Chanpan’s music channels a sense of sleekness alongside playful improvisation and deliberate musical choices. There are the nods to the playfulness and vibrancy of PinkPantheress and NewJeans, though tinged with something jazzier and fluid, a willingness to freestyle that’s characteristic of a distinctly American ethos. And yet these are all disparate definitions, and calling something “everything” is only helpful when you have the piece that binds it all together. On Mott Street in New York’s Chinatown, a neighborhood that’s become a kind of homebase for the many facets of their work, a vision began to crystallize.
One day a few years ago, Grace Dumdaw and Lance and Matthew Tran went out busking downtown, something clicked, and Chanpan was born. A disillusionment with working in various political spaces early in their careers led to a pivot to alternative modes of expression and change. In seeking something more immediate and loose, they turned to music, freeing themselves from the expectation that every choice should have a literal meaning, even if said choices are deliberate and specific. Though the music is a means, it’s not a means to an end.
