"We're involved whether we like it or not" w. respectfulchild

On our season finale, interdisciplinary artist respectfulchild (they/them) shares a frank discussion with host Khadija Mbowe about their creative journey of experimentation and discovery. Born in Canada to Chinese-Malaysian parents, early on, respectfulchild yearned to defy expectations as a classical music student. Today, their compositions and artwork are a vehicle to imagine, discover, and occupy altogether new ways of being.


Chapters:

[00:00] Introduction - what's in a name?
[04:35]  Early musical influences 
[09:13]  Expectations of people with Asian heritage in classical music
[14:22]  Finding spiritual connection through creating interactive art
[22:43]  Upcoming album: breaking boundaries of gender & music
[27:00]  Striving for enjoyment 


Music from this episode:

Beauty," from respectfulchild's upcoming album, 更新 re:new (2023)

"Forest," from In the Shadow of the Pines (2021), the original soundtrack to Anne Koizumi’s 2021 animated short documentary of the same name

“Glitter” from, respectfulchild’s debut album, 在找 ::searching:: (2017)


Links from this episode:

respectfulchild website: https://respectfulchild.com/

Native Women's Shelter of Montreal: http://www.nwsm.info/donate

落叶归根 , Falling leaves return to their roots at Ramai Modern: https://respectfulchild.com/falling-leaves-return-to-their-roots/

Remai Modern Emerging Artist Series: https://remaimodern.org/?s=emerging+artist+series

Girls Rock Saskatoon: https://www.girlsrocksaskatoon.ca/

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s HearTOGETHER series is generously supported by lead corporate sponsor Accordant Advisors. Additional major support has been provided by the Otto Haas Charitable Trust.

Transcript

KHADIJA MBOWE (VOICEOVER): Hello and hi! Welcome to the season finale of the HearTOGETHER Podcast from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. This is a space where we hope you’ll find home in this art we all love. I’m your host, Khadija Mbowe and I describe myself as a socio-cultural content creator, classically trained soprano, and loving provocateur. And I’m here to facilitate some heartfelt, engaging, disruptive conversations with artists, activists, and everyone in between (that’s you!)

The ~enchanting~ sounds you heard in the intro were from a track called “Beauty,” which was composed by our guest today; the artist known as respectfulchild. Or, if you prefer…  

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Yeah, you can call me Jelly <laugh>.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

So, Jelly – a k a respectful child– can you tell me and the audience how exactly you got that name first? Are you a respectful child? <laugh>? Is this, is this, is this an ironic little playing with words?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Yeah. Um, so respectfulchild is, um, my Chinese name that was given to me from my grandma on my maternal side. And yeah, so my, my parents are both from Malaysia and they came to Saskatchewan <laugh> Treaty 6 Territory pretty randomly, and then they ended up staying here and having me and my brother, and most of our family has never been this far, like up here to like travel to see us. But my grandma came twice, once when my brother was born and once when I was born, and she gave us both our names and it was like this weird thing where it was like, I have a second name, but like, it never felt like my name. It was like, no one ever calls me by my Chinese name. It's like pretty anglophone out here. It's a, it's a little bit more diverse now, but it was like fairly white growing up.

(02:34)
So yeah, it was like this thing where when I finally wanted to branch out and do something on my own, like make a solo project, I had this name already in my back pocket. So yeah, it was like, it was like a nice opportunity to finally make my name feel like, like me, like a part of me. And yeah, it also always felt a little bit funny for two reasons. Like one, I, I have a, I have a suspicion that my grandma calling me respectfulchild was more like in the obedience side being like, ‘You'll be a good obedient child’. And then my mom would always be like, ‘You are not a respectful child!’ every time she got mad at me, you know, <laugh> when I was like, you know, being rebellious or whatever. But it, it also like, to me it's still even to, to this day, like hearing it in English sounds a little bit funny. It like, seems so obviously like a translation, but that's kind of just like how I feel culturally in a way too. It's like, I feel like a translation between, between cultures and I'm like in this sort of in between space, so I don't know. And, and yeah, it's been great because nobody, almost nobody else is called respectfulchild . There's, except TikTok, there's like some, some Roblox kid that <laugh> took the name from me, but everywhere else,

KHADIJA MBOWE:

<laugh>

RESPECTFULCHILD:

<laugh>, yeah. Like, I don't think they've been uploading, but it was just funny. I was like, oh, this is the one place. Like, but I'm not active on there, so it doesn't matter. But yeah, it was just, uh, it, it's been a, it's been nice, um, because it feels like me now. Like when people call me that, I'm like, yeah, that is my name. <laugh>.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

