88Rising Raised the Bar for Representation
"A few years ago, I had dinner with a group of friends," Miyashiro tells PAPER. "I looked around the table and everyone was a dope Asian motherfucker — the best Asian designer, a next-level Asian chef, a rapper. There were all these fucking incredible Asian creatives killing it in their own fields, and I realized we didn't have a home to tell our stories. Something sparked and it just felt like the right time to build something."
A Korean- and Japanese-American from California, Miyashiro was already an industry veteran by the time he planted the seeds for 88Rising (written as "88⬆") back in 2015. Two years earlier, while working at Vice, he had spearheaded the launch of the site's now-defunct, then-massively successful electronic music channel Thump. It was here that Miyashiro cut his platform-building chops, honing in on accessible, digitally-savvy content that could engage readers all along the dance-music spectrum, from insider to mainstream. But while he was introducing the world to underground dance music back then, his focus now is the untapped world of Asian and Asian-American musical talent.