“I think that it's really important that we as Asian Americans claim our heritage in whatever way feels comfortable to us,” author and Korean Canadian former music exec Sophia Chang tells Ebro Darden on The Message. “One of my taglines is ‘Fuck your model minority.’ The model minority myth is the source of much of the racism against our community, as well as what we, ourselves, internalise. And I'm trying to deprogram myself and unlearn that every day.” Chang left her biggest footprint in the hip-hop space—she worked for a bevy of labels in her younger years and at different points managed RZA, GZA and Ol’ Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan, as well as A Tribe Called Quest, D’Angelo, Raphael Saadiq and Q-Tip—but Chang got her start working for Paul Simon, a connection she made through friend Joey Ramone. “Punk was very important to me, especially as a yellow girl growing up in a white world who wanted to be white,” Chang says. “To hear this pushing up against the system—that's why hip-hop resonated with me so deeply. Certainly I didn't have the language for it, but the only exposure I had to people of colour, including my own people, other than family and community, was what came through the Hollywood lens, which is racist and sexist. With hip-hop, I think it's the first time that I was exposed to people of colour taking control of their own narrative.” Chang’s The Message playlist includes selections from Wu-Tang Clan, Grandmaster Flash, the Ramones, Paul Simon and A Tribe Called Quest, along with a wealth of other acts whose music helped to empower her on her journey to becoming—as the tile of her memoir declares—The Baddest Bitch in the Room.