ARTISTS TO LISTEN TO FOR ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH (AND ALL YEAR ROUND) PT. 3
BY BRENESSA ROACH | MAY 4, 2024
Happy Asian Heritage and AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) Heritage Month! In Canada, we celebrate Asian Heritage Month every May. This is a month dedicated to honouring the lives and contributions of Asian people in Canada. This includes all Asians who have immigrated from East Asia, Southern Asia, Western, Central and Southeast Asia. In America, they celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islanders or AANPI (Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander).
As a Canadian-based organization owned and operated by an individual of Asian descent, Behind The Beat takes pride in shining a spotlight on and providing support for Asian artists. We have a part 1 and part 2, so make sure to check those out as well.
In this blog, we’ll specifically showcase six talented Asian-American and Asian-Canadian artists that you need to be listening to ALL YEAR ROUND.
Justin Park, also known by his artist name S1NE is a Korean singer and songwriter from Toronto, Canada with 6K listeners on Spotify. He started off on Instagram and then TikTok and gained a lot of popularity prior to his music career. He made his debut as S1NE on July 17th, 2020 with the single “Soda”. This is his most popular song with over 700K streams on Spotify. Followed by his debut, he released “UNCHARTED” in August 2021 which was in collaboration with hello and Biosphere. This single recently hit 100K streams on Spotify, making it S1NE’s second most popular song.
S1NE didn’t release any music in 2022 and came back with a new sound on November 30th, 2023 with the single “Hate Me Too” which was produced by Dyse. For 2024, S1NE started the year off on January 30th with the release of “Over Again” followed by “Divine” in March. His latest release “April’s Fool” came out on April 1st.
S1NE has yet to perform live so, for the future, we really are excited for the day he does perform. As well, we are so excited to see his growth and support him along his musical journey.
Listen to “April’s Fool” by S1NE on Spotify:
Check out S1NE on Instagram: @jstn.prk
Marco Landaverde, also known by his artist name Ocean Child is a Filipino singer based in Chicago with 17.9K listeners on Spotify. He falls under the genre of Indie-Pop and Alt-Rock. He released his first single “Lie to Me” on February 15th, 2020 followed by “Luv Again” in March and “You.” in May. Ocean Child ended off 2020 with the relea
On September 21st, 2021, Ocean Child released the double single Maye which included “Maye” and “Walking The Cow”. “Maye” is his most popular song with almost 400K streams on Spotify alone. It’s also our favourite song of his.
Ocean Child didn’t release any music throughout 2022 and came back on February 3rd, 2023 with the single “Benton Steps” which is his second most popular song with 87K streams. This song was also a pre-release track for his debut EP Camouflage which released on August 25th, 2023. This was the EP that introduced us to his music thanks to Danny Park who shared it on his story.
On April 26th, 2024, Ocean Child just released his first single of the year titled “Sun”. This song is another song we love! We cannot wait to hear what else Ocean Child will release this year.
Listen to “Maye” by Ocean Child on Spotify:
Check out Ocean Child on Instagram: @oceanmarco
Jailyn Duong is Chinese & Vietnamese-American Indie Pop and Alternative singer and songwriter from Los Angeles with 5.6K listeners on Spotify. She debuted on August 9th, 2023 with the single “sweetness”. This is her most popular song so far with 17.8K streams on Spotify. Followed by her debut, she released the single “god isn’t talking to me” on September 20th, 2023. Both of these singles were pre-release tracks for her debut EP scar tissue which came out on November 10th, 2023.
So far for 2024, she released her first single of the year “Just A Taste” on April 3rd and we absolutely love this song. We cannot wait to hear more of Jailyn’s music and very thankful she submitted to our blog!
Listen to “Just A Taste” by Jailyn Duong on Spotify:
Check out Jailyn Duong on Instagram: @jailynduong
slone is a half Japanese and half Laotian-American Indie-Pop/R&B artist from Seattle with 69.4K listeners on Spotify. He is also a part of Seattle based collective WEST OF EDEN. He debuted on June 2nd, 2023 with the single “wish u were gone”. This is his most popular song with over a million streams on Spotify alone. As well, we actually did a press coverage for his debut so, we have been following him since the beginning and it’s been amazing to see his growth. Prior to his debut, he opened for Korean artist SHAUN on his “On The Road” North American Tour.
Following his debut, slone released “nothing else but u” on September 8th, 2023. He ended the year off in December with the release of “butterfly” which was in collaboration with his collective WEST OF EDEN and jun.e – who is also a part of the collective.
For 2024, slone released his first single “CONTACT” on February 23rd with WEST OF EDEN, keanu., jun.e, rayne and riensu. His latest single came out on March 22nd. It’s titled “again” and is a collaboration with WEST OF EDEN and jun.e.
Listen to “wish u were gone” by slone on Spotify:
Check out slone on Instagram: @slonerr_
baron. is a South Korean-Canadian Hip-Hop/R&B singer and songwriter from Vancouver, Canada with 3.9K listeners on Spotify. He debuted on October 30th, 2020 with a double single EP No Tears which included; “Love No More” and “Anymore”. “Anymore” is currently baron.’s most popular song with 92K streams on Spotify.
Followed by his debut, he released “We in Love” on July 6th, 2021. In 2021, he also released the singles; “Where You At” in August and “Love Is A Lie” in October. His first single of 2022 was “Diamond Spoon” in March. All of these singles were pre-release tracks for his debut album Imbalance which came out May 6th. His last release of 2022 was in July for the single “insecurities”.
In July 2023, baron. was featured on suggi’s album moonkid. for the single “WE’RE GOING ON A TRIP!”. This was the first time we heard about baron.. August 4th, 2023 baron. released the single “Worst of Me” followed by “Happier” on August 18th. His latest release was from September 1st, 2023 for the single “Lullaby”.
For 2024, baron. has his first single of the year coming out on May 22nd and it’s a kind of new sound for him. The single is titled “Distant” and it’s featuring Hvdson.
Listen to “Anymore” by baron. on Spotify:
Check out baron. on Instagram: @reifybaron
SINA is a South Asian-American R&B/Pop artist from NYC with 2.1K listeners on Spotify. She debuted on December 17th, 2021 with the single “Now or Never” which was in collaboration with DeCC. This is her most popular song with over 33K streams on Spotify.
She did not release any music in 2022 and came back on April 21st, 2023 with the single “It’s Not Me”. In July, she released “The Switch” followed by “Shot On” with DeCC in September. She ended 2023 off with the release of “read my mind” in November with DeCC. This was the first single we listened to from her discography.
So far for 2024, she released “What We Lost” on February 1st. Her latest single “Eyes Wide Open” is from April 19th. We cannot wait to hear what SINA will release for the rest of the year.
Listen to “Now or Never” by SINA and DeCC on Spotify:
Check out SINA on Instagram: @thesinamusic
Check out our “ARTISTS TO LISTEN TO FOR ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH” Spotify Playlist:
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