Pinder: Contemporary artists, such as Lorraine O’Grady, explore the issue of biraciality and its “good” and “bad” dichotomy within our society.

Waegner: Through the negotiation of ethnicity and identity, artists in “Performing Postmodernist Passing” depict the trope of yellowface/blackface in their work.

Hip-Hop Project (1), Nikki S. Lee, (2001)

I am intrigued by Nikki S. Lee’s yellowface/black face impersonation in the Hip-Hop Project (1) (2001), in which she immerses herself into the predominately African-American hip-hop community in the Bronx. Despite her negotiation of identity, and “playful postmodernist passing” (Waegner, 223), Lee is suggesting that in order to be accepted you have to become an insider which can play into the reality of social and cultural isolation if one is an outsider. I would argue that in this image Lee still appears to be of Asian identity, which questions the success of her passing. However, since hip-hop is a “cross-cultural portability” (Waegner, 225), having Lee pose as her true South Korean self would change the reception of this photo. I would then interpret this image as hip-hop crossing social and cultural barriers, as it does today, regardless of race and ethnicity. One does not have to identify with a certain type to appreciate a specific genre of music, which is not what I interpret this image to portray. What about the Latino/a community within in the Bronx that is a part of the hip-hop community? Lee’s impersonation of a woman of African descent rejects the diversity of such community, making it race-specific and stereotypical.