Hmm. Okay. I like that. I like, uh, I like the <laugh> the origins of a, of course your grandmother being like, all right, you're new to this world. You are going to be a respectful, young, obedient, nice, disciplined, focused job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I like the flipping around of that or, or I wouldn't even, maybe not even call it flipping around because what, what does being a respectful child mean? What did that mean in the context of growing up for you?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Yeah, I mean, I can guess that they meant obedience more so in terms of like, you know, you'll, you'll listen to your parents and you'll like, you know, you won't cause trouble, you won't like stir the pot or whatever. And like, for the most part I didn't, but like, yeah, we can interpret respectful to mean in like a lot of different things. <laugh>, it's like respectful to who or like respectful in what context and relative to others. So yeah, it's kind of versatile in that way too. <laugh>.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

Yeah. So you grew up playing, was it violin and piano, correct.

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

When did you start taking lessons? Was music just like always like your parents were like, this is an important part, something that you should learn? Or was it something that you came to yourself?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Um, yeah, so I started both violin and piano when I was, uh, four, about to turn five. So pretty pretty little. And the piano part, the story is that my dad came home and was like, I got a sale and he bought a piano <laugh>. And then, and then it was like, okay, now me and my brother have to learn piano. And luckily our next door neighbor teaches piano, so we just like, you know, started to learning from her <laugh>. And with like violin, we had like these family friends and they had three daughters and their oldest daughter had been taking violin and she was ready to move on to like a, a, a larger size. And they had this little 16th violin that just sounds absolutely terrible. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I kind of remember them just like phoning and be like, ‘Does your kid wanna take violin?’

And I was like, ‘okay’. Cuz I didn't know what that meant. And then I never stopped <laugh> it just like, it was kind of, yeah, it was kind of a thing that I did for a really long time. I kind of around like pre-teen age era was when I was like closest to quitting, um, because it felt like such a chore and because, you know, classical music can be so, so rigid in what they try to expect of you and, and, and what they want you to do. And it wasn't, it wasn't fun. I wasn't actually like enjoying music, but luckily I was able to like, have experiences later in like high school that made me enjoy music as an art and a pasttime rather than like something that I just had to do <laugh> to please my, my parents or something or my teacher.

And then I was really lucky to like, have lots of musical opportunities after that. Like, I think because I started so young and I had such a familiarity with notation, just like how musical things work, I, I like played in school band. I, I played the French horn cuz I'm a nerd <laugh> because I wanted to be unique. Um, <laugh> I took like voice lessons mostly because I saw people do musical theater and I, I was like, that looks like fun. I'll, I'll do all the other random vocal stuff just so I can do Annie or whatever. <laugh> and yeah, singing choir and have been able to pick up other stuff like guitar and whatever mm-hmm. <affirmative> over the years.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

You said your dad came home and said he made a sale. Was he working in in piano sale?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

<laugh>? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not not made a sale. He, he found a sale. Oh. Which is even better. Like he found, he found a piano on sale and, and they still have that piano to this day. It's like this upright Wurlitzer there and it's like really tall and black and shiny and it sounds pretty good for an upright, like, you know, it's like, I don't know, just like big and boomy kind of thing. So, so yeah, we've just had this piano like pretty much my whole life. <laugh>.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

And do your parents play any instruments as well? Like what did they do

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Growing up? Yeah, well, um, from what I know, my mom was able to take like organ lessons for a little bit, um, but it was kind of like she had to maybe go to like the next town or over or something to like take those lessons. So it was a lot more difficult. And I don't, I don't think my dad took formal lessons growing up, but apparently his dad could literally just play anything. He touched <laugh>. Yeah, cool. Kind of cool stuff like that. And, and now my dad like, yeah, he knows a little bit of piano, a little bit of guitar. He has like a whole collection of flutes and like, there's this cute thing where they have this like little white dog, which every, almost every Asian parent has a little white dog, <laugh>, his name is Oscar. And almost every day like clockwork Oscar will go sit by the flutes and like demand that my dad play a flute and then like howl along while my dad plays. And then when he's had enough, he'll just leave. And my dad <laugh>, so he, the dog runs the house and my dad performs for him when he wants it.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

<laugh>, oh my God, stop. 

