On December 2016, the legendary fanzine Maximum RocknRoll published a special issue on Chinese punk and underground music. I wrote an article entitled “Here’s a Punk City, Wuhan!” for the occasion, on – yes that’s original – Wuhan punk. So...
Call for contributions China Perspectives / Perspectives chinoises Sinophone Musical Worlds and their Publics Guest editor: Dr Nathanel Amar, postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong Download PDF File here: Call for abstracts CP China musical...
The history of the Chinese 1989 democratic movement is also a musical story. Singers, mostly rockers, were mobilized in favor of the students, who often sing their songs during the protests. It’s now a cliché to remind that Cui Jian’s...
If you still remember what we said before (yes, it’s been a while), you know that in the mid-1990s something new is going on in China. Between a new “cultural fever” (文化热), the apparition of dakou (打口) CDs and tapes,...
“你有freestyle吗?” (Do you freestyle?) The Roots of Censorship in Chinese Hip-hop Chinese hip-hop has recently received extensive coverage in the international media. Dozens of articles, published everywhere from the BBC to l’Express toTime, have attempted to explain the astonishing attempts by the...
If UnderBaby paved the way for punk music in China by offering the possibility for bands to rehearse in their Baihua’r hutong room, it’s the punk collective “Wuliao Jundui” (无聊军队 – namely the “Boredom Contingent”) that truly laid the foundations...
Is Underground Baby (also known as UnderBaby or 地下婴儿 – Dixia Ying’er) the first Chinese punk band? The myth states that “All the same” (“都一样” – “Dou yiyang”) is the first Beijing punk song. We will eventually come back to the question...
