Update

Its been a while since my last entry... a common start to many blogs online I would imagine. Although its not been for lack of material to populate these pages that have seen this page collect dust. Far from it in fact, as it has been an eventful past couple of months. Peaks and troughs all over the 'gaff'. Theres been good times and bad, but luckily for me, that is what makes life interesting. I can tell this blog is going to be a long one...

Most recently I've had the pleasure of spending every weekend rehearsing with DJ Phat at his new home studio in south east london, at the same time picking up the local vernacular, being introduced to 'turbo' kebabs and shandys whilst getting paid doing the thing we love best. Making music. This preceded a week in the studio with the guys from Dragon Tongue Squad and their entourage coming up with some 'dope tunage', introducing them to the British Curry, teaching them to 'chat shit' and generally causing havok.

The gig at the Royal opera house was a real memorable experience. Whilst being used to gigging in flea-bitten, dingy, badly lit basements venues for £2 entry, the Linbury Studio Theatre was a world apart. The stage and venue was truly manificent, even if it was only the smallest theatre (still in the basement mind) at the ROH. The staff and crew were friendly and very professional, although I must say, they were a little under equipped for such a gig... but through no fault of their own as they're probably not used to a marauding group of rappers, DJs with laptops, serato system, kaoss pads and a guitarist with a Marshall Stack...

To be honest, our set on the first night was a bit disappointing. We didn't really play as well as we could and we had a lot of problems with the sound. But fortunately we had the second night to redeem ourselves which I feel we did to the most extent, bar a few mistakes from myself... but hey... thats all been edited out of the video....

DTS themselves were a group of true gentlemen, professional musicians, talented and most of all true and passionate about their music. 'We rap about daily life, daily struggle...' Kirby eloquently puts its. 'No guns, its all organic..emotions' says J fever.

Now.. THE PRESS. Its a love hate thing isn't it? At the end of the day they served their purpose and produced plentiful amounts of publicity for us; not always through the veins we would have liked, but we're grateful nonetheless. Thats the nature of the beast I suppose. The novelty value of DTS proved to be the biggest topic of discussion, second only to the text-book journalism of asking about the controversialism of it all being from a communist state. Yawn. But hey, they're just trying to do their jobs I suppose... but have people really nothing new to say? 'Hey get a load of this... a bunch of funny chinese fellas rapping in chinese... don't they get shot or stoned for saying stuff like that from where their from?... ' was the rather juvenile and uninformed impression I got from the response of some of the journalists covering and reviewing the event. One review from Times Online which trashed DTS was filled with inaccuracies, false assumptions and seemed to be written by some ill-informed rookie journo who just got 2pac greatest hits double disc set for xmas from his aunt and thinks all rap is about hoes, guns and getting the benjamins... I sound bitter and middle class. Shit. But it was disappointing to see such a review from such a respected publication from someone who was so obviously ill-informed about the subject. Some journalists on the other hand were very supportive and focused on other topics such as the music and cultural identities etc...

DTS admitted themselves they are not up to par with the west, that the scene is still in its embryonic stage and they have a lot to learn. They were all very humble about it and thats what impressed me the most about them. Their knowledge about hip hop was second to none and would put most people who think they know about hip hop to shame. There have been far worse rap/hip hop rip offs from other countries in the past... Theres a common pre-conception that all people from China are somehow detached from the world, un-educated, un-worldly, work in factories for pennies making cheap electronics and do not understand the true nature of the world outside China. I myself admit that I have thought that at times... I think people need to wake up and realise that is not the case anymore. Beware of the dudes from China is all I can say... you think the polish are taking all the jobs?... 'wait til you get a load of us..' (is probably what they're saying)

Ok, rant over.

Chinatown arts Space who organised the event have done a great thing in putting the subject in the public eye and deserved praise for raising its profile. Many thanks, congratulations and kudos to David Tse, May Yung and Jih Wen... We've got a few possible gigs lined up as a direct result of this event, so watch this space for further news!

Its 4am. There will have to be a sequel folks... stay tuned for the next instalment of MTVs 'The Real World - thru the eyes of Suki'....

Posted at 04:00 in Blog | Comments (0)