RESPECTFULCHILD:

My, my brother played piano and trumpet all throughout school, but I think like a lot of my classmates, lots of people took piano lessons or whatever, music lessons, but they did it until their parents said, okay, you can finally quit now. And like, they moved onto like their next activity, whereas it was just like, it was a really big part of my upbringing and my life <laugh> and it still is obviously <laugh>.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

No, that makes sense. Um, and I did classical music in school as well, but the thing that I noticed, and I don't know if you can even speak to this, um, but it's funny, when I look at classical music in Canada, at least the minority students are like white or black or other, you know, like, maybe not all of them, but at U of T it definitely was, there were a lot more Asian students that yeah, there were instrumentalists in all of that. So I wonder, was that like a, I don't know how to ask this, like, was that something that was kind of always in the background for you? This idea of, uh, I have Asian parents that want me to play and instrument or be musically inclined and this is something that I'm just, I'm not sure if I'm asking this ignorantly, so please, <laugh>, you can be like, girl, what are you saying? Like, <laugh>?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

So, so I think there, there's definitely obviously, uh, like I can't do the, the sociology or, or whatever about like, you know, like what does it mean? But like I think I've, I've read things about how oftentimes Asian families put their kids into to music lessons and it's a way of almost like finding a middle class, like aspirational middle class like status or something like that to be able to participate in that. It gives them useful skills, it teaches them discipline, you know, stuff like that. But yeah, I, I guess like in terms of race, like growing up, the thing that I was most aware of was like, we have things like, it's called music festival, but it's like definitely not a festival, it's a competition. <laugh>

KHADIJA MBOWE:

<laugh> Yes

RESPECTFULCHILD:

So it's like once a year and they print out like a program and it has everyone's name and what song they're playing. And we would go through and our teacher would like highlight like, oh, look out for these kids. They're good. Like, you gotta like step up your game kinda like a sport or something. And I forget how explicitly it was, it might have been said, but there was kind of this understanding that the Asian kids are good, like the Chinese kids, they're gonna be really good, but they don't have feeling, it's like they're technically good, but they won't have the same kind of emotional expression. And yeah, I just remember being really aware of that and being like, okay, I have to show that I'm different. I have to show that I do like express emotions and, and as a kid what that meant was I like moved my arms a little bit when I played piano.

Like it was really, it's like what, what level of emotions do I have as a 10 year old kid when I'm playing? I don't know, like a sonatina. Like really we're all at the same level. And then now growing up and like, you know, having a bit more of an understanding of like the way race and history and all that stuff has played out like in the world, there still is like this characterization of Asia being like robotic or like emotionless, you know, like mechanized, all those different sort of things. Yeah. Like very like rigid, very strict and all that sort of stuff. And sure, like some of that can be true, but like, it was like this very unfair kind of like boxing or like border that there was placed on kids. And the only way that I knew to understand or like kind of combat that was to try and be like, not that and be like, no, I'm not the Chinese kid that you think I am. I have feelings <laugh>. <laugh>. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was just, it's so strange to think that, yeah, to kind of like place that, I don't know, analysis on a young kid to be like, well technically they're very good at their scales, but they don't put any real feeling into their music. 

KHADIJA MBOWE (VOICEOVER): That was a clip of Forest, from the original soundtrack from Anne Koizumi’s 2021 animated short doc(umentary) (called) In the Shadow of the Pines. 100% of the sales from that album have been donated to support the Native Women's Shelter in Tiohtià:ke/ Montréal— the only women’s shelter in the city that provides services exclusively for Indigenous women and their children.  

Since taking on the moniker respectfulchild Jelly has refused to settle into a niche— in addition to numerous short film soundtracks, they’ve released a full-length album, scored a live theater play, and even created a visual art installation. Just before the pandemic, Jelly was approached by a curator from Remai (RAY-MEE) Modern to contribute to their Emerging Artist series. The result was an interactive project (called) Falling leaves, return to their roots. 

RESPECTFULCHILD:

They leave it totally open to you. I was just able to do whatever I wanted in a sense, and I felt like, well, I didn't immediately think I wanna do a sound installation. I was like, okay, well I can do anything here, let's just like sit and think and, and I was thinking about how this would be like the biggest audience that I've ever interacted with. It's like the public get to come and visit whatever I put into this space. So I kind of wanted to, I think I wanted to be not too ambiguous, if that makes sense. And the project itself slowly evolved over like a, a series of conversations I was having with my friends and family. And it started off with like, at one point I was just asking my parents about the other big festivals back home other than Chinese New Year, because I know that's like, kind of like the really big one, but I was like, what else is there?

