http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/fashion/steve-aoki-pokemon-go.html 2016-09-05 10:07:44 Steve Aoki Leaps Off Cliffs. But Biking in Chinatown? That Makes Him Nervous. The electronic-music superstar indulges in a game of Pokémon Go on a stopover in New York. === Scroll through So it was surprising to see flashes of tension on Mr. Aoki’s face as he navigated through Chinatown on a Citi Bike on Wednesday morning. Cars accelerated and slowed, sometimes drawing too close for comfort. “If you make one wrong move, they’ll bump you,” he said as he rode over a rough patch of concrete on Grand Street. “Whenever I do something that appears crazy to you, it’s controlled. Here, I don’t know the terrain. I’m too old in my life for that kind of carelessness.” The 38-year-old superstar of electronic dance music was in town to promote “ His iPhone in hand, Mr. Aoki was searching for a Mr. Aoki, who performs upward of 200 shows a year, had flown in from Ibiza, Spain, on Monday night and was leaving for Tel Aviv in several hours. Keeping track of all the places he has played isn’t easy. “I rely on other people’s memories a lot,” he said. “I’ll think, ‘I’m pretty sure I played here before.’ And then I have to Google it.” The constant travel from his home in Las Vegas, and the mundane shuttling between airports and hotels that comes with it, is what led Mr. Aoki to take up Pokémon Go in the first place. As he biked through a section of Chinatown that intersects with Little Italy, he braked to collect Poké Balls and looked around. “Little Italy reminds me of my dad,” he said, referring to For a long time, Steve, who lived with his mother, Chizuru Kobayashi, while growing up in Newport Beach, Calif., strove to show his disapproving father that pursuing his passion, music, had been the right choice. Though Rocky paid for his son’s college education, he refused to invest in The son was determined to prove to his father that he could pull it off, so he performed three times a week and kept his personal expenses low, eventually paying off credit card debt and saving. His label grew, adding well-known names to its roster, such as Bloc Party and the Kills. It paid off. Steve Aoki is now the Mr. Aoki reflected on Rocky’s parenting methods over brunch on the Lower East Side at Feeling as if he never fit in while growing up, he joined a straightedge group of teens who didn’t smoke, drink or do drugs, but who listened to hard-core punk, when he was around 14 years old. It was during that time that Mr. Aoki fostered an affinity for the raw and genuine aspect of a live performance, something he works hard to maintain at his shows now. “I see massive crowds, and it’s incredible,” he said. “But if you see that over and over again, it does become homogeneous. The details are really what keep me going. That fan in the crowd that’s singing every single song. All I want to do is give her a big hug and a sloppy kiss on the cheek.”