Sophia Chang

[GeneChing]

[IMG]https://www.billboard.com/files/media/sophia-chang-baddest-*****-2019-billboard-embed.jpg[/IMG]

You’ve titled your audiobook The Baddest ***** in the Room and you are narrating it yourself because you wanted listeners to be exposed to your voice—both figuratively and literally. From a creative standpoint, how much time did you spent writing your memoir and when did you start recording it?

So I started writing my memoir last April. I turned in my first draft in August. I turned in a close-to-final draft again in January. I guess it took me eight months to write, and the production behind it has been incredibly ambitious, as you hear. That took a long time. It’s a seven-and-a-half-hour-long audiobook. Recording myself took 20 hours, which is extraordinarily fast. But I have 24 guest voices. No one has ever done this before in an audiobook.

When you were sitting down and writing your memoir and putting your thoughts down, did you have any goals? What did you want to accomplish with your story?

I think what I wanted to accomplish was to inspire people. People have been telling me for years, "Oh, you know, Sophia you gotta write a book. You have such a crazy life. You have all these amazing stories." And I resisted it for a long time because, frankly, it felt like an exercise in narcissism, right? A banal tale of hanging out with famous people. I knew that I didn’t want to do that.

So when I discovered in telling my story I can actually be helpful and be of service of other people, then it gelled for me. But not before that, right? Because self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment and fame, I don’t care about any of that ****. I do not care. So when I finally decided that I was going to write my memoir, and put my story down for history, I did it because I knew that I would be able to inspire -- and hopefully -- empower people.

Before your audiobook’s release, you’ve been tweeting the guests in your memoir, sharing a bit about why they all mean something to you. With your experience in the music industry, can you share some advice on maintaining meaningful relationships in the music industry? Some of these people have stuck with you as you evolved in your career, and genuinely have become your friends.

I love that question. I talk about it in my memoir in talking about [Ol' Dirty *******], God rest his soul. ODB was my first management client. And what I understood immediately and profoundly was my artists had to trust me. I think they would all say this, that Sophia Chang did everything in the best interest of her client. Whereas I think there are plenty of people in entourages that do things that are self-servicing. However that plays out. I wasn’t that interested in getting things for myself, what was satisfying for me was helping artists realize their creative vision and getting their stories out there.

So number one, trust is key. And I think we can say that about any relationship, any given human interaction. And second, I say in my memoir that hip-hop taught me my greatest lesson about loyalty. All of those artists you have seen on my Twitter and you will continue to hear on my memoir have been incredibly loyal to me and me to them in return.

Raekwon was the first member of Wu-Tang that I got, and he was like, "Soph, I know you didn’t think I wasn’t going to come through for you." I was like, "No." And he said, "You know it was just a matter of time and that I am not never, never going to come through for you." I said, "Absolutely." And we had this incredible conversation, and he in turn -- and I love Rae for this; you know, he and [Ghostface] are obviously close -- he said to Ghost [to do the audiobook].

When I saw both of them later, I saw Ghost and he said, "So, we’re going to do the audiobook thing, right?" I said, "Yeah, we’re going to do it." And he said, "Yeah, Rae told me, Rae told me." When we saw Rae, he was like, "Yo, did you do it yet? Did you do it for Soph yet?" [Laughs.] And you know, Rae was the first Wu-Tang domino, and he’s the one that really kicked it off. He cajoled Ghost. I was going to get Ghost anyway, but not easily as I would have if Rae have not been my advocate. That’s a ride or die. That’s why I say, "My name is Sophia Chang and I was raised by Wu-Tang."

In your memoir, you say you became closest with Ol' Dirty *******. He was able to enter your chamber where he could be his “goofy, brilliant, sometimes vulnerable self,” as you described. Why did you and ODB click so well?

I think ODB, God rest his soul, and I clicked so well is the same reason why I clicked so well with all my artists. Dirty used to say to me, "Sophie, I love the **** out of you. And you know why? When I’m around you, I don’t have to be Ol' Dirty *******, I can be Ason Unique." Ason Unique is his righteous Five Percenter name. He also has an amazing sense of humor, I think we used to make each other laugh. I think what all of them would tell you is I treated them like people. I didn’t treat them like stars, nor did I treat them like the anomaly. I think one of the things that I hope comes through in my memoir is the profound humanity of the guys in the Clan.

Nobody has the perspective that I do on Wu-Tang, because nobody has the relationship that I do with Wu-Tang. RZA said, "Who is Sophia Chang? In the Wu-Tang Clan, she is the yin to our yang." At once, she’s kind of like our auntie, she’s kind of like our sister. And I don’t know, frankly, if anyone else occupied that space. And he knew that.

