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Hip Hop China-style

Beijing teenagers, hip hop music and traditional Chinese dialects and sounds. Stephen Armstrong investigates. From 2008.

How Chinese can hip hop be?

As Beijing teenagers embrace hip hop style, Stephen Armstrong talks to performers employing traditional instruments and regional dialects to create their version of this urban American protest music.

In 1998, there was one underground club to meet Chinese hip hop fans who had heard American performers on pirated CDs.

Now hip hop style is fashionable and there are clubs and DJ competitions, but how is the fledgling recording industry trying to create a specifically Chinese version of this brand of music or is hip hop style an example of the Westernisation of China ?

Stephen reports on the visit to Britain of the Dragon Tongue Squad and interviews radio show hosts Doc J and Steady Eddy, DJ Lychee, promoter Li Hong Jie and and artist Cao Fei.

Producer: Robyn Read

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2008.

30 minutes

Last on

Wed 2 Feb 202202:30
BBC Radio 4 Extra

Broadcasts

  • Tue 8 Apr 200813:30
    BBC Radio 4
  • Sat 12 Apr 200815:30
    BBC Radio 4
  • Fri 22 May 201506:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Fri 22 May 201513:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Fri 22 May 201520:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Sat 23 May 201501:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Wed 14 Mar 201806:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Wed 14 Mar 201813:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Wed 14 Mar 201820:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Thu 15 Mar 201801:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Tue 1 Feb 202214:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra
  • Wed 2 Feb 202202:30
    BBC Radio 4 Extra