“So lucky, so lucky, the god-damned boss made enough money and ran off,” the crowd, packed to the walls and pumping their fists in the air, chanted along on the night of Jan. 22 at Pipe Live Music.
So goes the chorus to Lucky as Shit (福氣個屁), written in 1996 by Black Hand Nakasi (黑手那卡西) in response to Chow Yun-fat’s (周潤發) herbal liquor commercial where he tells construction workers that they are the “nameless heroes behind Taiwan’s economic miracle,” and rallies them with the now-famous catchphrase, hokila (福氣啦, so lucky).
The song ends, and Black Hand Nakasi’s logo appears on the backdrop screen — a hand holding a microphone while flipping the bird with the finger wrapped in bandages. The crowd is silent.
Photo courtesy of Black Hand Nakasi
“Don’t be so gloomy, this is a joyous funeral,” a band member says.
That night, about six months short of their 20th anniversary, three members of the left-wing labor rights protest band, including founding members Chen Po-wei (陳柏偉) and Yang You-ren (楊友仁), announced that they had “disintegrated” a while back, and this would be their last time playing on stage as Black Hand Nakasi.
Well, at least for the three of them. The story behind the band’s split is a complicated affair, and the remaining members may or may not continue to use Black Hand’s name, which has become a point of contention between the two factions.
Chen says that the discord basically stems from a dispute as to whether the band should become involved in politics or remain in a supporting role at events and protests.
The third member that night, Chang Ti-hao (張迪皓), says they held the concert on Jan. 22, one day before World Freedom Day, to symbolize that they wanted to end the conflict, retire the band name and set everyone free to pursue their own interests after the show.
“We don’t have any intention to form a new band,” Chang says, as he plans to continue his work with local labor unions. Chen is busy working towards his doctorate degree, but he says he will keep writing songs and stay involved in activism. Yang, an associate sociology professor at Tunghai University, hopes to organize laborers’ music groups in China.
“I think the next level is to go international and promote this kind of protest music in other countries,” Yang says.
20 YEARS
Bad blood aside, the band has played a significant role in Taiwan’s early labor rights movement and has continued to support and work with a variety of causes over the years.
Collaboration with workers and other underprivileged groups has always been a principle of their work, from their first album, which featured backing vocals from 30 laid-off factory workers, to working with Losheng (Happy Life) Sanitorium residents facing eviction to record a Losheng Nakasi (樂聲那卡西) album.
“In the beginning it was Yang and I,” Chen says. “The other band members weren’t really like band members. They were workers and union organizers who were on stage singing with us. We’re a strange band, our selection of members has less to do with musical ability than their involvement in social activism.”
The first half of the concert a few weeks back chronicled the band’s activities throughout the years, opening with Lucky as Shit, moving on to criticize the WTO and evoking the raw despair of the oppressed in Flames of Rage (憤怒的火焰).
Another song describes how an old man committed suicide a few days before his home in Kangle Village (康樂) was about to be demolished, and another one about the plight of licensed sex workers.
Near the end, the group plays four previously unreleased songs, which they each wrote individually about more personal and as well as recent issues such as the string of suicides at a Foxconn Technology Group factory in China.
Chen says these individual songs represent a break from the limitations of playing under the Black Hand Nakasi name.
“Before, if you wanted to create something, there were a lot of individual and collective limitations,” he says. “We felt like we had to follow the standards of Black Hand’s previous work. Now, I feel like my creativity has been liberated. Maybe one day we’ll get together and work on certain projects. I like this kind of flexibility.”
SONGS REMAIN THE SAME
Today, Black Hand’s music remains significant, especially in an age where more and more young people are plunging into political and social activism.
Lee Ai-mi (李愛蜜), an audience member in her 20s, says she became acquainted with the band’s music when she took part in the movement a few years ago to prevent the residents of Huaguang Community (華光社區) from being forcefully evicted and their homes demolished.
The activists taught residents Black Hand’s Laborer’s Fight Song (勞動者戰歌) so they could sing it in unison during public protests.
“Their songs give social activists power,” Lee says. “When you’re at a protest and you don’t know what to do, the best thing to do is sing. And we can use the songs to further involve the residents.”
Lee says Black Hand has stayed relevant because the oppression of the weak remains the same today as it did 20 years ago. She noticed how similar the events of the 1997 demolition of Kangle Village was to the razing of Huaguang in 2013, and found that they could use the band’s song about Kangle and apply it almost seamlessly to Huaguang’s plight.
“Their songs will continue to be sung,” she says.
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