When you talk about getting into the music industry in 1991, it sounds like we come from two different worlds when I compare it to my experience. Do you think it was more open and collaborative back then? Were more people about experiencing the growth of hip-hop from a subculture to mainstream?

Yeah, I moved to New York in ’87. So my first job at Jive was in ’91. But I immersed myself in the scene in ’87. And at that time, hip-hop was still No. 1, very New York-centric. You certainly had artists in the West Coast and the South and stuff like that but not like the proliferation that you see now. New York was still very much the nexus of hip-hop. And it was also a small scene, like you said, it wasn’t mainstream yet. It was still an underground scene and it was still a subculture. And there’s no Internet, right? The dissemination of music only came through the gatekeepers, meaning record companies and radio. There was no listening to SoundCloud. There were no places that you could put up your mixtape. There were these very specific gatekeepers, and I’m grateful for the iterations of those.

But where we all gathered was in the clubs. So in a club you would have MCs, DJs, rap artists, B-Boys. They are the creatives, right? But you would also have managers, A&Rs, publicists, attorneys, touring agents. You had everybody in it. It was a very small, insular scene. And to that end, I would say it was collaborative -- but it was also felt so distinctly like a community, because we were all so excited.

You know, for me, the green, Canadian French lit major, it was a deep privilege to be welcomed into this world that was not of my making. I’m welcomed into somebody else's world and somebody else’s culture. And we were all very, very close. We were also excited because we were making discoveries together, because another way we heard of the music was at the clubs.

So I’ll give you an example: DJ Clark Kent. One of the greatest DJs of all time. I was at the club when he broke a Color Me Badd song called “I Wanna Sex You Up.” And It was a huge ****ing hit. The first time any of us heard it was that he had a white label, which is a 12” that didn’t have the art or anything yet. It was an advanced copy, and he played it at the club and none of us had heard it. He broke the record, single-handedly, at that club. It was incredible.

If you still keep an eye on the industry now, what do you think about it? There’s definitely an emphasis on things like influencers, brands, data, and streaming numbers.

I think the industry is exactly where it is supposed to be, with the advent of technology and social media. I am not really attached to it anymore. I don’t have my finger on the pulse anymore. I don’t know who the latest, greatest artists are. I don’t know who the biggest influencers are. It’s very foreign to me, because that’s not how I interacted in the industry. But I also think that’s just where the state of the business is now, because technology is a behemoth.

The music industry lost for years and years, because we were in denial of technology. We didn’t understand what Napster was, and what it could do for the business. I mean imagine being in the music business, here comes Napster, and all of a sudden the stuff that you produce and make and sell for $24.99 a CD is suddenly free? And the whole world believes they should get this thing that you made for free. Here comes the collapse, right? And the music business is, as the French would say, bouleversée -- it’s turned upside down and it doesn’t know what to do. So I think it is exactly where it should be. But I think the evolution of it is really fascinating.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

There’s a story where you’re at the New Music Seminar in 1991 as a speaker. You're side-by-side with Joan Morgan, who called herself a “hip-hop feminist,” and it took you decades of learning and living to claim that term. What’s your take on seeing the rise of Cardi B, the support of Rapsody, and just an overall change in how we embrace women in rap?

I think it is amazing and late. It’s really late. I mean, we live in a patriarchy, and I was part of that. Although I did sign a female rapper, a woman named Mz. Kilo from L.A. I think that it is so testosterone-driven that I am so delighted by these female artists that are coming out today. There’s actually a lot of female MCs: [Queen] Latifah, and [MC] Lyte, and Monie [Love], and Isis [now known as Lin Que]. There were lots of them. Yo-Yo and Da Brat and stuff. It didn’t seem surprising.

I think somewhere along the way, there weren’t as many. So this proliferation -- and also seeing how powerful they are -- is really exciting. Seeing Cardi come up, and really claim her **** and stake her claim and become this really outspoken woman -- and doing it on her terms -- is a phenomenal message.

You grew up shunning the model minority myth. There was a time when you felt like an outsider, rejecting your Korean heritage. For example, when you were younger, you felt ashamed that Korean food looked and smelled differently. But you later decided to embrace your heritage, your traditions, and your culture. Why was that so important for you to do?

I have to give context for that. I am a child of Korean immigrants who was born and raised in Vancouver. And though there was a lot of Asians there, we were still very much the minority. I was born in 1965 so I was in 5th grade in 1975. I grew up being called a ch--k, a J-p, and a g--k, and it was regular. I say this in my memoir, a big part of my rejection of my culture was watching my culture be rejected by my adopted country and being made to feel other. And other is lesser, isn’t it? Nobody is put on the margin so they can be elevated, they’re put on the margin so they can be diminished.

