In April last year, we were approached by the creative agency Wieden and Kennedy who had heard that we were bringing one of the world’s best beatboxers to Shanghai. Wieden had been putting together a documentary about Yanbian, a small town on the North Korean-Chinese border. For whatever reason, this small town has become the home of Chinese beatboxing. Together, we schemed to bring Yanbian beatboxing group Y-BBox down to Beijing and Shanghai to play on the same stage as Killa Kela.
The shows were amazing. At the time I wrote that it was probably “the most significant cultural event in China’s short hip hop history.” Seeing them on stage in Beijing with heads bowed, shyly boxing away and comparing it to their performance the next night in Shanghai having seen Kela perform was incredible. Suddenly, a swagger, eye contact and some of Kela’s hand moves were incorporated into the show.
Almost exactly 12 months to the day later, here they are opening the US$1,000/ticket, 2-day conference, with a slick video intro and yet more eye contact and more of Kela’s hand movements. I don’t know what happened to them since the show with Kela, but it seems to me that this is the way the music market (especially our “new” music market) now works. Rather than talent scouts, A&R guys and record labels bringing this act through, it is an advertising agency using it’s clout and pull to get them first on the stage of the Bacardi Sino Sessions (courtesy of Split Works) and then onto the stage of Music Matters Asia, one of the region’s leading music conferences…
Changing times indeed…
–Archie Hamilton, Split Works’ Managing Director
Blogging live from the Music Matters Asia conference in Hong Kong