Last night at one of my DVD shopping spots in Chinatown they were playing some surprisingly funky cantonese pop.. not really funky by American standards but you could tell they were trying their best to work it, and had landed in a mysterious realm halfway between Timbaland and Air Supply.
I appreciated the effort, and was nodding my head approvingly the singer started making a little speech in english.. I didn't catch everything he said, but I was damn sure bewildered when he ended his rap with a triumphant "..and you better recognize! Niggaaaaas!!"
Then they launched into the chorus: "This is the outroooo... For all you chickens and hoes..... This is the outroooo.. for all you chickens and hoooes.."
I inquired at the counter and found out this was a young man named Edison Chen, who I'm familiar with from two of Hong Kong's biggest recent movies, "The Twins Effect" and "Infernal Affairs." Like most HK stars he's famous both as an actor and a pop singer, and this track was from his latest release entitled "Please Steal This Album."
I hope his album title will be a lesson to all you American rappers: just because you're a bad boy and a rebel doesn't mean you have to be impolite about it!
EDIT: Further research seems to indicate the rap was not done by Edison himself, but by a guest rapper named MC Yan, from a now defunct HK rap group named LMF, short for Lazy Mothaf**kaz.
Do any of you know much about Edison Chen and LMF, or the general hip-hop scene in Hong Kong? Is it common for artists there to slang the "N" rock?
