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Paul Dateh Highlight
Paul Dateh
Musician
If I let myself worry about what people are going to think, and my reputation, and try to prove myself-I've done that before, and it's exhausting. At the end of the day, the real person you want to make sure is happy is yourself.
About Paul
- Started playing violin when he was very young, says it's been with him his whole life.
- Says that although it was his idea to start playing, his parents really pressured him to keep it up.
- Went USC for classical violin, but on the first day, he walked out of the practice room and into the admissions building, changed his major to jazz.
- Following this switch, he lost a lot of the support from his family and his peers in the classical school, who thought he was "just rebelling."
- Now he's known for his classical/hip-hop mashups, covering music by the likes of Kanye West, The Roots, and Kendrick Lamar.
- He'd been taught that he couldn't mix the classical techniques with modern playing, yet here he is, building a career off of that fusion.
- Says it's a challenge to survive in the entertainment business, especially for Asian-Americans, a group that is especially underrepresented.
- Luckily, he's been able to use the Internet to build a following and craft his own image without having to go through traditional channels.
