The Return of The Asian American Music Conference

The Asian American Music Conference (AAMC) relaunched last November 4, 2017 at the San Francisco Art Institute. From 2003 to 2006, the AAMC sought to bring together Asian Americans in music and increased representation in the mainstream music industry. This year’s AAMC featured music business education as a continuation of its original goals for the Asian American music community.

The highlight of the event was when 96.5 FM KOIT's Freska Griarte interviewed Grammy-nominated artist Jocelyn Enriquez.

Christina Luna, one of the organizers of the Asian American Music Conference (Photo by Ferlie Andong)

"The first AAMC took place in 2002 and the second one in 2003. As Prime Image Media Group (a multicultural event management company), we developed it with the intent to build more community among Asian Americans musicians and professionals and see more Asian American artists in the mainstream music industry. Unfortunately, we couldn't keep the event going financially at a time. Sponsors were still trying to understand what the Asian American market was. The situation created a very niche market. It was still very exciting as Asian Americans working in the industry was growing very quickly at the time," says Luna about the beginnings of AAMC.

"The relaunch of the AAMC now differs because the market has certainly changed over 15 years. We are now in a market where Asians are much more visible in all sectors, digital platforms are a significant part of releasing music and content, we have a new generation of music artists entering the scene, and we are so much more connected globally expanding our opportunities," she adds.

Freska Griarte (Photo by Ferlie Andong)

Jocelyn Enriquez (Photo by Ferlie Andong)

Freska and Jocelyn (Photo by Ferlie Andong)

Bay Area Radio Personality Freska Griarte sat down with singer Jocelyn Enriquez on what she's been doing lately. Enriquez has been rising through the dance charts in the 90s to early 2000s and she left after her third album to raise a family. Though she was trained as singer and was expecting to do ballads, her production team positioned her as a dance-pop performer. She is grateful for the opportunity and now lives in San Antonio with her family.