By Brian Hu
Columnist Brian Hu takes a break from the world of cinema for his final installment of the Taipei Beat to talk Coolio. Yes, that Coolio.
Getting up to get down
Back in the states now after two eventful months in Taipei and I'm already reminiscing about scouring night markets for post-dinner snacks, catching screenings of modestly priced Chinese film classics, and finding sanctuary from typhoons in smoky underground pool halls. Oh yeah, and seeing Coolio live at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. You read that right.
For those who don't know, Coolio is the dreadlocked rapper behind such unforgettable ol' skool anthems as “Fantastic Voyage,” “Gangsta's Paradise,” and “1-2-3 (Sumpin' New),” while Chiang Kai-shek is the conservative KMT general who lost a bloody civil war to Mao Zedong and the Communists before fleeing to Taiwan in the late '40s, setting himself as the Republic of China's reigning president/dictator until his death in 1975. They share little in common (Chiang is a much more credible gangster), but they did share the stage for a bumpin' two summer nights of party jams and public drunkedness this July.
The occasion was the equally surreal Nokia Totally Board competition, an extreme sports exhibition touring the world, bringing its ten stories of artificial snow to hot and humid Taipei where, according to some reports, the most money was ever spent for a public event in Taipei's history. The snowboarding and skiing competitions were sandwiched between two sets of pop/rock including local faves Leehom Wong, F.I.R., Machi, and Stanley Huang, and culminating with the granddaddy (age: 42) of mainstream rap, Coolio.
A small swarm of foreign twenty-somethings and I must have looked ridiculous to the locals as we swam our way to the front rows chanting Coolio's name and nerdily waving our W's in the air. Once by the stage, I wasn't shocked to find a multi-ethnic crowd of expats, other delirious A.B.C.'s, and a couple of unamused locals who simply wanted to know who Coolio was. As the party got under way and a visibly aged Coolio walked onstage, I saw an old Taiwanese grandma trying to escape the premises. I guess Coolio's too ‘hood for her. Or maybe she needed a Tequila break. Either way, that was probably the highlight of the evening.
Coolio's deliveries were mediocre, but heck, they're from '95. His newer songs (that is, those that came out after I stopped listening) were particularly annoying as the only reason I came was to sing along to those catchy junior high classics. When “Gangsta's Paradise” came on after a corny onstage skit where Coolio dodged “bullets” from an unexplained drive-by, the crowd became audibly more receptive, although when Coolio held out his mic to let the crowd do the chorus, I swear it was just me and the other foreigners in the front rows screaming those immortal lines made famous by LV (or Weird Al, but let's not go there). Coolio's “C U When U Get There” was also a hit with the crowd, but I imagine it was more for the Pachelbel instrumental since, again, nobody but us losers in the front was chanting the chorus. The night ended without “Fantastic Voyage” or “Too Hot,” but alas, we can't have it all. Coolio awkwardly closed his performance by inviting four members of the audience (one black man, one slinky white guy, an Asian babe, and a nerdy Asian guy, in that order) to the stage for a dance that never happened. I'm guessing nobody ran out to buy Coolio's CD after the show (if it's even for sale), but I think I speak for all the foreigners when I say that it was a great night of free old school hits, even if they had to be Coolio's.
I'm going to pause now, in case I'm painting the locals as uncultured, unappreciative brats, because if anything, it was us dorks in the front wavin' our hands to “C U When U Get There” that were the uncultured, unmusical idiots in effect telling local businessmen it's okay to spend this much money to bring has-been American pop stars to Taipei. If the locals were far less receptive to Coolio than local rap group Machi, it's because culturally, Machi is a far more interesting phenomenon than Coolio, who really is only marginally better than the local rap acts. I'm curious about what significance Coolio plays -- if any -- to a public that to my knowledge has no local translation for the term “old school” (the Will Ferrell film was translated as Campus Return), but is obsessive about local identity (the much ballyhooed “taike” phenomenon) in popular culture.
The summer of 2005 saw a number of Western pop acts who haven't topped the Billboard charts since the mid '90s. The annual Formoz concert highlighting rock from around the world invited one-hit wonder Lisa Loeb and pop-DJ Moby. Reports say that Moby was quite a hit with the local crowd, while Lisa Loeb, well, is probably hearing the words “I missed you” much more than “Stay” these days.
It's tempting to explain this phenomenon by saying that Taiwanese audiences idolize anything “Western,” regardless of their hipness or musical quality. But while I don't doubt that a small dose of this exists, I don't feel that Taiwanese audiences are so gullible that they will swallow up any non-Asian act promoters throw at them, as my Coolio experience shows. If anything, Western acts like Moby and Coolio make appearances to give credibility to these music festivals, not to give Taiwan a sample of “real music.” A programmer for Taiwan's annual Ho-Hai-Yan International Music Festival admitted that he didn't even know who Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was when he booked them to headline a free beach concert. What he wanted was an incentive to get people there to hear local acts, and to convince the sponsoring Taiwanese government (which is always looking for recognition from anything Western) that Ho-Hai-Yan is indeed a world-class event. Local audiences will accept or reject such foreign acts when they see them. If they accept them, it doesn't mean locals unconditionally love anything foreign; if they reject them, it doesn't brand locals as “uncultured,” but rather, discriminating listeners.
A prime example of this went down when two of the biggest late '80s, early '90s rap acts, Ice-T and Public Enemy (on separate occasions) headlined at Taipei's Ministry of Sound, a British-owned club famous for bringing in big electronic and hip-hop guests from around the world. I wasn't there for either, but according to a Taipei Times report(http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2005/07/18/2003264078), clubgoers weren't too responsive to Ice-T's serious, autobiographical lyrics, but were more enchanted by “hype tactics” like freestyling and pyrotechnics. Ice-T ended his set early and reportedly only one old school fan screamed for an encore.
So should we conclude that hip-hop fans are too Nelly-ed out to know what's quality rap? That would be denying the local audience credit as consumers and fans. First there are obviously language issues; we're not just dealing with English lyrics, but hip-hop lyrics. And more importantly, Ice-T's lyrics and persona come from a different era and a different place; if his politics don't play in Taipei, we shouldn't accuse an audience that didn't really get into hip-hop in a big way until well after Ice-T (age: 47) was no longer controversial.
The reception to Public Enemy is even more nuanced. According to another Taipei Times article (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2005/08/19/2003268375), the two-and-a-half hour set (as opposed to 50 minutes for Ice-T) played to an excited crowd who reveled in the 20-year-old rap classics. But when Professor Griff brought his politics to the stage and encouraged the Taiwanese to back mainland China in its resistance against Bush and the United States, the crowd was decidedly unconvinced. What we have here is a clash of what it means to be liberal in two cultures: in the West, liberal means taking down American hegemony; in Taiwan, it means resisting political, military, and economic encroachment from the mainland. While my characterizations of liberal politics are admittedly severely simplified, they do suggest that the reception of Western popular music in Taiwan will necessarily involve a subtle negotiation of political, cultural, and musical desires by local consumers. To say that the Taiwanese “just don't get it” would be giving guys like Coolio way too much credit.
Published: Thursday, September 8, 2005
