Much like its American counterpart, Chinese Hip-Hop rose from the streets, giving a voice to disaffected youth whose message might not otherwise be heard. While this form of expression has been around in China since the 90’s, it failed to gain a widespread following until musicians started rapping in Chinese, a fairly recent development that brings greater relevancy and reach to the form. And though steadily growing in popularity, at its root rap is still vehicle of protest and as such, an underground phenomenon that a mainstream audience is not prepared to understand or face, particularly given the Chinese government’s desire to keep strict controls on culture. But this only further lends legitimacy to the enterprise and the social commentary that flows forth as a result. The NY Times reports:
While Beijing’s underground music scene is generally under the authorities’ radar — hip-hop, indie rock and reggae groups perform regularly at nightclubs here — the producers representing broadcast media in China avoid musicians perceived as threatening.
“There are pockets of freedom here,” said Wong Miao, 24, the director of Acupuncture Records, which doubles as a collective of D.J.’s. “Anyone can play what they want in clubs, and as long as you aren’t insulting the party, generally you’ll be left alone. But if you want to take the next step to becoming mainstream, you hit a wall. If you aren’t singing their type of stuff or aren’t incredibly rich, they won’t sign you.”
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Gotta share gotta share about something somehow linked to this story. Asian Pop Idol in Melbourne two weeks ago was a huge success, in a similar idol vein people sang their favourite songs dressed the part of a potential idol winner, with lyrics of love and heartbreak in their language communicating to select groups of the crowd.
Meanwhile at SYNfm, Melbourne’s Student Youth Network, Matt from VigilAntelope let the listeners know that his co-host, Joel, was entering the competition singing his great great great grandfathers’, sister’s, exs-husbands’ first daughter’s ode to woodchippers in a remote village of northern china.
Listeners were given random updates of the competition and even Matt struggled to hide his surprise when Joel, the only non Asian in the event actually won the prize of Australia’s Asian Idol 09. He came back to the SYN studio and graciously sang a segment of the song to give listeners a taste of his winning style….. painful noises sang from the heart that (to me) sounded a little like a very drunk Chinese karaoke singer… singing from the heart about getting his finger chopped off.
These two SYNcasters have an ultra dry sense of humour so it was difficult to tell if they were being serious or not. Later on that night, listening to the Asian radio’s upset host it was clear he did. Prizewinners were being complained about by many upset participants both in the contest and in the audience. And now, nobody’s talking about it.
There is a (lack of) moral in this story…. isn’t there?
January 28th, 2009 at 9:18 pm