Keeneng Lincoln Vang: Our own recording artist shines
By Heidi M. Pascual
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it's where I was most creative."
While Lincoln's CD mostly appeals to his generation, he said there were songs for the older Hmong generation too. "I wanted
to do it for them to satisfy my dad," he said with a grin. "But he was satisfied only with the songs that he himself wrote. The rest
he didn't really like because it's more of our generation, so he doesn't listen to that much."
How has the Hmong community received Lincoln's CD so far? "A lot of young people like it a lot," he beamed. "The old folks,
however, won't listen to it. For them, I don't know why, but usually they say it gives them a headache. They can't handle fast
tempo; but young people love that -- fast and loud music, lots of bass. So, I'm getting the response that I want from my
generation. It's pretty much pop music."
Lincoln describes his own work as mostly love songs. "They're off-tempo beat; faster, with more groove, R&B," he explained,
"some are rap songs. The lyrics are about love because I think that reaches the most. There is a rap song where I had another
artist featured with me -- Stephen Jones -- he's Kabzuag Vaj's nephew from Chicago, and he's African American. We should
have put more time into it. We wrote it in five minutes and recorded it right in the studio! But it was really nice. The song is about
treating a girl right, asking her out."
The challenges, the first-time recording artist admitted, were not insurmountable. "I usually make the music really quickly, like
in an hour I can come up with five different beats," he said proudly. "The hard part is writing lyrics to it which really make sense
and tell a story, instead of just writing words. This is my first time recording so I was really nervous; you can tell it in the voice too,
which songs I did first and which songs I did last, because the later songs are way better as I got comfortable in the studio."
At present, Lincoln is hoping to do another CD if the first one is well received. "I'll wait for a couple of months to see how it
goes, then I'm thinking of coming up with the second one that will just be me and my music," he said. "And I want to show that to
the world! I'd like to perform at places that would draw a lot of people."
After high school, he is hoping to continue school and find a job that's enjoyable. "Usually, people just have jobs, or work just
to earn money, but they don't enjoy it," Lincoln said thoughtfully. "I want to enjoy my job too."
It took more than a year for Lincoln to finish composing and recording his songs. Lincoln's parents supported this endeavor
with great motivation and complete financial backing. To them, Lincoln is most grateful. "They are always there for me," he said.
"Now, I'm pretty sure this is what I want to do."
While composing music is now his passion, his studies are still the priority. "I take things very simple -- my outlook on life," he
said. "If I have homework to do, I do homework first. School is pretty easy this year. I haven't brought homework home since the
first day of school!"
As far as his parents' way of disciplining him, Lincoln proudly said, "Now, they don't really have to discipline me at all. I wouldn't
go places without telling them where. Now I'm kind in control of myself; my parents don't have to tell me everything I have to do."
Lincoln plans to stay in Madison because of family, but he won't rule out moving if it means there is an opportunity for his
music to grow. "My family is here so I want to stay around," he said. "But if there's a chance that I could get famous or be
something big, I would move out too."
He has this message for other youth like him: "Don't do anything bad like drugs and other things that will mess up your life.
Drugs will ruin you. People skip school but I never skipped once in my life; I never ever thought about it. If you have a dream and
you're supposed to go and pursue that dream, doing drugs will stop you from reaching your dream. I have a lot of friends who
said they finally figured out that they shouldn't have done the things they've already done, but it's too late. So I learned from their
mistakes."
To order Keeneng Lincoln Vang's CD, titled "My Girl" or to book him for a performance, e-mail vang_lincoln@yahoo.com. Visit
myspace.com/lincolnmusicvang.
The cover of Lincoln Vang's
first CD
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Music, as many agree, is a universal language. Regardless of race or cultural differences,
people appreciate it and understand what it stands for. While the lyrics or rhythm may differ,
the art itself is the same, created to communicate a feeling, a thought, a sensation, a
message that transcends any physical or mental boundaries.
Every culture has its own type of traditional folk music, yet with the increasing
convergence of cultures through the years due to colonization (or conquest), trade,
immigration, and intermarriage, the world has become a salad bowl for all types of music
genres differing only in the lyrics' languages. The United States is definitely a smaller
version of this music world, but its influence has touched all cultures that now make up its
population.
Lincoln Vang is a first generation Hmong who was born 15 years ago in Madison. A
sophomore at LaFollette High School, Lincoln has just released his first CD of songs he
composed in English.
Growing up in a family of music lovers -- his father Shwaw is a member of a Hmong band
called Suab Buab, meaning "voice of the wind" -- it was natural for Lincoln to follow his
father's footsteps.
(Above) Lincoln and
younger brother
Ulysses were named
after U.S. presidents.
"My dad sings American songs, Lao songs, Thai songs, and Hmong songs at parties, and he plays
bass too," Lincoln began by introducing his dad's musical talent in an interview with Asian Wisconzine.
"Now, the band has members from a younger generation. So it's me and my cousins who are playing
with them. I sing mostly American songs but the band plays a variety of songs." /With no formal training
in music, Lincoln is a self-taught musician. "I don't read notes," he admitted. "I produced the music all
by ear. I play the keyboard, learned to play the guitar and bass, and I learned all that by myself." When he
recorded his CD, he said he recorded the instruments individually and then put them together in the
end. "We laid the tracks out so I could record the piano part and save it," he explained, "record the drum
part and save it, and then record the strings part and save it, and then lay it all together. Today's
technology can do that."
Lincoln credits his father for pushing him to compose his songs and write the lyrics himself. "It was
my dad's idea; he pushed me on to do it," he revealed, but added quickly, "I finally went along with him
and did all the music; although my dad wrote some of the songs. He gave me ideas; but I executed
them."
In the early stages, there were some disagreements with his dad about the type of music to create. "I
started making R&B type of music," Lincoln said. "But my dad said, 'Let's try going along with the Hmong
people first.' Then I tried some pop music and I wanted to go back in time, so I composed a song that
sounded like music in the '50s, and