unlike larger festivals, where it’s difficult to go beyond handshakes and business cards, connections are forged within the (relatively new) Texas AA+PI artist community. For example, Dallas-based pop R&B singer Jonavi, who performed Saturday afternoon, met Austin artist Francene Rouelle at the festival and the two got together for a songwriting session on Monday. When I spoke with the former backstage on Sunday, we discussed the Cebu City-born, Maine-raised poptress’ catchy odes to the things that go on between boys and girls. 

Clara Wang: A lot of your music, from your 2023 EP Blue Hour, to your new singles “Pretty Boy” and Peaches,” are about relationships and love. What are some of the stories behind the relationships that inspire your songs?
Jonavi: I would say most of my songs are about exploring the “what ifs,” or “what could have been,” or “what used to be.” “Pretty Boy” was a mix of reality, but also fantasy. I've always liked “pretty boys,” for lack of a better term. I like when they're a little bit pretty. So I was like, “Oh, let's write a song, a cute little song about it.” And then some I just wrote for fun. “Peaches” is just something that I wrote with Andy, who's another performer here at YAR Fest, and we just wanted to write something a little bit nuanced with fruit, but meant something else.

A lot of my new music I've written now is more focused on generational trauma and personal discoveries. So I'm excited to release that next year, and kind of weave that into my stories about relationships and love and familial relationships as well. 

CW: Who are some AA+PI artists you would love to collaborate with?
J: NIKI, the Indonesian artist. I feel like our songwriting is relatively similar.

CW: Is there a prominent Asian American music community in Texas? How do you think the Texas music scene has evolved, in regards to this?
J: I feel like it’s grown. I’m based in Dallas and I’m part of an Asian American community called DAAART (Dallas Asian American Art Collective), and that's how I got really connected with the Asian creative community within Dallas. And it's not just music, it's people in film and photography, they paint, they make 3-D art. And actually people from DAAART helped me make the stage footage that I used for my performance. And it was through people at DAAART that I met more people to collaborate and write with and do live performances with. So I feel like it's growing.

Justin Park: From L.A. to Korea to L.A.

One of the things festivals like YAR and Head in the Clouds highlight is Asia’s growing soft power and the pipeline of cultural influence that flows both ways between Asian and Asian American artists. Day one was packed with Asian pop influences, from headliners North Star Boys’ obvious K-pop formations, to Rei Ami’s early 2000s J-pop-inspired style. Los Angeles born-and-bred Korean American R&B singer Justin Park, whose dance skills were fine-tuned by World of Dance finalists Kingjaz, encapsulates the inter-continental influence of K-pop.

If you asked AI to create a BTS member from L.A., he would likely look like Park. The 27-year-old singer is perhaps best known for his 2018 hit single “On The Low,” off debut album Places Like Home, which received a viral boost after BTS’s own Jungkook shared the song on Instagram in 2022. Park took the #YAR stage on Saturday after rapper (and Park’s protege) Ted Park became overwrought with emotion and stepped off stage while performing an unreleased track written the morning after his grandmother’s passing. Justin Park dropped “Somebody,” featuring HELLO GLOOM, in October and plans to drop his new album—which has been two years in the making—in January.

CW: The U.S. to Korean music scene is now a live line, with artists like Jessie and Jessica Jung being prominent in Korean pop culture and also the other way with collabs like G Ma. How do you think Korean American artists are influencing Korean music, and vice versa?
Justin Park: I feel like there’s been waves of Korean American music and Jay Park is one of the forefathers of that generation. And here comes Justin Park and I just feel like it’s so beautiful. Even Jay has said before, “Justin is like me from 10 years ago.” Jay is a CEO. I am as well. Shout out to Big Bro.

What I’m trying to say is that I have amazing reference figures that have taught and guided me. Jay was one of my leaders for Show Me The Money when I was there a year and a half ago and he’s given me so many secrets, so many insider views.

