88Rising CEO Sean Miyashiro is betting on viral Asian hip-hop stars

88Rising
CEO Sean Miyashiro, center, is betting on viral Asian hip-hop
stars such as Niki, left, and Rich Brian,
right.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider;
88Rising; Harrison Jacobs/Business Insider

• 88Rising is an innovative new entertainment company for the
  social-media age, combining a record label with a creative
  agency, a house for web-video production, and an
  artist-management agency.
• The company, which features hip-hop stars such as Rich Brian,
  Joji, and the Higher Brothers, was founded by Sean Miyashiro to
  “celebrate Asian talent and Asian stories and Asian culture.”
• The company built its name early on with viral hits, but
  Miyashiro wants to turn his company into a “Vice or Disney for
  Asians.”
• The company’s greatest asset might be Miyashiro’s ability to
  work out savvy partnerships with brands including Guess and
  Sprite.

If you want to understand where the entertainment industry is
going in the age of Instagram, SnapChat, and Soundcloud, look no
further than 88Rising, the shape-shifting startup that not even
37-year-old founder Sean Miyashiro can find a tidy way to
explain.

From the outside, it looks like a record label mixed with a
creative agency, a web-video production house, and an
artist-management company. But if you ask Miyashiro to explain
what exactly 88Rising is, as I did recently, he tends to chuckle.

“Damn. It’s funny because I always answer this different,”
Miyashiro told me. It’s as if he knows his company is a Rorschach
test for the media, his investors, and its fans.

“We’re really focused on creating superstars and creating heroes
and creating something that people can really believe in and be
excited about. A global media company that focuses on celebrating
Asian talent and Asian stories and Asian culture.”

Miyashiro with hip-hop
artist Don Krez in the green room at the 88 Degrees & Rising
Tour show in New York City.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

88Rising — “88” in Chinese means “double happiness” — launched
three years ago. It has already fostered several stars. While its
biggest names don’t yet rival name-brand artists like Taylor
Swift or Justin Bieber, they have dedicated followings and a
certain cachet with connected Gen Zers.

The biggest of the bunch include Brian Imanuel, a 19-year-old
rapper and beatmaker who goes by the name Rich Brian; George
Miller, a Japanese-born R&B singer who got his start as a
YouTube star making outrageous comedy videos before turning to
music full time under the moniker Joji; and the Higher Brothers,
a quartet of rappers from Chengdu, China, who make high-energy,
bouncy tunes about modern Chinese life, like the group’s 2017
single “WeChat,” about the titular Chinese messaging app.

When Miyashiro has been asked to explain it, he’s likened his
company to a future Vice and Disney. It’d be easy to write off
Miyashiro as having delusions of grandeur, but 88Rising and its
fans are the kind of thing you need to see in action to really
understand.

88Rising and its founder, Sean Miyashiro, have their
fingers on the pulse

Miyashiro backstage with
members of the Higher Brothers, a Chinese hip-hop
group.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

On a warm September night, Miyashiro invited me to attend the New
York date of the company’s 88 Degrees & Rising Tour.

The 21-date road show comes on the heels of 88Rising’s inaugural
Head In The Clouds music festival in Los Angeles, which brought
together the company’s complete artist lineup, featuring artists
from Indonesia, Korea, China, and LA, for the first time.

Held at Pier 17, a swanky rooftop at the southern tip of
Manhattan, the concert started slow as the streetwear-clad
attendees filed in and 88Rising’s newest artists ran through
abbreviated set lists.

Those early sets, like much of 88Rising’s oeuvre, have a DIY
quality. Like the first generation of YouTube stars, the artists
feel talented, but unstudied and rough around the edges. The
artists alternate between bleeding their hearts with unvarnished
honesty and making the next irony-laden meme-inspired joke. In a
way, each artist’s persona seems designed, intentionally or not,
to make teenagers feel like they could be one of them.

In recent dates on the 88 Degrees and Rising Tour, Joji has taken
to
juggling between songs.