There's just like so much that I haven't experienced, like growing up here in Saskatoon. And my dad was telling me about the Hungry Ghost Festival and that's one of the ones where they like build big paper effigies and they put out, uh, food and offerings and it's like this belief that at this time, like everyone that's passed on their spirits are all roaming the streets. And it's like, it's a time to like put out things to like take care of them or to communicate with them. And then I'd also been learning about the specific area that the Remai Modern is located on. It used to be Chinatown like way back in the 1930s and that Chinatown was eventually like demolished and displaced and then like moved it to another area and it's like, oh, that's literally what we are also dealing with right now in North America.

You know, dealing with gentrification, dealing with, you know, racial attacks or that sort of thing. And so I wanted to be able to, you know, find a way to, to work with these two things together and to think about like ancestors. I was realizing that I felt so much more invested in, in understanding this history, just knowing that Chinese settlers used to live and work there. And I was like, oh, I don't need to like even know who they are personally. And I don't have any sort of like blood connection to them, but they feel like my ancestors cuz they were here before me laying groundwork in terms of like what they had to go through and what they had to figure out and survive to like make it in the, in this area. So yeah, I ended up making it like a physical sculpture.

Uh, we built a gate and gave everyone that visited to write a message to the ancestors. It was like really open-ended, it's like right to whichever ancestors you want and write whatever you want. It doesn't have to just be like nice things. It can be questions, it can be things you're upset about, things that you're scared about, things that you want them to know about you or, and we, I stuck the messages over the course of a couple months onto the gate and then we finally had like a burning ceremony as a way to like finally send it off from our world over to like the spiritual world. So yeah, it was, it was really, it was a really special experience and, and I was really happy with how engaged people took to it. Like, I, I didn't count, but it probably received, uh, over a couple hundred like, you know, messages that people wrote and, and there were lots of kids that like drew pictures, one of them drew a meal and I was like, oh, <laugh>, they wanna like feed, feed breakfast to grandpa or something, you know?

And, and some people really sat down and like wrote pages, you know, and I think, I think so many people are wanting to have some sort of spiritual connection, but it's so confusing or kind of like blurry because of like the role that religion has taken over that in some ways and, and how I, I grew up like in a Christian household initially. And, and it's hard to sometimes detangle what, what I was taught within the, a religious setting and like what I can understand within my own, what kind of spiritual relationship I want to have. So I think it was, it was nice to just kind of open up that door and hopefully people have have continued on, but like for me it has and it's been like I am, I'm really, really grateful that I had that experience. And also the ability to just try something totally new that I've never done before and that I may or may not have been good at.

Like, it didn't matter whether I was like good at constructing it, you know, it was about like, just like being open to figuring it out. And a cool thing was that my dad's father was, he used to build these like effigies these paper constructions for like people's funerals or that sort of thing. And so it was kind of a neat way to be like, I, I don't get to learn directly from him, but I can feel this connection of trying to learn anyways, like just doing my best. And it's like now carried on into my own everyday life of like figuring out how to what, what an ancestral altar looks like and, and how to like set one up in my own home and to be able to maintain that connection with my ancestors and, and to think just like reframe that whole relationship of not thinking of them as people in the past and that are gone, but as like as someone that I can continue to like, interact with on the daily and that I can like yeah, talk to or ask questions from or, or any of that sort of thing.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

And also it has the effect of, of holding you responsible in the present for what happens in the future. Because like you were saying, and, and like this work is, it's what did I want to communicate with them, those that are gone, those quote unquote gone. And what would I want <laugh>? What what am I gonna look like to people in the future if they're gonna be asking questions back or, or anything like that. Am I being a good ancestor?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Yeah, definitely. Thank you for saying that. Thank you. Yeah, cuz I wanted to make sure that like, this like historical information that I was learning about wasn't just like, oh, that happened, that's too bad. That happened in the, in the past, you know, and for us to like really understand how we still, how we are part of history and also that we are ancestors ourselves and that there isn't like just a passive way to interact. Like we are, we are involved whether we like it or not. 

MUSIC

KHADIJA MBOWE (VOICEOVER): That was “Glitter” from, respectfulchild’s debut album, Searching, which was released in 2017. “Oh dang!” you might be thinking, “That was like, five or six years ago!” And you would be correct. Yes! It is time for a new album. The project, due out later this year, will   offer an updated view of who Jelly is today.  

RESPECTFULCHILD:

I only made this about my gender because there was a really explicit connection between the two of them. I wasn't just gonna make some music and then be like, this is what gender feels like today or not that I'm trying to, like, I don't slag off other people who, who do you know, whatever. But it, it doesn't make sense for me unless it really is obvious why, why it had to be music. So like, basically the album that I have recorded and done and stuff, it's kind of drawing this parallel between my classical training and like the colonial gender binary and being like, these are two things that I didn't have a say in. And they that have been with me since. I was like, for as long as I've had memories for as long as I can remember, I've been told I'm a girl that I need to act like a girl, that I look like a girl, all that stuff.

