"Pangea-Asian" Hip-Hop Artist: Machi
When I watched this video from MTV Asia and found out that Machi is a hip-hop group from Taiwan - the first Asian Hip-Hop group actually! I thought it was interesting how the group constructed a MV narrative with Chinese history - artifacts - fashion and etc. It would be interesting to research on how Taiwanese and Chinese pop/hip-hop artists construct MV narratives when referencing historical elements. How do artist's choice in historical representation provide insight to current politics of Chinese-Taiwan relations? Artists usually remain neutral on the topic of One China versus Taiwan Independence, as they want to be marketable for Pangea-Asia. Just like how folk/rock music of the 60's and hip-hop of the 90's/00's directly reflects socio-cultural dialogues and issues, uber-pop music coming out of Asia can also give us insight into how youth are negotiating issues of nationalism, politics and identity.
Additionally, most of these groups have strong American ties. For Machi, the leader Jeffery Huang, grew up in Los Angeles-CA, one of their choreographers did You Got Served and their producers have worked with Dr. Dre. In a global world where artists and their teams are imbued with various ties of nationalities and cultural backgrounds, how does that effect the politics of their music? We all know for Hip-Hop/Jazz/Blues = that the music provides critical commentary and insight on how the political economy has directly affected the lives of Black artists. It would be interesting to do research in this area with Asian artists - or a cross-comparitive study with American Hip-Hop. Until I get some formal research done -Go Machi!