Singer August 08 performs
at the 88 Degrees & Rising Tour show in New
York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

During his set, August 08 — an LA-based African-American singer
who traffics in melodic and atmospheric R&B — stops the music
to egg on the crowd. “Everybody yell ‘F–k!’” he shouted
mischievously. “F–k, f–k, f–k, f–k!”

At one point, he stops mid-song and directs the crowd to look at
the sunset. “Everybody look at that skyline. It’s beautiful,
man.”

At first I can’t tell if he’s trolling the crowd, but then
everyone turns toward the Hudson River. The sunset is gorgeous,
with pink, purple, and orange cotton-candy clouds.

Downstairs, in the green room, August introduced himself shyly
before complaining that he wasn’t sure the crowd was feeling the
set. He, like the rest of the 88Rising crew, is earnest in
person. A few minutes later, Rich Brian, Joji, and others in
88Rising’s orbit debated the merits of Brockhampton, another
of-the-moment hip-hop collective.

Artists Joji, right, and
Rich Brian hang with members of the 88Rising
team.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Meanwhile, Miyashiro was in another room finishing up an
interview with Vice. The budding mogul is nothing if not savvy.
In the last year, he’s scored glowing features in Bloomberg,

The New Yorker, and
CNN.

After the interview wraps up, he starts talking shop with me.
Wearing a rolled cuff skullcap pulled back over messy hair, a
wispy beard, and a flamboyantly patterned button-down, Miyashiro
has a mind that never seems to stray too far from work. Within
minutes, he’s asking me if I shoot video, telling me Business
Insider’s feature on 88Rising would work really well as a video,
and offering pointers to Vice’s videographers on where they might
get the best shots for the segment they’re producing. The funny
part is, he’s totally right.

Miyashiro is prone, like his artists, to switch rapidly between
impish trolling and wide-eyed earnestness. In the elevator up to
the rooftop concert, I ask him about Thump, the now defunct
electronic music site he cocreated at Vice, he looks at me
deadpan and says, “What’s Thump?” He holds it for a moment before
he starts cracking up: “I’m just f—-ing with you, man.”

Fans at the 88 Degrees
& Rising Tour show in New York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

The 88 Degrees &
Rising Tour show in New York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

It’s clear Miyashiro understands the digital-media game better
than most — its need for headlines, hooks, and, above all,
content — and he knows it.

To Miyashiro’s mind, 88Rising has four parts to its business: a
digital-media and video-production business, a music label, a
burgeoning arm looking into film and TV opportunities, and a
“cultural agency business” working with like-minded brands.

When describing his strategy for helping Chinese megastar Kris Wu
break into American hip-hop, Miyashiro told The New Yorker he
discouraged Wu from appearing on “Good Morning America.” The
morning show’s
4 million viewers aren’t who Wu needs. Miyashiro told Wu he
needs the audiences who read hip-hop magazines like XXL and
Complex and listens to Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1.

Later, when I ask him where the idea for 88Rising started, he
again turns to deadpan: “The idea started in my brain. Like, I
was just chilling and I was, like, ‘I wanna do that.’” But then
he pauses, as if recognizing that he needs to be earnest again.

“The whole genesis of 88Rising came from me and my friends
hanging out,” Miyashiro said. “I was fortunate enough to hang out
with a lot of different creators and people doing cool things
that happened to be Asian. They were all leaders in their
respective fields, whether it was graphic design or acting or
music.

“And I just thought that … if we all tried to combine [our
skills] and do something with a real, concerted effort, it was
gonna be something that’s better than nothing because nothing
existed.”

Early on, Miyashiro figured out how to turn viral hits
into a career

The 88Rising offices in
Manhattan, New York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Miyashiro possesses a native’s understanding of media, virality,
and, in a word, cool. His initial incarnation of the company was
a DIY management firm called CXSHXNLY that he started in 2015
from the roof of a Bronx parking garage.

He would trawl the internet looking for up-and-coming rappers
from Asia. Miyashiro’s first client was Jonathan Park, a
Korean-American rapper who goes by the name Dumbfoundead.

