Raffi - my official artist profile -alivenotdead.com

Asian Hip Hop Festival - The Performances

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post this up last night, I was working late and then had to get my gamble on at Happy Valley (no, not really). すみません！忙し過ぎから、昨日このブログアップできなかった！これはアシアヒプ・ホプフェスタのほかの芸能人。ビデオと写真一杯から長い！

Anyway, You've seen 24Herbs' video and pics from the show, now here's /the rest/ of the Asian Hip Hop Festival pics and video I took... (not so much, but at least a teaser!)

I didn't get to see all the groups and DJs, but here's at least a little bit from most of the artists performing:

Maximum Crew + One Sun

From Korea -

Don't ask me exactly who was Maximum Crew and who exactly was One Sun, but these guys were unique in that they were rappers + break dancers all wrapped into one. I'm not really down with a lot of Korean hip-hop ( other than the classic DJ DOC!), but these guys reminded me a lot of a Korean version of Teriyaki Boyz (except w/o Verbal!)

Check out my video:

Video: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ2bCE2jLXg

MC Hotdog from Taiwan

Of course MC Hotdog from Taiwan is the artist we were all most familiar with (being the only other 'Chinese' act performing besides 24Herbs). Actually we saw him perform at A-Yue's concert in HK in January (same night as Patrick's Birthday actually).

Here's him performing 'Wo Ai Tai Mei' (我愛台妹):

Video: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=1lfRehsvqKQ

Etchy's Editorial: Actually I feel MC Hotdog performing 'Wo Ai Tai Mei' is an example of a fundamental issue I have with these hip-hop+singing kind of collaborations. I find I actually always like the singing more than the rapping... I think many will agree - if I ask you to recite any lyrics from Kanye West's 'Touch the Sky' or the 'Diamonds are Forever' song (or m-Flo's 'The Love Bug', or even Nas's 'IF I ruled the World' or Jay-Z's 'Hard Knock Life') - 99% of you will be reciting the chorus (singing part), not much of the rapping...

So when a rapper does a solo show without the original singer... I feel like its getting only half the sandwich! :-P

Beatmathics

Interesting band from the Philipines -

When these guys came out at first they were running around a lot and a bit /too/ high energy for my tastes, but as their set progressed I felt that they focused more and closed their show with some pretty good performing. (sorry, no video!)

Zeebra

Being a fan of Japanese music, I was interested in seeing 'Zeebra' performing. I was only familiar with one or two of his collaborations songs (like this one with Namie Amuro or this one w/ Namie Amuro and Ai) so I studied ahead and watched some of their videos on youtube before flying to Bangkok.... I liked his song ' Touch the Sky' (not to be confused w/ the Kanye West song of the same name). As you can see they performed it briefly:

Video: http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=EmVajYxQkSE unfortunately only as part of a short medley at the start of the set! I didn't enjoy the other stuff as much, since I'm not a hardcore hip-hop guy after all. ;-)

FYI: This guy's name is Five Six Five. You are strongly advised not to go to any hip-hop clubs in Shibuya without his direct protection!