Korean was my first language. I lost it on my mission to assimilate. I was ashamed of my parents’ names being different. I was ashamed that my parents spoke with accents. I was ashamed and embarrassed about our food. Kids saying, "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these" to my ****ing face, because there was never a time that I wasn’t being reminded of it.

As a result of that, I wanted, as a child, to be white. Plain and ****ing simple -- I wanted to be white. From what I can gather from anecdotal evidence, that is a very common experience for first-gen immigrants. And then I hear “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five in my senior year of high school. I move to New York. I hear A Tribe Called Quest, Leaders [of the New School], Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, and Latifah, and they’re all a part of the Native Tongues movement, which is steeped in Afrocentrism and this is about yearning for a connection to Africa, to their motherland. That made me go, "Oh, OK, that’s interesting." And it made me re-examine myself. And then I met Wu-Tang Clan. [Laughs.]

Everybody knows this, [but] Wu-Tang is named after Wudang, which is a mountain in the providence of Hebei, China. They called their home borough of Staten Island Shaolin, which is the mecca of martial arts. Not only did they introduce me to kung-fu movies, they also introduce me to John Woo, who is the greatest director of all-time, and his muse Chow Yun-Fat, the greatest actor of all time. It’s the first time I find Asian men attractive because again, I’ve internalized all the bull**** messages, the terrible racist messages, that Asian men aren’t attractive. And then I see The Killer and I’m like, "Oh my God, I wanna marry this man!" He’s married, but otherwise I would be married to that man. So it is this very interesting, circuitous route that I take back to myself.

Do you think we’re in a renaissance for Asians in American pop culture right now? With the success of Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell, as well as SNL casting its first Asian cast member, Bowen Yang, is there still room for improvement?

Not a renaissance, right? ‘Cause a renaissance implies a rebirth. It’s not like we come back around to something, we were never ****ing here before. Do I think we are seeing an increase of representation? Of course. We have Crazy Rich Asians, we have The Farewell, we have my friend Justin Chon’s film Ms. Purple, which is excellent, that just came out. We have Fresh Off the Boat. Is there a rising tide? Yes.

Again, to the other point? It’s late. It’s never too late, but it’s late. Is there room for more representation? Yes. The bottom of this funnel is small. We are all kind of squeezed through the tiny end of the funnel. I don’t want it to be a funnel. I want it to be a big ass hole that we can just all jump through. It’s better and I’m delighted, but it is nowhere near where it should be.

My brother Heesok Chang, he’s a genius. He’s [one of the] ten smartest people I know. When I started writing, he said to me, "Sophia, what you’re doing with your memoir, is that you are simply asking the world to imagine that you exist." That was profound. And it remains profound and I write it at the end of my memoir. What he is saying is absolutely right. What I promise to the world is if you’ve never ****ing seen anybody like Sophia Chang before and you never will again. And in that way, I am cracking open the imagination to world of: What can an Asian -- in my case Canadian -- Asian woman look like? Because for all the tropes, for all the "model minority" myth, for all the stereotypes, for all of the ways that we have been oppressed -- I am none of that.

My daily life is an act of defiance. I am essentially a 54-year-old Canadian Korean woman, who has a crazy samurai hairdo, who is a single mother of two grown teenagers, who is out here announcing to the world in no uncertain terms and with no compunction whatsoever and with fire conviction, that I am the baddest ***** in the room. That’s ****ing radical.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

You also talk about Chris Lighty at various points in the memoir. He was someone that became one of your most valuable friends, giving you the gift of sanctuary during tough times. Can you speak on his contributions to hip-hop and what Lighty-isms you kept with you since his passing?

Chris Lighty, God rest his soul, yes, was one of my closest friends. Chris Lighty was my Rock of Gibraltar, he was my shelter to the storm. He was my Kevlar. Knowing that I walk with Chris Lighty figuratively, meant that I walked with this shield of imperviousness.

To his contributions to hip-hop, Chris came up carrying crates for the legendary DJ Red Alert. Way back in the day like the mid-’80s. And the thing about Chris is he was so smart, and he was so entrepreneurial. He was just a hustler to the core. And he grew up doing what he does with The Violators, grew up on the streets. He was no stranger to danger. He had really good instincts on people.

I remember I would go see Chris at his Violator office, and he’s a mogul, and he’s sitting at the top of the world and he’s managing the biggest talents in the world, and he would stop everything to listen to DJ Scratch -- another dear friend of mine -- to DJ Scratch’s radio show on WBLS because it was really important for him to listen to that show.

