After Danity Kane, you started working with a lot of different artists, but one that shows up over and over again is Far East Movement. What's your connection with them?



YIP: When I was working at Interscope, they were interning there. So we would see them walking around the halls, and we would be like “what’s up”. It was hard to not notice each other, we were literally the only Asian guys in the building. So we were like “oh, this is dope. What do you do? What do you do?” and so on. And they were like, we make music! We’re rappers!" So we were like, “ok, let’s work.”

One day, they invited us out to one of their shows. So me and Ray went out. And we noticed, because they were kinda rapping more backpack hip-hop at the time, they had this set where they started rapping over like Daft Punk, and all these EDM records. And the energy was crazy, their stage presence has always been crazy. After that, we were like “hm, maybe there’s something there.”

Fast forward a little bit, we’re in the studio with Bruno actually, and we’re working on this record, and he starts [singing the the hook to] “Girls. On. The. Dance. Floor.”

So we create this record called “Girls on the Dancefloor” and then I’m talking to Ray, and I’m like “maybe we should give this to Far East Movement. Their hustle is crazy, stage performance, all the things like that.” He’s like “let’s do it.” So we called them up, and they were down, so they laid down their verses. And shit, the song started picking up and playing like crazy out here in L.A.

ROMULUS: And you gotta let him know that we were rapping on the second verse.

YIP: Oh, and we’re rapping on the second verse! Cuz we were writing this, and were like, we might as well stay on this. And since I knew people over at Interscope already, I took it over to Martin Kirsenbaum, who I knew for years from working there, and I was like “yo I want to play you these artists, named Far East Movement.”

And he was like, “oh, I’ve heard of them!” Because he was hearing it on the radio. So he was like “I definitely want to meet them.” So we finally took them in, they met with Martin, he took us to meet with Jimmy Iovine at his house…and shit, it was crazy. That night was crazy.

Jimmy Iovine was pitching us. Because Far East Movement was signed to us, so that was our group, so when we went to Jimmy Iovine’s house, he was literally pitching us, which was so crazy because its like “This is Jimmy Iovine. He’s pitching us to not go anywhere else but here.

ROMULUS: It was also big too, because at the time, we were always getting the stipulation that Asian-Americans couldn’t make it in music, couldn’t make it big. So for us to have Jimmy Iovine going “yo, you guys need to be here [on Interscope]” was huge.

YIP: Whenever I’m asked what my proudest moment is in my career, to me it’s always having been a part of breaking Far East Movement. Because, as an Asian-American, to be in front of the camera, and being the star, let alone being behind the camera, or behind the boards, there’s not just too many Asians in the industry. And so for us to be a part of the first Asian-Americans to break through and have a number #1 on Hot 100 was just incredible to us.