CW: Your song “Mi Vida” encapsulates the way L.A. merges Korean and Latin cultures. What are some other ways being from L.A. influences your music?
JP: I live, breathe, and die Los Angeles. Everything I do, from how I eat, to how I walk is Los Angeles. Shout out to my boys from East L.A., shout out to my boys from Highland Park South. Pasadena, Altadena boys, you already know what it is. I highly believe that you walk the way you're from. And I'm very grateful to be where I'm from. Me and my mother, we are from poverty, and we haven't had much, and we've lived in a couple sections in Los Angeles. So I really attest to God and to my mom, they are the reason why I am here.

A lot of people don’t know this about me because I have a very clean image online, which is amazing, and it gets me a lot of gigs, but to be honest with you guys, my life was filled with a lot of violence and gang culture. So I want to say to the kids out there, if you're going through a hard time, if you don't have one or either of your parents, or if you find yourself in a very hard financial situation, keep your head up, because I was once there, and I used to think that there was no way out. But God has your back. If you have friends, love them.

CW: How did the BTS Jungkook shout out impact your career?
JP: Shoutout to Jungkook and Amber (Park finished a seven-show LIVE NATION tour with Amber Liu this spring) and everybody who’s helped me along my career. But I truly believe that God already had a plan for me, and so I think Jungkook was just a part of the plan. I think Jungkook has a beautiful soul, and I know I'm going to meet Jungkook very soon.

Rococo Disco: Keepin’ Austin weird

Day two of YAR Fest was more funk and hip-hop heavy, with high-energy performances from Austin artists Cherelle K, AK!, and PROMQUEEN. Closer Indonesian soft-core hip hoptress Agnez Mo surprised audiences with a tropical-hued Justin Park collaboration performing new single “Party in Bali.” For my final interview of the day, I spoke with members of the Austin-based R&B-funk-soul duo, Rococo Disco.

Paul Chu was that kid in school with a complete lack of self-consciousness, and unlike many of us, he never learned to be ashamed. The founding half of the genre-bending Rococo Disco met bassist and guitarist David Soto in college at Texas A&M and instantly sparked a powerful chemistry. The duo recorded a live EP in June at Fifth Street Studios in Austin, including tracks “Jawbreaker” and “Jb Geronimo,” in collaboration with saxophonist and flutist Javier Vasquez, and trombonist and trumpet player David Warrener, along with several other musicians from their rotating live roster. Chu and Soto will be releasing an as-of-yet-unnamed album, as well as an EP featuring music from their extensive backlog, at the end of the year. 

Chu was a hurricane of sound and motions onstage Sunday afternoon, twisting and wriggling and waving his fingers yet somehow remaining on key and hitting some impressive falsettos. Rococo Disco closed with the high-energy “Green Man” off their upcoming album, with Soto’s Spanish vocals grounding a bass line as Chu literally smeared green paint on his face. Never change, Chu. 

CW: Your music ranges from funk to city pop to R&B and soul. Can you break down some of your main influences?
David Soto: I started as a rock guy. I love rock and roll, classic rock. And then D’Angelo, Steve Lacey, Omar Apollo. We kind of met in the middle and fused our influences.

Paul Chu: I was really into indie at the time, I made a lot of connections through the indie rock scene at the time. Arcade Fire, Young the Giant were some of my biggest influences. Like he said, we met in the middle with R&B and soul. From there we’ve kinda moved onto pop… we don’t try to stick to one thing too much.

CW: Asian American is such a broad definition. How do you think AA+PI people connect at music festivals like this that are specifically geared towards promoting AA+PI artists?
PC: Something that’s interesting to me at YAR is seeing a lot of Asian American artists take inspiration from these Asian artists because honestly, I haven’t seen a ton of that. It’s really cool.

CW: You just dropped a live album. What was that experience like?
DS: That’s the first project we had not just me and Paul but the entire group of eight musicians, right. It was cool ’cause it was collaborative and everyone got writing credits ’cause everyone put in their own pizzazz on the final cut. It was really fun. We got to dress up. 

PC:  Oh, fun fact, I like to take off my pants in the recording studio because it makes me feel freer.

DS: Certifiably better takes when he wears no pants.

PC: I have underwear on. Most times.