A&E Dispatch | Hip-hop crew Far East Movement at the King Cat Saturday

Fusing the flavas of downtown Los Angeles with its ethnic enclaves, the Far East Movement drives its own sound.

"We are influenced by where we live," says MC James Roh, who performs with the hip-hop group Saturday at Seattle's King Cat Theater. "Los Angeles is a cultural melting pot. You can go up one block and be around Latinos in South Central, then go to Little Ethiopia, and go up a little more and it's historic Chinatown. Our music is everything we experience."

The hip-hop crew — made up of Roh, along with MCs Kevin Nishimura (Kev Nish), Jae Choung (J-Splif) and DJ Virman Coquia — ties together different generations of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Korean backgrounds. They strive to not only represent their communities but defy boundaries with their music. Their latest album, "Animal," is genre-less, pulsating from electronica to hip-hop.

Before settling on Far East Movement, the group performed under the name Emcee's Anonymous. "We just realized that every step is so critical," says Roh, aka Prohgress. "You kind of carry your whole ethnicity to an extent on your back. Not because you want to and not because you're so great, but because that's your face."

The guys started rapping together in parking lots during high school. . They've come a long way since they promoted their own concerts and put up their own fliers; Far East Movement has now scaled two world tours. Also, their music has been featured on "CSI," "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," as well as in the Sundance film "Finishing the Game: The Search for a New Bruce Lee." "Girls on the Dance Floor" is their most recent hit.

"As a part of the music game, people don't give Asian-Americans a chance off the bat," says Roh. "So we try to build with everybody to like our music."

Marian Liu: 206-464-3825 or mliu@seattletimes.com