Charlene Kaye's Diversity Shredder is a fun and feverish journey through her career, blending well-crafted comedy with screaming guitar to critique a music industry that often tokenises artists. The show, running at Gilded Balloon Teviot, Edinburgh, until 30 August, is a potent and unflinching look at the stereotypes that box people in.
A career of navigating tokenism
Kaye, a musician and comedian, has faced an uphill battle as a token queer Asian female guitar player, often booked to cater to superficial diversity concerns. The show reflects on the mental gymnastics of being a person of colour in music, when all people seem to want is Cassandra from Wayne's World.
Using multi-genre musical comedy and masterful guitar skills, Kaye explores what it means to be an Asian American musician within a broken capitalist system. Her global following on Instagram and TikTok, where she parodies trends from K-pop to Taylor Swift, translates into a magnetic stage presence honed by years of touring solo and with bands.
Sharp critique with a heavy riff
The show features a large screen displaying obnoxious emails from collaborators, from a Soundcloud rapper to a folk singer-songwriter, alongside clips of problematic “Asian music” in the western pop canon, such as the Vapors' Turning Japanese and Day Above Ground's Asian Girlz.
While the hour is packed with high-quality material, it could use breathing room for Kaye's witty lyricism and punchlines to land. Still, Diversity Shredder is a powerful critique, ending with Kaye's determination to chart her own course – and her ability to shred.
