(oh the fan girl in me is squealing right now =D)
In class when we talked about how hip hop's original movement has this force of transcending time. In popular Chinese music, adolescence look up to American pop music as the epitome of good music; thus, artists became the Asian Britney or the Asian Mariah. Hip Hop and R&B carried over but Asian artists simply imitated the style and choice of beats rather than creating their own. If you google Chinese artists, one out of five you'll find Jay Chou as your top choice. He is admittedly the face of C-pop, but a lot of his songs are inspired by hip hop. His hip hop, although sung in a different language, would seem rather familiar to the American audience because there's similar beats and he raps about violence and betrayal. His lyrics are not as aggressive as its American counterpart; nevertheless, it is nothing new.
Out of disappointment, I was thrilled to bump into a fellow rivalry of the king of C-pop. Wang Leehom, an American Born Chinese/Taiwanese, got his PhD in Berklee School of Music in music composition. His early works display his obvious Western music training, but it was his 2007 "Heroes of the Earth" album was China and Taiwan able to finally experience the powerful transcendence and true meaning of hip hop. Wang found that younger generations of Asians find themselves looking overseas to create their standards of their ideal and tend to neglect the long rich history of their own country. Peking Opera, having its roots in the ancient empires of China, is essentially a lost art. Its target audience reaches only those born before 1940s. This art form actually is rich in music composition, dance, performance and even its own version of kung-fu. For such reasons, Wang went to seek out PeKing Opera masters to learn about the specific music composition of this type of music. In addition, PeKing Opera is unique in that its music is a narrative story, so instead of singing about the love, PeKing Opera's music shows it.
Precisely because hip hop's formula is lax and is accepts fusion and creativity, was Wang able to create such music. He eventually named is "Chinked-Out" music. This name is chosen in response to Snoop Dog's deogatoray usage of "chink" Through Chinked-Out, Wang reintroduces the younger Chinese generations to long tradition of their own; one that's neither imitated nor borrowed. Following the motif of using the resources of land, Wang's precursor to "Heroes of the Earth" consisted of songs to which was derived from tribal music found in Taiwan, Tibet and Mongolia. Although many considered these songs more R&B, it nevertheless created sound not like any other but just Asian.
Check out some songs: Heroes of the Earth
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