Ni shuo shemma?

Corbett | May 3, 2006 7:56 PM

It's Golden Week here in Beijing, and most people leave, so the city is nice and empty for a few days. We finished up meetings early, met up with an old friend Leslie, who took a year from the Journal to write her book. She's writing about migrant women workers in China, and our pal Ben plays a nice part in it, as her safe escort through the seedy underbelly of Dongguan.

Afterwards, we headed over to the MIDI music festival in Hai Dian park which is a big outdoor festival with Beijing's punk, metal, and indie kids all displaying their colors and haircuts. People were selling stuff on blankets, camped out in tents, selling skewers, and playing frisbee as hard rock and electronica filled the air on the five stages. It was a dustier version of a Grateful Dead concert, and we made our way over to the Lee jeans tent, which was organized by our event promoter friend, Christine. Christine had prepared free drinks the day before, and our agreement was that I'd bring my sax today to show one of the DJs (who is a concert clarinetist as well - with a large tattoo of Benny Goodman on his arm) how to jam over reggae tracks, and she would provide the party for my friends. He cued up some hiphop/reggae tracks, and I began playing, trading fours with him. I explained some of what I was doing with the phrasing, and how to determine the key as well as the cool notes to emphasize. We traded licks for a while, and he started getting the jist of it. Meanwhile a sizabable crowd organized, which was cool too.

Afterwards Tiff, Brett, Tony, and I were all sipping Moet in a small backstage room, hanging out with the local DJs when we sort of spontaneously got into a Chinese freestyle contest with them that lasted like an hour. This was hilarious. Later we discover that we had been head to head freestyling with the China DMC champ, DJ Wordy, and three time Iron Mic freestyle champ, MC Webber.

I'll be hanging out with these guys more, as they have some great rhymes and know how to have a good time.

Category: Mr. Asia

Comments (2)

Comments

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heather

May 6, 2006 1:14 AM

lol.......hey does anyone on here have yahoo or aol...if so add me to them...yahoo screen names are babe_hot_skate...and Puppylover14701...my aol screen name is Puppy14701

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Tony Brown

September 25, 2009 12:13 AM

I don't know If I said it already but ...Hey good stuff...keep up the good work! :) I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I'm glad I found your blog. Thanks,)

A definite great read..Tony Brown

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