Chris was hip-hop in a way that I never will be. And I’m not diminishing myself, it was just him. He was from the South Bronx, he grew up there. I say in my memoir, the rise of Chris Lighty mirrors the rise of hip-hop. From the projects of the South Bronx and the turntables being plugged into a streetlamp to becoming this global cultural figure. And he was there. He was there for every one of those transitions.

After going through the deaths of ODB and Lighty, you talk about mental health, telling people if you see signs of your friend suffering, go ahead and speak up. A lot of people in the music industry have been open about their mental health issues as a way to destigmatize the shame from having depression or addiction. Personally, do you think this is a good direction we are heading towards?

My answer to that is yes -- but we need much more conversation around it. I was supposed to do a panel back in March with my friend Danielle Belton, the editor-in-chief of The Root. And it was going to be me, her, a mental health professional, and it was going to be RZA and Joey Bada$$. And the topic was, Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Suicide in Hip-Hop. Because of my personal losses, I wanted to crack open this conversation because it’s just not discussed. For us, too. Asians, we don’t talk about mental health. It’s stigmatized. It’s seen as a weakness, as opposed to an illness, which it is. It’s an actual illness.

When I was coming up in hip-hop during what we call the golden era, people may of talked about smoking weed, but they didn’t talk about much else. I never saw anybody doing anything more than smoking weed. Maybe they were, but they sure as hell didn’t do it around me. But now, you have a bunch of really popular artists bragging about drinking lean, taking xans, percs, oxy. Those are prescription opioids. And you don’t have to be very educated to understand that prescription opioids is an issue. There’s an epidemic of overdoses all across the country. Every race. Every sector.

To me, hip-hop is the biggest genre in this country. For the biggest artists in the biggest genre to essentially brag about a lifestyle where they’re slowly killing themselves... Make no doubt about it. As far as I know, people don’t casually take prescription opioids. Oh, you know, every once in a while, I put the kids to bed and I have a glass of Rosé. You don’t casually take opioids. So it’s one of two things: Either they’re lying about it, which is terrible because it still means they’re setting an example. Or, they’re not lying about it, and those boys are addicted. And we will continue to lose talent if we don’t open up the conversation.

Lastly, what is the biggest challenge of being an artist manager?

I think the biggest challenge is that it is largely a thankless job. You have to have the constitution to just keep going at it, and you often don’t get the recognition you deserve because artists are -- and this is partially them, but it is also part of the culture that we created -- they are largely narcissists. And it’s a matter of saying, "I’m going to do this despite the fact I’m not really getting the recognition and the thanks that I wish." So I would say that’s the biggest emotional challenge. And maybe some people don’t care about that. I know that I care about it. The other thing is you’re constantly cajoling. Cajoling, cajoling, cajoling, all the time.

There’s a part in the memoir where you talk about GZA saying, “We did it,” giving you your props and validation for your work.

Holy ****! Yeah, but the GZA is one in a million, for real. I would also say I have to shout-out Joey Bada$$. He was recently on the radio with Angie Martinez and the RZA. And she asked, "How did you guys meet?" And he said, "Shout out to Sophia Chang, she introduced us. And she’s been instrumental in my career." That was stunning. Stunning.

Our interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

shoot. i forgot our forum censors ***** again.

[GeneChing]

The First Asian Woman In Hip Hop Is Ready To Tell Her Life Story
By ERIN KELLY
Sept 26, 2019


Dana Scruggs

Sophia Chang is a living legend. At 54, her storied resume starts in the music business in 1980s New York City — a career that led her to become the first Asian woman in hip hop, ultimately becoming manager for members of the legendary Wu-Tang Clan — but that's not where her story ends. That union put Chang's life on a path that led her to a Shaolin monk who would become her partner, a journey into motherhood, and defining shifts that would force her to decide what kind of woman she wanted to be — and she's finally ready to tell her story.

In her Audible Original by Hello Sunshine, The Baddest ***** In The Room, Chang shares the intimate details of how she's lived a life full of dismantling biases about what it means to be an Asian woman. From the board rooms of some of hip hop's most powerful record labels, to a defining journey to the Wudang mountains, The Baddest ***** In The Room inspires anyone who’s ever struggled with defining their limits.

To give Bustle readers a taste of everything The Baddest ***** In The Room has to offer, we partnered with Audible to talk to Chang about all things fearless — from diving back into the dating scene in her 50s, to changing careers, to shattering one stereotype after the next.

You mention that it wasn’t until you were 50 that you were ready to tell your story. Why is now the right time?

I wasn’t ready before I turned 50. I spent my entire 30-year career helping remarkably talented men tell their stories and it simply didn’t occur to me that mine was worth telling. That changed when I started working at [a music group] in 2014 and took on a number of young female mentees, and then the idea crystallized three years later when I participated in [a film program]. A film I was producing was chosen to be part of this event that gives you a very limited time to pitch your project to buyers.

