Getting to Know
Music Advocate
& Industry Archivist:
Richie Menchavez,
TRAKTIVIST
LEARN HOW THIS CALIFORNIA DJ’S
LIFETIME PASSION AND MISSION FOR
SPOTLIGHTING ASIAN AMERICAN MUSICIANS
WILL NOW REACH OVER 2 MILLION PEOPLE
By ANTHONY P. DiFLORIO | JAN. 17, 2019
Listening to Richie Menchavez, the Los Angeles-based DJ and founder of TRAKTIVIST—an online media platform that features a weekly radio show highlighting music created by Asian American artists—it’s hard not to hear the pride and excitement of his most recent accomplishment.
“What’s very exciting is that this [new channel change] puts Asian Americans in the ears of a more mainstream global audience,” says Menchavez, a long-standing advocate of Asian American musicians.
This month, TRAKTIVIST Radio, Menchavez’s weekly radio show that spotlights Asian American artists, re-launches on the, “Discover—The Newest Music,” channel which increases listenership to more than 2 million monthly subscribers via online platform, Dash Radio.
This visibility could have significant impact for Asian American musicians hoping to gain success and grab a slice of America’s music industry which in 2018 generated $43 billion in revenue.
“Asian Americans are at the cusp of popular culture in America and the rest of the world,” says Menchavez. “From the success of Crazy Rich Asians in movie theaters to KPOP’s BTS gracing the cover of Time Magazine, we felt that time was more than right for us to showcase the diverse and prominent musical contributions Asian Americans are making to today’s mainstream culture.”
Dash Radio, an upstart, is one of the largest digital radio platforms in the world with over 10 million monthly listeners, according to its website. The startup made recent news by securing $8.8 million in seed investments and landing high-profile board members such as Warner Bros. chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara and Alibaba’s former chairman of U.S. investments Michael Zeisser.
“We felt that time was more than right for us to showcase the diverse and prominent musical contributions Asian Americans are making to today’s mainstream culture.”
A Passion for Music and People
From the time he was a child, Menchavez has always been fascinated in, and moved by, two compelling forces: music and people. Born in the Filipino American hub of Daly City, California in the late 1980s, Menchavez was “pretty much surrounded by music.”
“My dad was a musician, my stepdad was an incredible karaoke singer…but really my biggest influence was my cousin. He was a DJ…” he says effusively.
It didn’t take long for sound to seep into his own becoming and pull him deeper into a musical life. By the time he reached high school, he’d joined a West Coast DJ crew, playing on radio, in clubs, and gigs around the Bay Area.
More than that, he grew up alongside the high school showcases of Asian American pop groups, seeing some strike fame and get signed to major labels.
Perhaps unknown at the time, what was incubating inside him was a dream to leverage his passion, his music chops, and his curiosity in people—he has a degree in sociology—for a much larger purpose.
“It just sparked something in me that I have to be a part of this to do what I can, because music is, I feel, one of those platforms, other than languages, that really connects people,” he says.
“I just felt it was my call to participate and help our community rise through that.”
TRAKTIVIST Radio, which airs live every Thursday at 5:00 pm PST, plans to bring up and coming artists as well as Grammy Award-winning and nominated artists. Listeners can expect to tune into artists such as Bruno Mars, Jhene Aiko, Anderson.Paak, Jay Park, Steve Aoki, TokiMONSTA, and Sweater beats on future shows.
“It just sparked something in me that I have to be a part of this to do what I can," he says.
Connecting Artists, Increasing Visibility
TRAKTIVIST—a portmanteau of a music “track,” sans “c,” and activist—came to Menchavez after playing around with a few different start up names early on. And while the media hub has grown since its launch in 2015, its also developed a niche podcast series called, theINFLUENCERS, which explores Asian Americans who have worked behind the scenes in the music industry.
“From what I’ve learned over the years…there’s a lot of us in there, especially entertainment. And not only are we there, but there’s a lot of Asian Americans who do great things to make it possible for us to showcase our work,” Menchavez says.
What’s more is that the United States Asian population grew 72 percent between 2000 and 2015 (from 11.9 million to 20.4 million), the fastest growth rate of any major racial or ethnic group, according to Pew Research.
“Why are we not learning about their [Asian Americans] journey?” Menchavez asks. “Why are we not exploring the story and experience that they’ve had so that young aspiring artists in the industry can learn from it?”
“Why are we not exploring the story and experience that they’ve had so that young aspiring artists in the industry can learn from it?”
A Playlist Of, and For, Life
Identities, in some regards, resemble the infinite modalities of musical genres. Complex, idiosyncratic, fluid, and organically grown in and across their own places on earth.
Understandably so, Menchavez says no one playlist or genre can truly define him—or any of us.
“I can tell you that I have a playlist for practically every genre and I do that because there’s a playlist for every mood. [For me], I would say the website. That is my work, that is the work of my team and that’s what I live and breathe every day.”
Beyond TRAKTIVIST, beyond music, the veteran DJ is eyeing a bigger movement on the horizon.
“I think what people have to understand is that they have to see past the Asian American label. What we’re asking for here is diversity. What we’re asking for is more the ability to share our story and the ability to get the openness for others to hear our story so that we can just become part of the fabric of this country really—and just feel like we’re just part of it, like truly part of it.”
Anthony P. DiFlorio is a journalist based in Washington, D.C., with a voracious curiosity for all things culture, food, and travel related.