Empire Electric by No-No Boy, album cover. 

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Experience a multimedia musical performance from No-No Boy (singer Julian Saporiti) as part of the tour for his latest album Empire Electric. This newest release brings Asian American history to life through a uniquely inventive approach to storytelling.   

Pricing

Free | Suggested donation $10

About the Artist

“Mekong Baby” music video still. Photo by Emilia Halvorsen-Saporiti.

Storytelling has always been at the root of Julian Saporiti’s music as No-No Boy. The project developed as the central component of Saporiti’s PhD at Brown University, drawing on years of fieldwork and research on Asian American history to write folk songs with uncommon empathy and remarkable protagonists: prisoners at Japanese American internment camps who started a jazz band, Vietnamese musicians turned on to rock ‘n’ roll by American troops, a Cambodian American painter who painted only the most beautiful landscapes of his war-torn home. Along the way he started to draw on his own family’s history, including his mother’s escape from Vietnam during the war.  

In his latest album, Saporiti “bridges space” between Asia and America, creating a sonic manifestation of the places lost to conflict and geopolitics. This is the revelation at the core of Empire Electric, the third album by No-No Boy, and its songs that examine narratives of imperialism, identity, and spirituality. It tells stories rooted in years of research and relationship-building, made vibrant and profound through a rich congregation of instrumental, environmental, and electronically manipulated sounds from Asia and America.  

Listen to “Mekong Baby,” No-No Boy’s first release from Empire Electric, produced by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

Contact: Ashley Yung