地球是一顆很孤單的星球

JUNK Magazine 05, 2007

Report by Jolyn

The Beastie Boys. Jay-Z. Kanye West. DMX. And closer to home, we’ve got Too Phat. Little would you expect that there’s
an outfit that’s been shaking the underground hip-hop scene in Taiwan. Kou Chou Ching has been making waves in their home
country by giving hip-hop music a twist by infusing classical Taiwanese music into their work since 2003.

“We had the idea of using traditional Taiwanese music for a long time. It started as an experiment to make our music
different from Western hip-hop, but we found out that the music has similarities in some parts and decided to fuse both elements
of western hip-hop and classic music together. In that sense, Western hip-hop uses ’sampling’ from funk and jazz from the past,
and this is what we are doing-we sample music from the 1930s and 1940s and hope that they become hits again,” rapper Fan
Chiang says.

In a country where hip-hop isn’t a big genre and still in its infant stages, Kou Chou Ching is adamant about using their music
to get youths interested in traditional Taiwanese music again. “We learn hip-hop from the west but we still want to put more Taiwanese
elements into our music. And we hope that people will understand that the fusion of western music and traditional music isn’t conflicting,
but something sparkling” Fan Chiang adds.

While Kou Chou Ching are only relatively known in Taiwan, the internet has been helping the band spread its music to listeners
that they otherwise might not have reached to through websites like myspace. From hearing from foreign online media who want to
write about the band and podcast listeners who feature Kou Chou Ching’s tunes, these guys agree that the internet is an excellent
tool for them to learn about the music industry and get to know lots of musicians. And yes, in Kou Chou Ching’s case, music does
transcend all cultures barriers. “We had a Middle Eastern listener who had used his podcast to introduce our music and when I heard
him saying our name and the title of our songs in his language, it was interesting!”

How does one relate to a band who raps in Mandarin, Taiwanese and Hakka? Sure, the guys rap about social issues that’s currently
happening in their home country in their mother tongue, but the topics aren’t far from what people everywhere understand-surely, everyone
has been subject to some sort of discrimination at one point in their lives. They guys are determined to do more with their music than just
entertain. “We don’t want our music to be just about dancing, but we want to educate people with our music. There are social problems
in Taiwan which we shouldn’t escape from. Let’s face them and try to educate the people.”

And that’s exactly what you get if you understand Kou Chou Ching’s lyrics. The song featured in the Junk CD takes on the issue of
graffiti and public arts in Taiwan. Fan Chiang says, “graffiti is illegal in most countries so these days more and more graffiti artists are
forced to put their designs on t-shirts so that their art is worth something. On the other hand, our government seems to be tearing down
old buildings to make way for expensive ‘cultural installations’ on the streets, but the meaning of these so-called art pieces are lost on
most people. So we want people to think of what is the right value for art, and want the government to pay more attention to building
laws for graffiti and not let graffiti just be pop products on shirts.”

The future seems be bright for this rap outfit who knows what they want out of their music. Their 2005 debut album Fu-Ke made waves
in the Taiwanese hip-hop scene, but Kou Chou Ching aren’t contented yet. “I’ll let you in on a secret.” Fan Chiang says. “We have plans to
release a double CD album in the future, but I can’t tell you more. There will be over 30 tracks in the album.” So all you hip-hop fans, here’s
something to look forward to sometime in the near future: an album that will redefine hip-hop music in the region.