A Playlist for Wuhan
Wuhan has been at the center of the world’s news lately, as the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. But as I already said in a article on RadiiChina, Wuhan is first and foremost the birthplace of Chinese punk, and has...
Catégorie : Music
Chinese Alternative Music in the 2010s: A Lost Decade?
In a few days, the 2010s will be over, and everyone is making his own list, discussing the best and worst of the 2010s (like the best and worst movies of the decade – a piece of advise: if the...
Sinophone Musical Worlds (1): Circulations of Sounds, Affects and Identities
Very happy to announce the publication of the first issue of “Sinophone Musical Worlds” in China Perspectives! This special feature of China Perspectives offers an original insight on music as part of the Sinophone studies. By crisscrossing different disciplines,...
“如此生活三十年直到大廈崩塌”… Music and the 30th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Student Movement
2019 marks the 30 years anniversary of the Tiananmen democratic movement, and its bloody crackdown. These past 30 years had a huge impact on Chinese popular music, from the official crackdown on Beijing rock’n’roll community after 1989 to the recent...
What’s Happening with Li Zhi (and Cui Jian)? An Update on Online Music Censorship and Chinese Rock
Music censorship in China is not new, it has made the headline in the recent past during the infamous “hip-hop ban” of January 2018. During the so-called “hip-hop ban”, we could literally see the panic of the official censors when...
The First Chinese Hip-Hop Crew? Hi Bomb (黑棒), “嘻哈第一棒”, 2004
I was going through a pile of Mandopop albums in a tiny Chinese music/video store located in a basement of Los Angeles’ Chinatown when I stumbled upon a dusty album published in 2004 displaying on the cover two guys dressed...
“Here’s a Punk City, Wuhan!”, Maximum RocknRoll, December 2016
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: Sinophone Musical Worlds and their Publics
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...
[English] Remembering June 4th in Songs
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...
Chanter le souvenir du 4 juin
L’histoire du mouvement démocratique chinois de 1989 est aussi une histoire musicale. Des chanteurs, la plupart rockeurs, se sont mobilisés en faveur des étudiants, qui en retour s’emparaient de chansons rocks dans les manifestations. C’est désormais un lieu commun de...
“你有freestyle吗?” The Roots of Censorship in Chinese Hip-hop / Aux racines de la censure du hip-hop chinois
“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...