His first big success came when Park showed him the video for the
2015 hit “IT G MA,” by Lee Dongheon, a South Korean rapper who
goes by the name Keith Ape. Miyashiro and Park persuaded Ape to
come to the US for the South by Southwest talent showcase in
Austin, Texas. Miyashiro then persuaded Lee to become a client.

Shortly after, Miyashiro contacted Taiwanese-American music
producer Josh Pan to create a remix of “IT G MA” with Waka
Flocka, A$AP Ferg, Father, and Dumfoundead. The remix reportedly
cost him less than $10,000 to pull off. It and the SXSW
performance launched Ape’s US stardom.

Miyashiro’s stewardship of Ape’s career speaks to how 88Rising,
even in its prototype stage, has positioned itself as different
from the rest of the music industry and — if Miyashiro’s
ambitions are realized — Hollywood too. Miyashiro didn’t simply
release a new song for Ape; he strategically directed Ape’s
entire entrance into the culture, from his media appearances and
his early shows to his artistic direction. It was a creative,
hands-on approach to get his artist the right looks from the
right people.

“Our label exists because no major label or distributor or
American music company’s gonna know what to do with something
like this,” Miyashiro said. “We’re the only ones who are gonna
know and it’s not easy.”

Japanese hip-hop artist
KOHH performs at Fans at the 88 Degrees & Rising Tour
show.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Japanese hip-hop artist
KOHH performs at Fans at the 88 Degrees & Rising
Tour.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Miyashiro pulled a similar feat with Rich Brian.

In 2016, Rich Brian was 16 and going by the problematic moniker
Rich Chigga, a portmanteau of Chinese and the N-word. He
independently released the rap song ““Dat $tick.” The
accompanying video features the young Indonesian rapping hip-hop
tropes like gunplay and fancy cars in his shockingly deep
baritone as he struts in a pink polo shirt and fanny pack. The
video went viral — it currently has 105 million views — likely
because of the transgressive incongruity between Brian’s
appearance, his voice, and his lyrics, and the spectacle of
seeing hip-hop distorted in his irreverent and foreign lens. But
it also courted controversy for Brian’s use of the N-word, his
rap name, and, in some eyes, his
cultural appropriation.

Miyashiro’s response was to bring together a number of
up-and-coming and established hip-hop artists to film a series of
videos at South by Southwest. The most successful of the bunch
featured the artists reacting to “Dat $tick” and Rich Brian as
they watched the video live. Among others, Cam’ron, 21Savage, the
Flatbush Zombies, and Ghostface Killah feature in the video,
which has more than 18 million views. For the most part, the
artists respond positively, if incredulously, to Brian’s style
and flow.

Later that year, Ghostface Killah recorded a remix of the track.
It has more than 13 million views in its own right.

The video was a savvy move. By putting the question of “Dat
$tick” directly to hip-hop’s artists, Miyashiro recontextualized
the conversation around Brian’s cultural appropriation and get
him rubber-stamped as an artist who could be taken seriously.

Brian dropped the Rich Chigga moniker in favor of Rich Brian at
the beginning of this year, shortly before releasing his debut
album “Amen.” The album, for the most part, eschews the
gangster-rap and trap cosplay for songs both autobiographical and
introspective about what it’s like to live Brian’s strange life.
He began as an outcast and an introvert using Twitter and Vine as
an outlet for his sometimes offensive humor before producing his
own music and hip-hop.

Miyashiro maintained that Brian came to the decision to pursue
more personal music on his own, adding that 88Rising’s artists
are self-directed when it comes to their art. But it seems likely
that Miyashiro — and by extension Brian — were influenced by the
internet conversations around cultural appropriation. Other
88Rising artists have drawn similar criticism.

“He hasn’t done anything remotely similar since. He’s grown as a
person and as an artist, and now has a much more global point of
view,” Miyashiro said of “Dat $tick” and Rich Brian. “None of our
artists are talking about anything that they don’t do.”

