Chad Hugo Quotes & Trivia

Quotes

A lot of Asian-Ams are laid in the cut all the time - getting stuff like "He can't even speak English"

For me, I'm just trying to be the best at what I do. I'll wave an Asian American flag if I get that opportunity. I'm not hiding or trying to discredit my background or anything, I just haven't had the opportunity.

Groups like The Mountain Brothers just have to keep on doing what they're doing - just make it dope and just make it different. And not try to compete with other people of color.

I grew up around hip-hop so I didn't think it was about being cool or being black or being white or whatever.

I just always considered myself to be different and able to explore whatever I wanted.

I played saxophone, so I was into jazz. I learned from each audience and each teacher that I had. I can't really tell you any rules or anything, but the way I develop my beliefs is really just by personally learning from different situations.

I'm not trying to disrespect anybody by saying this - I'm not sure I feel any interaction with Asian America in any collective sense. - It's like, when you're telling me this right now, my reaction is, Really? Asian America knows about me?

If I came up saying "Let's go, Filipnos and Asians" when I was still getting here, just knowing nature and knowing people, I was probably was going to be shut down.

It's about ignorance, so the way I always dealt with it was to introduce myself and make a decision not to get frustrated.

My response was to say, "Yeah, What's up man, I'm Chad from The Neptunes, I don't do that - for the menu, you better ask that other dude over there."

Of course I'm going to feel that frustration and angry emotion going on, but at the same time, I realize that people just don't know.

So as far as the racism thing, I didn't try to be anything in particular, or associate myself with any one race or scene.

So I think it's better to say something than not to say anything at all, even to an ignorant person.

The only experiences I had were when I first started working in the studio many years ago, and people would ask me things like, "Yo, where can I order from, can I get the menu?"

When I made it, I still didn't wave the flag and say, Yeah go Asian people. I do want people to know that about me, but I always felt like at least musically, let me just do what I do and be the best at it. Which is what I'm doing right now.

When I was growing up, there were parties that I went to that were mostly Filipinos and maybe a couple of black guys, but we liked all types of music.

When you take time out to actually approach someone like that and speak to them, then they're forced to acknowledge, "Yeah he does speak English" and "Okay he's cool, he listens to my music."

You know for me, when I wanted to become a producer, I didn't say, I want to be the best Filipino or Asian-Am producer.

You've come to me now at this point in time, when The Neptunes are just now getting our light.