I narrowed my resume to 60 seconds and almost every time the buyer said, "Now that’s the movie I want to see!" Although I have never fulfilled the Model Minority Myth — that I, as an Asian Canadian am not supposed to stand out, play by the rules, never upset the apple cart — I did internalize it to the point of not wanting to be in the spotlight. Obviously, that’s changed.


Dana Scruggs

In The Baddest ***** In The Room, you discuss that you admired how one of your clients valued himself while negotiating. Looking back, what did being in this job teach you about valuing yourself?

Managing [a prominent hip hop artist] taught me to be truly in service of the artist, whereas doing A&R — being the talent scout who helped get an album made and shepherd it through the system — you are beholden to the label as its employee. Working with [that artist] elevated my negotiating game. He once said to me "Soph, you’ve gotta get me more money." I realized that the fact that I don’t care that much about money is irrelevant because, again, I am in the service of my client. So I learned how to read contracts and negotiate, and now I’m an animal at it and I love the art of the deal.

You write that you were warned not to sleep with artists or you’d be “done" in the music business. How did that make you feel at the time? Would you react the same way today?

It enraged me then, as it does now. It’s all about patriarchy, isn’t it? It’s the whole pimp/ho binary: A man is lauded, high-fived, and patted on the back for sleeping with a bunch of women, but women are shamed and branded with the scarlet letter. If someone told me that now, I would say "suck a d*ck," because I can sleep with anyone that I want and that by doing so, I am neither a lesser nor greater woman.

How did you know that it was time to move on to other career opportunities?

If you read my [resume], you’d be stunned by the number of jobs in different sectors that I’ve had. I was never very conflicted about leaving one job and taking on another, even if I knew nothing about it. Partly because I had the privilege of a middle-class safety net, partly because, again, my confidence. If I f*cked up or got canned, I always knew that there would be another hustle for me. Other than with my ex, I never attached my identity too tenaciously to any one position. I think that’s a potential recipe for disaster — what happens if you get fired? Are you lost because you no longer feel whole? No, thank you.

What was your motivation for beginning kung fu training?

I never had to work out to stay thin, thanks to my mother’s hummingbird metabolism, but as I neared 30, I wanted to be more fit so I started going to the gym, which I found so boring. Then I met Wu-Tang Clan and they introduced me to kung fu flicks and the beauty of Asian culture in general, which I had rejected from childhood. I decided I wanted to start to train.

I had no idea that training would lead to me being at my strongest at 54 and the man I would partner with in business and life and parenthood. That’s a profound gift and I owe that to the Clan!


Dana Scruggs

How did your priorities change when you became a mom?

My priorities changed completely as a mother. The second I gave birth I knew two things with utter certainty: That I would die for my child in an instant, and that I would kill for my child just as quickly. My child’s safety is my primal and primary concern such that every single move I make is for them — from the jobs I take to where we live to the men I date.

What’s your relationship with hip hop like today?

I don’t have a relationship with current hip hop. As a 54-year-old mother, I think it would be weird if I said that the music of today is the soundtrack to my life. It doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy certain songs and artists, but the music doesn’t speak to me the way it used to. To be clear, that’s neither a judgment nor indictment of the music; I simply got too old for it. In my eyes, it’s the most youth-centered genre of music: it’s made by the young, about the young, for the young. My 17-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son are total hip hop heads, thank god, and they tell me anything I need to know. I love and respect the culture because it gave me so much, but it’s no longer the music I listen to on the daily.

I'm curious: What's it been like to dive back into the dating scene in your 50s?

I was 42 when I left my ex and hadn’t been single since I was 30, which was in 1995. Well, guess what happened in the meantime? The internet and smartphones. When I emerged from that relationship I felt like ... "Wait, you send pictures of what, how?" But let me tell you, once I crossed that line, I was an instant pro.

What's next for Sophia Chang?

Well, at 54 I have a new career: I’m an author. I have more books in me for sure. I also have a number of TV shows in development, one that’s a scripted project about me. I will be a showrunner one day and make sure that my Asian sisters and brothers are brought into the writers’ rooms and we are properly represented.

So: What's the secret to becoming the baddest b*tch in the room?

I don’t know that there’s a secret to becoming the baddest b*tch in the room. What I do know is that it starts by self-examination and self-celebration. I hope my memoir inspires women to mine their power and see their beauty. It’s not only the amazing aggregate of our qualities that makes us the baddest b*tch in the room, it’s also claiming it. I know that’s hard, but more of us need to get there if we’re going to rule the world, right?



Courtesy of Audible
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

This post is sponsored by Audible.