88Rising’s big sell is that it can bring new brands to
its audience and new audiences to its brand

The 88 Degrees &
Rising Tour show in New York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

What makes 88Rising unique, aside from its focus on Asian stars
and entertainment, is its business model.

While Miyashiro started his career with a number of music-related
jobs, he made his first real mark at Vice. In 2013, electronic
dance music was blowing up and he, along with several friends who
managed EDM acts, persuaded Vice to let them set up a new media
platform dedicated to the genre. By covering dance music and
nightlife from an insider’s perspective, Thump quickly gained the
respect of both established and up-and-coming artists and a
dedicated following among the larger underground dance-music
culture.

Miyashiro helped build Thump from the ground up. He said the
experience helped shape his blueprint for how to launch a media
property. Tom Punch, Vice’s chief commercial and creative
director, told Bloomberg that Miyashiro had a talent for pulling
in advertisers, like Anheuser-Busch InBev, that wanted to
capitalize on the EDM boom.

It’s easy to see the parallels between 88Rising and Vice.
Miyashiro doesn’t shy away from them.

“There are a lot of differences from our business to theirs, but
the one core aspect that might be similar is that Vice has an
incredibly strong brand,” Miyashiro said. “They’ve been able to
take that brand and what it stands … and they’ve been able to
expand their brand into all these different opportunities.”

As of right now, the music label is the most fully fledged and
well known, thanks to Rich Brian, Joji, and the rest of
88Rising’s roster. But it’s hard not to think that it’s
Miyashiro’s keen eye for working with big brands that persuaded
global advertising firm WPP to invest a reported $4.5 million of
a total $7 million that the company has raised so far.

In January, the company worked with the ad agency Ogilvy to come
up with the concept for a Sprite commercial in China featuring
MaSiWei, one of the members of Higher Brothers. The ad, which
began airing just before the Lunar New Year, China’s biggest
holiday, features MaSiWei visiting his family for the holidays.
The family asks him the usual prying questions about his
girlfriend and his salary, which MaSiWei deflects with an
ice-cold Sprite and rhymes from his single “Refresh,” the video
for which also doubles as a Sprite commercial.

“We were actually pitching against all of these legacy agencies
in the market that have been there forever and we won,” Miyashiro
said. “We’ve never even made a television commercial before.”

The ad and the song are the kind of intermingling of editorial
and advertising that brands crave and Vice
has often been
criticized for. But whereas Vice must adhere to the standards
of a news organization, 88Rising has no such obligations. It’s an
entertainment company committed to raising the profile of its
artists and its own brand. The symbiotic leveraging of brands —
using big-name ones to introduce 88Rising and its artists to more
people and the use of 88Rising’s brand to confer street cred on
those brands — is the point.

It’s more or less what Miyashiro has already done in music,
partnering with the hip-hop press-approved artists that have been
featured on 88Rising’s songs. Playboi Carti, Ghostface Killah,
Famous Dex, and Wacka Flocka Flame — all of whom have been
featured in 88Rising songs or remixes — give 88Rising’s artists
credibility while 88Rising introduces those artists to its fan
base.

Though the ad was successful, Miyashiro maintains that, nine
months later, 88Rising is onto the next evolution of its business
model. Whereas the Sprite commercial came out of a standard
ad-industry process — brand produces brief, creative teams pitch
ideas, brand selects winner — Miyashiro is after what he calls
“true partnerships.” Miyashiro doesn’t want 88Rising to be
subject to selling ad impressions against its audience or
erecting content paywalls, like most digital-media companies, or
responding to briefs like an advertising firm.

Members of the Higher
Brothers, a Chinese hip-hop group perform at the 88 Degrees &
Rising Tour show in New York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Members of the Higher
Brothers, a Chinese hip hop group perform at the 88 Degrees &
Rising Tour show in New York City.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Members of the Higher
Brothers, a Chinese hip-hop group perform at the 88 Degrees &
Rising Tour show in New York.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Instead, he wants 88Rising to create projects that, by virtue of
their premium nature, brands simply want to help fund and be
associated with.

