It was love. They twiddled their knobs and teased each other across the turntables, holding each other and releasing another flood of sound. Hip hop met dance music at Room 18 early yesterday morning and it was an interesting mix. Marriage? Too soon to say.
DJ Chozie, back from China for a Ministry of Sound tour, tag-teamed with Taipei hip-hop kingpin J4 for a one-hour jam that spanned 20 years of electronica to include everything from Motown classics to a slamming remix of Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up. It was eclectic and energetic and the crowd showed its appreciation with a mild mosh.
Musically, Taiwan turns its ear more toward Japan and the US than it does Europe, which could explain the recent overwhelming popularity of hip hop music in Taipei, where the sounds of ghetto angst are often translated into fashionistas waddling around Ximending in baggy pants, oversize shirts and gold chains.
PHOTO: MAX WOODWORTH, TAIPEI TIMES
It's a long way from the projects, but hip hop has arrived in Taipei and is the major new vibe in many bars and clubs, as well as being the background beat to countless mainstream advertisements and promotions.
The hip-hop beat is king at TU and Room 18 on Wednesdays, 151 on Thursdays, Plush on Fridays and Bacchus on Saturdays, all clubs that play rocking house music on the weekends as well.
LUXY is the latest to jump on the hip-hop bandwagon with its new monthly party tonight, The G-Thang. Motto: "It's a ghetto thing, it's a gang thing, it's a G-Thang." Dj James, Noodle and E-Turn will be taking their turns to turn it up with a mix of old and new school and R 'n' B.
One of the busiest hip-hop DJs in Town is J4. "I've been playing hip hop for 10 years from scratch and it's only now they're [the public] starting to listen. I don't know what they like, I just know what I love. Unlike some DJs who change around their sound, I just wanna play my flava," J4 says.
"We all learn from New York and America but we wanna make it more local, like through my work with MC Hotdog, it's from the hood, local, gangsters, hip hop, maybe we should not call it that, maybe we should give it a Chinese name ...."
But not everyone thinks hip hop is the biggest thing on the planet and about to blow away dance music on the club scene.
"We can all pray that it doesn't. A lot of what's called hip hop is boring, repetitive and there are no innovations. I don't notice much difference between the DJs here at the moment. It's not even hip hop, most of it's R 'n' B anyway," says promoter Dominik ("It's my goal for people to know just my first name") of Bliss
productions.
"There's way more Chinese returning from America after finishing their studies and that coincides with high school and university, where it's in and they help to make it popular. There's also a bit of that LA-style thing."
J4 says he's also aware that hip hop's sudden rise locally could be more style than substance, but will carry on playing anyway. "Hip hop's like a fashion here in Asia. But I think hip hop's cultural as well. It's not just a `buy the T-shirt' thing. I think its good that it's popular because no one knew about it before, but now they do and they love it."
For now, the betting is, just like everywhere else, hip hop is here to stay and it will be squeezing into dance music territory at most local clubs for the foreseeable future. It sounded good the other night when Chozie and J4 were putting it down.
Dominik's party this weekend is the second annual Pimp 'n' Ho party, at LUXY tomorrow, with South Korea's number one-ranked DJ Dave Benz. DJ Saucey and SL will be backing the Korean-American, who now leans toward tribal and progressive house after cutting his teeth on hip hop back in his college days.
Elsewhere on Saturday, there's a fashion and dance show at Saloon with DJs Em Lee, Coffey and the ever-popular SL. DJ Chozie will be playing later at Party Room.
Big names coming to Taipei this month include Armin Van Buren, Tall Paul, Krafty Kuts, Kagami, Deep Dish and the godfather of drum and bass, LTJ Bukem, with MC Conrac. Felix Da Housecat cannot make it.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50