Sophia's impact on Shaolin and pop culture was fascinating. I'm glad she's getting some spotlight now.

[GeneChing]

Sophia Chang — Woman Who Helped Guide the Career of the Wu-Tang Clan, Q-Tip & More — is Finally Telling Her Story [Interview]
POSTED BY DIMAS SANFIORENZO 19 HOURS AGO


Photo Credit: Dana Scruggs

We sat down with industry veteran Sophia Chang, who just released her memoir The Baddest ***** in the Room. She talked about her career, public speaking, her relationship with Chris Lighty, and imagining Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” video with women at the table.
“My name is Sophia Chang, and I was raised by Wu-Tang.”

Usually, that would make for an amazing greeting. But it’s one of the last things Sophia Chang tells me during our 40-minute phone conversation we have just days after her memoir, the Audible Originals The Baddest ***** in the Room, is published. It’s a hell of a line, one she’s probably said dozens of times during her 30-year career working in music.

It’s not hyperbole, either. In the early ’90s, Chang was a pivotal behind the scenes player in music, working in various departments from A&R to promotions to management. Over the years she collaborated and rubbed shoulders with a wide spectrum of artists: like Paul Simon, Q-Tip, Redman, and Chris Lighty. But it was the Wu-Tang Clan who she really bonded with and who, she says, “claimed” her. She met the Clan in 1993, right when they released their debut single, “Protect Ya Neck,” and almost instantly sparked a friendship with the group. Often called “Wu-Tang’s muse,” she has, at various points in her career, managed RZA, Ol’ Dirty *******, and the GZA.

Despite her resume in rap music— she says she’s the “first Asian in hip-hop” — only a small portion of The Baddest *****, which was released on September 26th, is centered around hip-hop. There is a love component here. In the mid-’90s she started learning kung fu and fell in love with a Shallon Monk named Shi Yan Ming. She left the music industry behind and put a majority of her time and effort into building Yan Ming’s brand and maintaining his Manhattan-based temple. The two would eventually go on to have two kids together before going their separate ways. (During this time there were early plans on expanding Ming’s temple.)

After making her way back into the music industry — in various stints, including working in a senior position at Universal Music Group — Chang started to realize she spent her life helping craft the stories of men. It was time to tell her own story.

The Baddest ***** in the Room is a compelling listen, mainly because Chang is an expert storyteller. She’s great with details and she isn’t scared to be vulnerable in public. (At various points in the book you hear her voice crack while telling an emotional story.) Lots of artists are mentioned in the book. But nothing ever feels gossipy. Sophia made a conscientious effort to keep the story centered around her and the many geniuses that orbited her. In this book, Chang is the Sun. The memoir is also super interactive; throughout you hear (sometimes grainy) audio clips from the likes of RZA, Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Raphael Saadiq, hip-hop feminist Joan Morgan and more.

I recently sat down with Sophia Chang to talk about the making of the book, her relationship with Chris Lighty, and imagining Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” video with women at the table.

Check out the interview below.

Could you have written this book 15 years ago?
No. I wasn’t ready to write it 15 years ago. I still wasn’t interested in telling my story. I didn’t yet think that it was worthy of telling. Also, 15 years ago, my children were two and four…and [at those ages] you’re in the thick of it. There’s no way I would’ve been ready. I was still with my ex. I was running this temple. [There] was way too much going on.

Did you have an epiphany moment?
There were two things that happened. I started working at Universal Music Group. And I took on a number of young women fresh out of college — many of them 22 at the time — as mentees. It occurred to me, given my vast experience, having worked so many different jobs in so many different sectors, I could use my experience to help teach people. That was number one. Number two: [Sheryl Sandberg’s book] Lean In came out. Lean In had some really great messages. But that is written from a very specific perspective, and I had originally conceived of this book as a Lean In for women of color.

It turned into a very traditional chronological memoir. But I do really hope that people, particularly women of color, glean messages from it.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Photo Credit: Gary Gershoff/Getty Images

You left a career in music essentially for love and family.
It wasn’t a conscious decision. It’s not like I sat there and said, “OK Sophia, you’re leaving this world and now you’re going to into that world.” It was a pretty organic transition, and I didn’t really think that hard about it.

One of my editors asked me when I was writing, “Did you ever regret leaving any of those jobs?” And as a personal philosophical philosophy, I do not believe in regret. I don’t experience regret like that. So if I **** up — and I **** up plenty — I am regretful that I’ve hurt somebody’s feelings and then I address it and I apologize. As somebody who is self-analyzing ,self-interrogating, self-critical, and self-renewing, I am constantly taking stock of what it is that I do, how I behave, and how I could have modified my behavior for a better outcome.

