You better not be too exhausted after your raunchy Chinese Valentine's romp as this weekend gets off to a banging start with the arrival of some old school rap legends in Taipei. Tonight at Luxy the rap group Naughty By Nature will be spitting rhymes and dropping beats. The famous trio from New Jersey comprises MC Treach, MC Vinnie, and DJ Kay Gee.
The New Jersey rap group was spotted by Queen Latifah, and was signed up with Tommy Boy, after which they dropped the hit single OPP ("Other People's Property"). This immediately made them rap superstars and unlike a lot of other groups they were able to stay street and achieve pop status, continuing to release hits like Hip Hop Hooray and Hey! Ho!. Problems arose in the group and DJ Kay Gee decided to leave and concentrate on his production career. Fortunately, even with this loss, Naughty By Nature still had the skills to create hot tracks.
The Vinyl Word has got some good news and bad news this week on the rap front. First, old school legends Public Enemy won't be turning up this week so don't believe the hype. They were supposed to turn up this Wednesday at MoS, but the gig has been postponed. Now the good news: On Aug. 26, someone who isn't old school will be rocking MoS, namely N.O.R.E..
PHOTO COURTESY OF LUXY
Tonight MoS will be featuring DJ Backside -- so-called because she has a nice ass. She is also known for her ability to keep the club hyped and being the first lady on DJ Rolo1-3's (founder of the legendary Pirate DJ) new crew, Core DJ Family. DJ Backside also runs the radio show The Hot Spot on 106 KMEL in the US. Guest starring tonight will be US DMC Champion DJ Imperial.
Saturday night at Luxy will be Hybrid, a night of progressive beats and house by DJ Reason and DJ Kaoru. DJ Reason has released such vinyl works as The Toolz Press and DJ Kaoru won the first IRON DJ series.
This Saturday will also feature the return of G-Club to MoS. G-Club is made up of Gerald Elms, Dan Tait, and Shovell. Gerald Elms is the producer/DJ of the group, and known for being involved with Roger Sanchez and DJ Disciple, plus helping remix the likes of Mary J. Blige and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Dan Tait is the technically skilled DJ in G-Club and Shovell, a percussionist, has worked with the likes of M-People, Chemical Brothers, and Primal Scream. Unfortunately he's an Arsenal fan.
For all you people out there who were disappointed by the typhoon ruining Aquaboogie 3 last week, there's supposed to be a party at Daxi Beach this weekend. But don't bank on it because it looks like another case of rain stopping play.
In the next few months tough decisions will need to be made by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and their pan-blue allies in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). It will reveal just how real their alliance is with actual power at stake. Party founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) faced these tough questions, which we explored in part one of this series, “Ko Wen-je, the KMT’s prickly ally,” (Aug. 16, page 12). Ko was open to cooperation, but on his terms. He openly fretted about being “swallowed up” by the KMT, and was keenly aware of the experience of the People’s First Party
Aug. 25 to Aug. 31 Although Mr. Lin (林) had been married to his Japanese wife for a decade, their union was never legally recognized — and even their daughter was officially deemed illegitimate. During the first half of Japanese rule in Taiwan, only marriages between Japanese men and Taiwanese women were valid, unless the Taiwanese husband formally joined a Japanese household. In 1920, Lin took his frustrations directly to the Ministry of Home Affairs: “Since Japan took possession of Taiwan, we have obeyed the government’s directives and committed ourselves to breaking old Qing-era customs. Yet ... our marriages remain unrecognized,
Not long into Mistress Dispeller, a quietly jaw-dropping new documentary from director Elizabeth Lo, the film’s eponymous character lays out her thesis for ridding marriages of troublesome extra lovers. “When someone becomes a mistress,” she says, “it’s because they feel they don’t deserve complete love. She’s the one who needs our help the most.” Wang Zhenxi, a mistress dispeller based in north-central China’s Henan province, is one of a growing number of self-styled professionals who earn a living by intervening in people’s marriages — to “dispel” them of intruders. “I was looking for a love story set in China,” says Lo,
During the Metal Ages, prior to the arrival of the Dutch and Chinese, a great shift took place in indigenous material culture. Glass and agate beads, introduced after 400BC, completely replaced Taiwanese nephrite (jade) as the ornamental materials of choice, anthropologist Liu Jiun-Yu (劉俊昱) of the University of Washington wrote in a 2023 article. He added of the island’s modern indigenous peoples: “They are the descendants of prehistoric Formosans but have no nephrite-using cultures.” Moderns squint at that dynamic era of trade and cultural change through the mutually supporting lenses of later settler-colonialism and imperial power, which treated the indigenous as