by Jennifer Chen
“Cuz I’m Slim Shady, yes I’m the real Shady, All you other Slim Shadies are just imitating, So won’t the real Slim Shady please stand up? Please stand up, please stand up?” – Eminem: “The Real Slim Shady” Rhythmic beats, catchy, controversial (and often questionable) lyrics, and meticulously packaged artists are what make hip-hop, the music that’s resounding in the ears of Taiwan teens. Add a trendy skateboard or pop-dance outfit, a few phrases such as “got da flava” or “cool man” and you’ve got the typical, supposedly super-cool, but sadly unoriginal hip-hopper. The word “hip-hop” comes from the United States, and literally means a style of music that’s “hip” – trendy – and “hop” – danceable. It integrates R&B, rap, rock, and garage music to create a genre that not only is accepted by lovers of its predecessors, but has initiated a subculture – hip-hop culture. It is also, like jazz, symbolic of African-American consciousness, which is shown in graffiti (spray-paint art, mostly done on walls), lyrical rap, and distinct rhythms. Hip-hop has its “classic” artists too, such as LL Cool J, Rakim, Dr. Dre, Nas, and Das Efx, who through talent and packaging have gained a place in the hip-hop Hall of Fame, although the better-known artists (at least here in Taiwan) are mostly new: Mest, Boomfunk Mc’s, Sisqo, Eminem, and Craig David. It was not until recent years that hip-hop surfaced as a major teenage culture-group here in Taiwan. With the assistance of MTV and ICRT, plus an army of Grammy Award-winning artists like TLC, Lauryn Hill and Will Smith, hip-hop music began to flourish on the island. Skateboard and street-dance competitions, promoting the sporty, outdoorsy side of the hip-hop culture, were held in all the major cities; and teenagers in general began to dress and act like hip-hoppers – with baggy clothes, piercings, and a swaggering walk while carrying a skateboard or roller-blades as “accessories.” This phenomenon was foreseeable, since Taiwan has long been a place where different cultures mix to create a “Jap-merican” style, and the way hip-hop has gained momentum much like the time when NBA broadcasts took the attention of Taiwanese teenagers away from baseball. So is the infatuation of hip-hop really “cultural integration,” or is it purely imitation? Looked at closely, the problem poses a great threat to our values of self-awareness: hip-hop first became popular in the U.S. because of its historical background and its roots in jazz, blues, soul, and R&B, and its mostly black artists did not write simply to be “cool”; they wanted to express their feelings about living in a white-dominated society. On the other hand, when local Taiwan artists attempt to create hip-hop music, they focus only on the rap and the rhythm, but not the spirit. The result is just a clone of the original, not something that could be called “authentic.” What’s worse is that most Taiwanese hip-hop groupies are only aware of the “look” they should have, hence the uniform-like outfits that appear on campus and on the streets. It’s easy to understand that teenagers turn to hip-hop as a means of self-expression, but how is pure imitation a way of expressing yourself? Similarly, the steadily growing skateboarding, street-dancing population must also face the fact that they cannot really call themselves original artists, but just dancers in a particular style. Hip-hop culture is only in a state of infancy on the island, and instead of simply waiting for another fad to hit us, what we really need is a resolve to localize and personalize this “alien” culture so that it becomes truly reflective of our own consciousness, not just another import. a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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