That means that once I make that analysis that I am learning something — learning something means that I have gained a lesson. A lesson, to me, is a gift. So I don’t live with regret in general and I never looked back. It wasn’t until I was writing this memoir that I went, “Wow, you know what? I might be a record company president right now.” And there’s no part of me that says “****! I made the wrong decision.” Because it wasn’t just for love that I left. It was also because I believed so deeply in Yan Ming and his vision for building the Shaolin Temple in upstate New York.

Why do you think Wu-Tang hovered towards you in the beginning?
When I met Wu-Tang it was before the album came out, but everybody knew they were going to be huge. We only had to hear “Protect ya Neck” once to know, Oh ****, these guys are going to blow the **** up. So there were hundreds of people around them, all clamoring for access. And here comes this petite Asian, Canadian woman in the midst of them.

They just plucked me out of the crowd and they not only welcomed me, they claimed me. Now why do I think that was? I never had an agenda. I never had ulterior motives. I had [three] things: I was a devoted fan, but there were plenty of those. Number two: I love them deeply as people. And number three: I only ever wanted what was in their best interest. I say in my memoir being embraced by the Clan was amazing because I felt truly seen. And my friend said, “You know, don’t you think it’s possible that they would say the same thing? That when they met you, they felt seen because they were seen in one way. and then here comes Sophia Chang and you just cut through everything and you see them for their humanity?”

The bonus content [on the book] to me is some of the richest content. I specifically asked Ghostface Killa and Raekwon this question, “Why me, you guys, why did you choose me?” And they both put it up to the Most High. They both said “It’s God’s plan, Soph. You were supposed to be there with us.” Ghost was like “You’re like sunshine, Soph.” And Raekwon said “You were a gift to us. You were instrumental in the things that we did.” And I never knew they thought of me that way. I just thought that I was somebody that they loved dearly who was just kind of in the midst.

The other thing that Ghost said is “You never ever changed. Ever.” And Busta Rhymes said this to me last year, he said, “You’re the most consistent person I’ve ever met in hip-hop. We met you before Leaders of the New School was signed. When I had my solo career. When I was up, when I was down. You never changed.”

One of the things I found interesting is that you talk about how you learned about your Asian roots through hip-hop.
I am Asian, and I was born and raised in Vancouver. So I am a yellow girl in a white world. And what I wanted more than anything, when I was a kid, was to be white. And then in 12th grade, I hear “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and it’s an amazing song. And of course the lyrics are incredible and the beats are amazing.

I understand now, in retrospect, but I think that one of the things that really struck me was that I was hearing a song about a story about people of color by people of color as opposed to what I saw. Which, when I saw people of color, it was all through Hollywood’s lens, which is a white male lens. And so hip-hop to me was so much about agency in storytelling and defiance and pride. And I never ever seen that before. So that was really regulatory. And then I moved to New York, I get into hip-hop, and I’m very close friends with many of the artists in the Native Tongues movement: De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, Latifa, Monie Love, Leaders of the New School. And, you know, they’re part of this Afro-centric movement, which focuses a lot on yearning for a deeper connection to Africa — their motherland.

And so that kind of sparked curiosity in me. And it makes me think about my own connection to my own continent, which is Asia. Korean was my first language. I lost it in my desire to assimilate. I wanted to be white. I didn’t think that Asian men were attractive. At one point. I didn’t like Korean food, like it was just this very broad, really wide rejection of my culture. And then I meet Wu-Tang clan. They were raised in Staten Island and they call their borough Shaolin and their whole ethos on [Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)] was all about Kung-fu movies and John Woo movies.

So not only am I seeing this really incredible, robust culture of period martial arts movies, but now I’m getting a lens on modern age masculinity through John Woo’s eyes. And you know his muse is Chow Yun-fat and Chow Yun-fat, to me, is like the handsomest man that’s ever walked this planet. That was also regulatory for me. And so their respect for, and reverence and love of Asian culture helped open my eyes to it, but it wasn’t until I met them that I let all of the blocks fall away. It was kind of through the chambers of Wu-Tang that I ultimately came back to myself.

If it wasn’t for Wu-Tang, I wouldn’t have started training in Kung-Fu. I wouldn’t have met Yan Ming. If didn’t meet Yan Ming I wouldn’t have my children. I mean I owe a lot to the Wu-Tang clan.

In the book you talk about the last time you saw Ol’ Dirty ******* and the fact that he just wasn’t present. Was there any part of you that wanted to sugarcoat that story?
One of the things that I think listeners will be struck by is how many times I say “God rest his soul” or “God rest her soul” in my memoir. I’m only 54 years old and other than my father — God rest his soul — who was 80 when he passed, everybody that I lose leaves in an untimely fashion. I think that, yes, naturally it was hard for me to write and it was hard for me to narrate. You know, that’s one of the things that I knew about my memoir, and that it was going to be an audiobook: I insisted that I had to read it I had to be the voice behind the story. Because another reader — let’s say we’d hired a professional actor — they would not have been able to emote the way that I did, especially when it came to loss.

