Cut Chemist Coming to Beijing March 2nd

Former Jurassic 5 DJ Cut Chemist is coming to Beijing courtesy of No Go Die for a show on March 2nd at Yugong Yishan (which seems to have a chokehold on the city’s live hip hop scene at the moment). TheBeijinger will have an interview up in the last week of February – stay tuned.

Close to the Edge: Grandmaster Flash to Play Beijing in April

The parade of old school hip hop royalty continues in Beijing – Grandmaster Flash is set to play Yugong Yishan on Saturday, April 28th.

X-Factor: Rob Swift Plays Yugong Yishan on March 15th

 

Turntable legend Rob Swift is set to perform in Beijing on Thursday, March 15th at Yugong Yishan. According to the press release:

“Venturing off into my solo career helped me realize I was just beginning to scratch the surface of my true potential.” Swift says,

“the worst thing one can do to an artist is limit them and I started to feel stifled creatively. My departure from the X-ecutioners was a necessary one cause it freed me from all constraints.” Swift’s post-9/11 beat collage War Games (2005), his third solo album, featured guest shots from The Large Professor and Bob James. “Of all my albums, War Games is the one I’m most proud of because I figured out a way to use my skill on the turntables to make a political statement. I went beyond showing off how fancy my cuts were and actually said something that was socially relevant through scratches.”

thebeijinger: Wu Force Hits on Sunday, Featuring Abigail Washburn, Wu Fei and Kai Welch

Michelle Dai interviews guzheng virtuoso Wu Fei as she prepares to perform with Abigail Washburn and Kai Welch in Beijing this Sunday night at Yugong Yishan:

For years, banjo girl Abigail Washburn, singer/songwriter Kai Welch and Chinese singer/guzheng master Wu Fei thought about collaborating on something together. When Wu Fei was in the US, the three started combining American country tunes, traditional Chinese influences and their wild ideas. They called themselves Wu-Force, and presented their work in Beijing in the summer of last year. Washburn is currently on her“Silk Road” tour, but she’ll be making a stop in Beijing this weekend, where we’ll get a chance to witness the newest creations from Wu-Force. We recently asked Wu Fei to give us a hint of what to expect.

TheBeijinger: Birdy Nam Nam at Yugong Yishan Tomorrow Night

Here’s a post I penned for thebeijinger previewing French turntablist crew Birdy Nam Nam’s show in Beijing tomorrow night – good hip hop shows are few and far between in our fair city:

Birdy Namnam are no mere knob twiddlers – the four-man French DJ “band” take an instrumentalist’s approach to turntables and collaborate to create beat-laden compositions out of sampled sounds and instrumental parts pressed on vinyl.