“When we get into any type of brand conversation or any type of
partnership conversation, we already have the ideas for things
that we, as 88Rising, want to make,” Miyashiro said. “We’re not
looking to ask [brands] what they want and then make it for
them.”

The first fruit of this approach is 88Rising’s upcoming
collaboration with the clothing brand Guess, set to drop on
November 8. The 14-piece collection features clothing pieces
costing up to $148 and all designed in colorful, psychedelic
tie-dye, a nod to the company’s recent compilation album, “Head
in the Clouds.”

Guess
has a long history in hip-hop. Last year it
worked with rapper and fashion icon A$AP Rocky on a clothing
line. But, Miyashiro said, this is the first time Guess has
collaborated with an Asian company.

Miyashiro maintains that the collaboration came out of creatives
at 88Rising and those at Guess wanting to work together, not
Guess asking them how to enter the Asian market.

“It’s more like we’re going to come together and our brand is
going to be amplified through this and their brand is going to be
amplified through this,” Miyashiro said. “When this comes out,
this is another thing that elevates us.”

At the concert in New York, the 88Rising employees I met were
already dressed in Guess x 88Rising T-shirts. The S’s are turned
into 88s with an the company’s signature arrow. It’s likely only
a matter of time before 88Rising’s artists are decked out in the
swag too.

88Rising is already looking to get to the next
level

88Rising’s offices in
Manhattan.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

This year 88Rising nearly doubled in size, from 24 to 45
employees, and has opened new offices in Los Angeles and
Shanghai. But as I visited its headquarters in Chelsea, it feels
like 88Rising is notable for what it could be rather than what it
is. And right now that’s a scrappy young company and CEO making
it up as they go.

The way Miyashiro talks, I’d be forgiven for imagining the
company’s headquarters akin to Vice’s now famous swanky
Williamsburg hipster warehouse. In reality, it’s a workmanlike
room with exposed brick walls on the fourth floor of a
doormanless building that holds maybe a dozen or so people
crowded around laptops and iMacs where video editors cut the
brand’s latest YouTube videos.

Miyashiro’s office is in the back. Decorated with a glass table,
a velvet sofa, and large neon sign featuring an 88 and the
Chinese character for “rising,” it appears to double as a
conference room. Framed album covers of 88Rising’s artists hang
on the walls.  

As we wait to start the interview, Miyashiro seems a bit
self-conscious about the office’s startup-standard wood tables
and chairs and starts quizzing one of his employees about when
she could upgrade the furniture to something more “dope.”

88Rising’s offices in
Manhattan.

Harrison
Jacobs/Business Insider

Miyashiro’s eyes always seem set on the next evolution of his
vision.

“You might look at us right now and say, ‘Hey, 88Rising is the
leading Asian label. They have a great collective,’ Miyashiro
said. “But in a year or two from now, we’d like to have films
that have been made and brought to the world … Three years from
now, we might have our own TV channel.”

Getting to that point will largely rely on 88Rising’s artists
continuing to execute and Miyashiro and his team continuing to
find ways to get its audience hooked on new artists. In a lot of
ways, the team had it easy with 88Rising’s first generation of
artists. Before Miyashiro began working with them, Keith Ape had
already come out with his career-making single “IT G MA”; Rich
Brian had already gone viral with “Dat $tick”; and Joji was
already a bona fide star on YouTube, albeit for his comedic
antics. He invented the “Harlem Shake” meme when three costumed
friends danced along to the Baauer hit.

With artists like Indonesian singer Nikki and August 08, the
company’s first African-American artist, Miyashiro is more or
less starting from scratch. And that’s before you get into the
difficulty of getting an Asian-led film or TV show made in
Hollywood, with or without the box-office success of “Crazy Rich
Asians.” But none of that scares Miyashiro.

“We like doing things that nobody else has done before,”
Miyashiro said. “We want to be a part of that conversation.”