And also I've been told to like, hold my violin this way, play my scales this way, that this is what sounds good, this is what sounds bad. And I didn't have any choice in that and I wanted to kind of do an inventory and to recognize the fact that even though I'd love to throw it all out the window, I can't. It's like whether I like it or not, these things have shaped how I grew up and how I play music and how I think about myself and about music. So I can at least like think about it all and then decide what do I actually wanna keep and what do I actually wanna like intentionally try to like get rid of or, or that sort of thing. I, I was also thinking about how like, I'm pretty sure that like my own queer journey, a lot of it happened alongside Respectful Child as a project. Like I'm pretty sure my first show that I played was around 20 15, 20 16. And that's like around the time that I was starting to explore other gender options that I was meeting friends online and being like, oh my God, like I don't have to be like a cis woman for the rest of my life. Like, that's an option.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

It's wild when you find out you can do what you want. It's like, what? Wait,<laugh>?

RESPECTFULCHILD:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was like, oh, so I guess I'll try out different pronouns and like I'll assert them in like my artist bio or like, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. And then slowly being like, oh, I'm like gonna play on a, a lineup that's like other queer artists and like, you know, initially feeling like this straight ally imposter and then now feeling very much like there's community within that and yeah. So it's like there's a mirror between those two and, and I didn't even realize it, you know, like, um, another thing I was thinking about with like, even just like, uh, the music aspect of it since the, since the beginning of like experimenting with, with Sounds for Respectful Child, I, um, even without really explicitly or intentionally meaning to, I was trying to find other ways to use my violin than I was taught to.

And I almost was like trying to be like, this doesn't sound like a violin or like, I kind of wanted to make electronic music, but I didn't know how to yet <laugh>. And it was too, it was too confusing to learn it all at once. So I just like, I went with what I had. I had like this violin that's like, feels like an extension of my body and I had some pedals and then, and then now reflecting on that being like, oh, I was trying to like work out, like trying to like get out of those restrictions in the same way that I am sort of also trying to get out of like what society has tried to restrict on me in terms of like what kind of person they think I should be or how I should be treated or, or how I should act. Um, it was like, oh, okay. I guess like my brain, it knew what it was doing all along, whether I, whether I realized it or not. <laugh>,

KHADIJA MBOWE:

There's one last question I want to ask. Do you have just any last piece of advice? We know you're not an authority on anything, but any last piece of advice for the audience out there? Maybe the young music makers,

RESPECTFULCHILD:

I guess not being afraid to like throw yourself in there. Yeah, like within like the last couple years I've been reminding myself as much as I can to just really place higher priority on enjoying things and that enjoying things doesn't have to rest on being good at them. That it's like, you don't have to be improving <laugh> to enjoy something. You can just enjoy it for enjoyment sake. And, and I think about that a lot because, um, I'm involved with Girls Rock Camp here in the city and I just like always wanna make sure that these, these young campers that come that they don't think that now that they've been to camp, they have to become a successful rockstar or like, even the way that we talk about, you know, like, look at this artist and look at this person that we're not talking about how successful they are. We just talk about like why their music meant something to me or why we enjoy it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and like, you know, you always hear things of people being like, oh, I can't sing, I'm not good. And it's like everyone can sing and, and singing.

KHADIJA MBOWE:

That is my favorite thing to say to people. I'm like, everyone can sing

RESPECTFULCHILD:

<laugh>. Everyone can sing. And like, the point of singing isn't to be good. If you wanna be a good singer, then yeah, you can make a career out of it <laugh>. But like, if you just wanna sing, then sing. Yeah. You know, if you wanna try a new sport, if you wanna try a new skill, it's like, it's okay if you're not good at it. If you just like wanna do it and you're having fun, then that's like all that matters <laugh>. And like, I feel like that's a big border that we have in our brains, right? That's, that we have to be good. And uh, ultimately it's like if you're good at it, then you can make money off of it or something. You know, that you can get clout, but it's like, okay, who cares? Just, just enjoy what you wanna enjoy. <laugh>, 

KHADIJA MBOWE (VOICEOVER): I, for one, very much enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you did too! Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode, and this season! We’ve had some laughs, some learning, and lots of music, and it’s been a pleasure to hear from all of our fantastic guests. I’m Khadija Mbowe, and this has been the HearTOGETHER Podcast from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc.