When Tha Shaman (Elliot Tsai, 蔡一暐) and his THC (Taipei Hip-hop Crew, H中P在台北) posse hit the stage, up to 10 MCs work the crowd — audience members go wild, and some have been known to strip.
Following the group’s debut album, last year’s Countdown to Unsound, THC recently released Shaman’s solo album, which showcases the MC’s rhyming talents and reflects his mixed-ethnicity and personal interest in spirituality and metaphysics. Tomorrow the crew performs in Taichung for the first time.
Vinyl Word: What’s your definition of true hip-hop?
Shaman: True hip-hop is hip-hop music that says something truthful. Chuck D of Public Enemy called hip-hop the “Black CNN.” Another name for it could be the “Invisible CNN” — the news you don’t see. In the days of Babylon, kings and queens controlled knowledge and thus held power. Prophets used to speak the truth to the people through music, seeking to free people’s minds and hearts. It was a way for them to hide their dissent, which would otherwise lead to being beheaded. Hip-hop is good music to get free to.
VW: What’s your album about?
S: The album is titled Shamanizm (玄武門). I speak on such topics as enlightenment, energy, abuse, freedom, fear and pain. It’s a mix of American and Chinese/Taiwanese culture, just like me.
VW: How did you make Shamanizm?
S: It took a lot of hard work, a lot of time and care. The album has 18 songs. Two songs were recorded with a live band and a singer, it has four languages, three producers, several MCs, and a few of the beats [were] made by yours truly.
VW: Which Taiwanese artists would you like to work with?
S: Some I plan to work with are Soul Jingle (手斤口), Bozo Boyz, R.M.B.Z., AP’s Manchuker (滿人), Lil’ E (沈懿) and Beatbox Double.
VW: What are your live shows like?
S: It’s rowdy! You’ll see a group of guys who love to work a crowd and have a good ’ol time. You’re gonna see hip-hop culture, livin’, breathin’ and thrivin’! Our posse is one of a kind in Taiwan, or anywhere else in the world even. We have Mandarin, Taiwanese, French and, of course, English. Our shows have anywhere from four to 10 members on stage at any one time. Each of our MCs has an original and unique style, the combination of which leaves many with a new understanding of what hip-hop could and should be. I like to believe our music gets people laid.
VW: Tell us about your experiences gigging.
S: Ha, well, when you are at a place where alcohol is involved, anything can happen. I’ve had a guy try to grab the mic from me in the middle of a song (he wanted to sing), another guy yelling “THC” so loudly it was hard to hear the MC, guys and girls taking their clothes off ... um, yeah. It can get a little wild sometimes, ha, ha. That’s what we’re here for. If you want peace and quiet, you can go to the library. If you wanna bring da ruckus, come get some of this THC.
Shamanizm CD Launch Party with THC, Anti Hero, Marc V, and Edify, is tomorrow from 10pm to 4am at Light Lounge, B1, 85, Huamei W St Sec 1, Taichung City (台中市華美西街一段85號). Admission is NT$300.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist