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Oliver S. Wang

(He/Him)
Los Angeles
As seen in: Les Nouilles Rampantes, Medium, The New York Times, Yahoo Entertainment, Yahoo Life, Scribd, The Guardian, Aol, arXiv, Bandcamp Daily and
Covers:  Popular music, food, arts/culture, Asian American culture and community issues
Culture writer, sociology professor, disk junkie. Author of Legions of Boom and co-host of @heatrockspod
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An Asian American Comedy Milestone Riffs on a Kung-Fu Icon

An Asian American Comedy Milestone Riffs on a Kung-Fu Icon

criterion.com — The first time I ever watched Bruce Lee was in a hotel rec room. It was 1980, I was eight, and the San Diego hotel where my family was staying had set up a projector screen next to the pool table. Enter the Dragon was playing.
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David Jolicoeur, De La Soul's Trugoy the Dove, dies at 54

David Jolicoeur, De La Soul's Trugoy the Dove, dies at 54

NPR — The most formative musical memory of my youth occurred 30,000 feet over central California in the summer of 1989. I was almost 17, flying on a school trip from L.A. to the Bay Area, and popped into my Walkman was an album I had just picked up from my local record store, Moby Disc: De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising.
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A hip-hop sendoff like no other: How Thes One turned tragedy into an extraordinary album

A hip-hop sendoff like no other: How Thes One turned tragedy into an extraordinary album

Los Angeles Times — For 20 years, the Los Angeles hip-hop duo People Under the Stairs forged a career as independent artists that far exceeded anyone's expectations, let alone its two members, Double K (Michael Turner) and Thes One (Christopher Portugal).
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What hip-hop bling reveals about American status anxiety

What hip-hop bling reveals about American status anxiety

Los Angeles Times — Book review of Vikki Tobak's "Ice Cold" and W. David Marx's "Status and Culture"
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Chan Is Missing: Lost (and Not Found) in Chinatown

Chan Is Missing: Lost (and Not Found) in Chinatown

criterion.com — When Wayne Wang's Chan Is Missing began to draw national attention upon its release in the spring of 1982, two important cinematic milestones were reached. First, as Wang's solo debut film, Chan was instrumental in launching one of the more prolific and eclectic directorial careers of the past forty years.
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In the Shadow of the San Gabriels

In the Shadow of the San Gabriels

Los Angeles Review of Books — A personal essay on both growing up - and returning - to the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles as an Asian American. I discuss the role that food plays in the construction of identity and relationship to place.
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Knife to the Heart: A Conversation with Wayne Wang on the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of...

Knife to the Heart: A Conversation with Wayne Wang on the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of...

Film Quarterly — Getting fired from a soap opera may have been the turning point in Wayne Wang's life and career. In 1974, Wang had returned to his native Hong Kong, armed with a graduate degree in film from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He landed a gig at Royal Television Hong Kong (RTHK),...
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Game was her middle name: The world was never ready for Betty Davis

Game was her middle name: The world was never ready for Betty Davis

NPR — One of my favorite recordings of Betty Davis isn't a song. In the summer of 1974, the funk singer/songwriter appeared on Al Gee's Rap N' Rhythm, a nationally syndicated interview program that was regularly pressed to vinyl and sent to radio stations by the U.S. Army Reserve.
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Shorty's Portion

Shorty's Portion

Wax Poetics — Shorty's Portion was the creation of Steven J. Salazar, a young, twenty-something Angelino who rocked shaggy, shoulder-length hair, and an impressive '70s 'stache. Raised in the sleepy pocket neighborhood of El Sereno on L.A.'s Eastside, Salazar was an aspiring singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, fueled by a creative intensity rooted in his own mortality; Salazar was born with a congenital heart issue that stunted his growth and eventually contributed to his death in 1979 at just age twenty-six.
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Cruising Nisei

Cruising Nisei

discovernikkei.org — If you arrived after dark to the Nisei Week carnival back in the 1980s, you likely would have encountered the following scene: a seemingly endless parade of cars, trucks, and motorcycles circling the streets, blaring music, revving engines, burning rubber. Crowds of Nikkei youth would have spilled off the sidewalks and street curbs, watching, gawking.
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Signs of Urban Life: On "The 99% Invisible City" and "The City Beneath"

Signs of Urban Life: On "The 99% Invisible City" and "The City Beneath"

Los Angeles Review of Books — ON JUNE 16, 1976, at 10:34 a.m., an excavation machine helping to widen the 7500 block of Venice Boulevard at Cardiff Avenue in Culver City accidentally struck an eight-inch underground gas pipeline. The resulting explosion sent fireballs into the sky and leveled the entire north side of the block.
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On Faye Wong (The Stars in Wong Kar Wai's Universe)

