Employing a host of traditional music styles, Kou Chou Ching successfully creates a uniquely Taiwanese brand of hip-hop

By Ho Yi
Baggy pants, baseball caps and camouflage hoodies. This is the staple garb for local hip-hop kids and aspiring rappers who try to act like North American ghetto artists. Not Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤). To the hip-hop crew whose members are all under 30, the Taiwanese genre is not an emulation, but a reconnection to their parents' music and Taiwanese roots, which include beiguan (北管), nanguan (南管), Hakka bayin (客家八音), mountain songs (山歌), Taiwanese opera, folk songs and oldies from the 1940s to the 1970s.

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"Nappy-headed hos," the phrase that cost radio shock jock Don Imus his job and triggered a debate on how far free speech can go, was named on Thursday as the most egregious politically incorrect turn of phrase of last year. Trailing behind that phrase in the annual survey by Global Language Monitor (www.LanguageMonitor.com), a word usage group, were "Ho-Ho-Ho" and "Carbon Footprint Stomping," said the group's president Paul JJ Payack.

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By Alita Rickards
The weekend was notable both for live bands and clubbing, with entertainment that covered a wide spectrum of sounds, visions and spectacle.

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