Anderson .Paak on Celebrating Black Culture & K-Pop: ‘To Take Care of the Genre … Learn About It’

Anderson .Paak made his directorial debut in February with his K-POPS! film, which he stars in alongside his son and revolves around a love story surrounding a K-pop competition show.

Paak stopped by Complex in a video posted Thursday (March 5), in which he opened up about the film’s focus on meshing Black and Korean cultures — a rarity in Hollywood — and the distinction between cultural appreciation versus appropriation with K-pop being rooted in Black music.

“I think every year now they have to learn and people have questions now. K-pop music and K-pop cinema might have growing pains that the genre has because it was kind of kept in this bubble for a minute, so now everyone’s looking at it,” he explained around the seven-minute mark. “The more people know and the more people do their history and research, they’ll see it is actually pulling from Black music.”

With K-pop becoming a global phenomenon, the Grammy-winning artist thinks it’s important for music fans and corporations to properly research the history of the genre to get a clear understanding before moving forward.

“Anytime you’re in the music business, people are going to take the business model and do it their own way, and that’s just how it’s going to happen,” .Paak added. “It’s not going to stop for anyone, but what you can do is learn from it. In order to really take care of the genre and to have respect for it, you learn about it, and that’s going to make it to where you’re not appropriating, where you are appreciating because you have respect for where it came from, and you’re able to handle it with grace and with care and to the next generation.”

He continued: “If you don’t have any knowledge of it, then you will be going off and doing you know dumb stuff and that’s disrespectful to the culture and that’s only when you don’t have a good sense of knowledge of what came before.”

The 40-year-old grew up in a Black household, but became exposed to Korean culture through the mother of his two children. He hopes that celebrating both Black and Asian cultures will open the door for more projects down the line, as he points to the Rush Hour series being the only mainstream representation.

Anderson .Paak’s K-POPS! hit AMC theaters nationwide on Feb. 27. The film stars Jonnie “Dumbfoundead” Park, ex U-KISS member Kevin Woo and Yvette Nicole Brown. Paak’s son (Tae Young) in the movie is played by his son, Soul Rasheed. There are a few celebrity cameos sprinkled in as well from Speed, Diplo, SEVENTEEN’s Vernon and Jaden Smith.

Watch the full interview with Anderson .Paak below.

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.