On Faye Wong (The Stars in Wong Kar Wai's Universe)

criterion.com — In the 1990s, Hong Kong was home to a staggering number of the most gifted and charismatic actors in the world. It's impossible to imagine the films of Wong Kar Wai-or the global art-house phenomenon they generated-without these extraordinary performers; at its heart, Wong's cinema is an ode to their star power, and their artistry anchors his explorations of time, love, memory, and urban life.
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Review: Valerie June's New LP 'The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers'

Review: Valerie June's New LP 'The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers'

NPR — Valerie June has just released a new LP called The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. The album foregrounds her distinctive voice and mixes reassurance with a yearning for engagement. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: Singer-songwriter Valerie June returns with her first new studio album in four years, "The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers."
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Roberta Flack: Gone Away

Roberta Flack: Gone Away

Wax Poetics — Coproduced by King Curtis and Atlantic Records producer Joel Dorn, Roberta Flack's cover of the Impressions' "Gone Away" serves as a microcosm of the musical community around the song's arranger and original cowriter, Donny Hathaway. Born in Chicago and raised in St.
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On A New Anthology, Dusty Springfield's Take On Southern Soul Gets Another Look

On A New Anthology, Dusty Springfield's Take On Southern Soul Gets Another Look

NPR — In 1968, Dusty Springfield - then an established pop star in the U.K. - flew across the pond to conquer the U.S. by signing what was meant to be a long-term deal with Atlantic Records.
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How Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" Became a Holiday Classic | [Re]Discover | Amazon Music

How Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" Became a Holiday Classic | [Re]Discover | Amazon Music

The Overthinking Podcast — Donny Hathaway's 1970 hit "This Christmas" represents a holiday classic for many. The soulful Christmas song is one of the first holiday songs written by and for Black audiences, and its legacy continues to be felt 50 years on.
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'Everything Is Everything' Showcased Donny Hathaway's Never-Ending Genius

'Everything Is Everything' Showcased Donny Hathaway's Never-Ending Genius

Vinyl Me, Please Magazine — "Everything is everything..." In early '70s Chicago, somewhere within the tiny 250 watt evening range of AM 1450 WVON - "Voice Of the Negro" - you may have heard that uttered by Herb Kent. By then, he had become one of the biggest Black DJs in the country and was a Chicago institution.
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New Anthology Revisits Brief History Of The Gospel Truth Label

New Anthology Revisits Brief History Of The Gospel Truth Label

NPR — The Gospel Truth was a subsidiary of the famous soul label Stax Records. A new anthology, The Gospel Truth: The Complete Singles Collection, revisits its brief moment in gospel soul history. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: In 1972, the famous Memphis soul label Stax Records created a gospel music subsidiary named The Gospel Truth.
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A Look at Chinatown's Most Stylish Seniors

A Look at Chinatown's Most Stylish Seniors

Put This On — When my teenage daughter was younger, my wife and I used to joke that she took her style from her her paternal grandmother, aka my mom). She wore bold colors in big prints and patterns. Her ensembles may not have always classically harmonized, but even amidst the visual dissonance, there was a charming playfulness, however intentional or not.
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LABI SIFFRE: MY SONG BOXSET

LABI SIFFRE: MY SONG BOXSET

soul-sides.com — If you'll forgive some self-promotion, Labi Siffre's 50th anniversary box set, My Song , drops today. I wrote the liner notes. Let me back up a moment: I first discovered Labi's music - actually, just one song at the time, " I Got The" - circa 2000 when it was sampled on both Eminem's "My Name Is" and Jay-Z's "Streets is Watching."
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We Insist: A Century Of Black Music Against State Violence

We Insist: A Century Of Black Music Against State Violence

NPR — In the liner notes to John Coltrane's 1964 album Live At Birdland, Amiri Baraka (then writing as Le Roi Jones) contemplated the gift the saxophonist and his band offered with this music inspired by the horrific deaths of four Black girls in a Birmingham church bombing inspired by white supremacist hatred.
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Giving Up the Goods: Mobb Deep's "The Infamous" Turns 25

Giving Up the Goods: Mobb Deep's "The Infamous" Turns 25

Los Angeles Review of Books — IN THE FALL of 1994, American radio and club DJs began receiving a promotional single in the mail: "Shook Ones, Pt. II," by the Queens rap duo Mobb Deep. Those early promos came with little fanfare - no cover art, no liner notes, just a plain center sticker with the group's name, song title, and record label logo.
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Betty Wright Packed A Career's Worth Of Music Into Her Youthful First Act

Betty Wright Packed A Career's Worth Of Music Into Her Youthful First Act

NPR — In 1966, Betty Wright dropped by the offices of Deep City, a Miami label located in the back of Johnny's Records in her home neighborhood of Liberty City. She had been recently discovered by artist, songwriter and producer Clarence Reid, who wanted Deep City co-founder Willie Clarke to take a listen to Wright's singing chops.
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Beyond Soul Food

Beyond Soul Food

Los Angeles Review of Books — SOMETIME DURING THE 1920s, noted Harlem historian and bibliophile Arturo Schomburg composed an ambitious proposal for one of the greatest African-American cookbooks never written.
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