And in terms of sugarcoating things or holding things back, there’s plenty more I could have put in this memoir. I’ve been around famous people for 32 years, but I never intended to write a tell-all. I’m not interested in that. If somebody came along to me today and said, “Sophia, I’ll give you $5 million if you’ll write the tell-all, and you’ll tell us all the dirt on all the famous people you know” I wouldn’t even hesitate, to say no. I have no interest in telling anybody else’s story unless it is part of my narrative.

So when I was shopping my book deal — and it was competitive — there were two things that I said, and I said the same thing when I was looking around for agents: number one is that it’s my voice. I write this ****. I am far from the best writer in the world, but I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to ****ing let somebody else try to capture my voice. Number two: I refuse to write a book about being with greatness, meaning hanging out with celebrities because that is, to me, an exercise in narcissism.

I found Chris Lighty to be a very interesting and mysterious presence in the book. Did you, did you ever feel like you fully understood him?
Yeah. I think I fully understood him, but did I know everything that was going on in his life? No. And I think those are two different things.

I knew who Chris Lighty was, but I didn’t know the burden that he was bearing. I couldn’t say I understand everything that was going on in his life. But I understood Chris. Absolutely I did.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

What do you tell people who have questions about the music industry in general? Like what are things you tell them that wish you knew as a 22-year-old?
Let’s reframe the question. I was in the music business, pre-digital, so it’s very, very different. I’m in an industry that is flushed with cash, so everything is different. So let’s reframe it this way. What would I tell a 22-year-old getting into the business now? If they want to manage artists, I say, “OK, go ahead and do it. But you better be OK with not making any money unless you’re somehow going to manage an artist who already has a robust touring merchandise and endorsement or sponsorship career because otherwise you’re not making money.” And that’s OK. I don’t care. You don’t have to make money. But you have to know that going in. And for that reason, be passionate about your artists because you will go in and you will be their proxy and you will need to sell the **** out of them.

They have to be on top of everything because hopefully when get as big and successful as you want, they’re going to be many, many, many balls in the air. Raphael Sadiq said about me, ” Soph, you never let a ball drop.” And RZA said “You’re the most organized person I ever met.” And those might sound like banal skills. What I realized now is [how imporant] those things are when you have so much stuff going on.



I love the part in the book when you talk about helping Rakeon with the “C.R.E.A.M” video, and you mentioned how there shouldn’t be women in the video. But, looking back, you now wish you had women in there around the table as CEOs.
My ideas about everything are still evolving. I’m sure there are things that I wrote and that I say today that in a few years I’m going to say, “well that was stupid” or “that was ignorant.” You know, I’m still learning. I’m just constantly evolving and pushing myself to be better. And I surround myself with people who are smarter than me, who can check me if necessary.

There’s a line in my memoir where I say, “Rae, you know what I love about Wu-Tang and about the [36 Chambers] album is that there are no women in it.” He’s like, “yeah, you get it Soph.” And then I said to him, “What I do… the 28-year-old me is happy because there are no women in it because they were so objectified at the time. But the 54-year-old me wishes that you’d put a woman in there at the table with you as your peer. “And he was like, of course Soph, but it’s a different time. He totally understood that.

So yeah, things change, you know, hopefully we continue to evolve and we continue to get smarter and better and we just keep growing.

Is there anything you want to add?
What’s next for me, is public speaking. It’s not even that it’s next. I started public speaking before I even wrote a book. I know that God put me on this planet to put a mic in my hand and have me on stage, you know, just like an MC, except I’m not a talented artist like that.

I honestly think I’m the greatest public speaker I’ve ever seen. I mean that from the bottom of my ****ing heart. I don’t think there’s anybody better than me. And I don’t think there’s anybody that can deliver my message. Who could deliver my message? My name is Sophia Chang, and I was raised by Wu-Tang. I’m the Korean-Canadian immigrant who was a French literature major who was raised by Wu-Tang Clan and who was partnered with and had children and ran the business of a Shaolin monk. So all of that kind of crazy diverse experiences hone this voice and this voice is supposed to be shared with the world.

I mean, RZA knew it. He was like, “I can hear you. I can imagine that you are going to be in arenas talking to 25,000 people.”


Photo Credit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Audible

I've been doing the Sophia Chang thread a disservice by not copying it to the Wu Forever thread.[/QUOTE]