Renegade Rhymes: Rap Music, Narrative, and Knowledge in Taiwan

By Meredith Schweig

A close look at how Taiwanese musicians are using rap music as a creative way to explore and reconcile Taiwanese identity and history.

Like many states emerging from oppressive political rule, Taiwan saw a cultural explosion in the late 1980s, when nearly four decades of martial law under the Chinese Nationalist Party ended. As members of a multicultural, multilingual society with a complex history of migration and colonization, Taiwanese people entered this moment of political transformation eager to tell their stories and grapple with their identities. In Renegade Rhymes, ethnomusicologist Meredith Schweig shows how rap music has become a powerful tool in the post-authoritarian period for both exploring and producing new knowledge about the ethnic, cultural, and political history of Taiwan.
​
Schweig draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, taking readers to concert venues, music video sets, scenes of protest, and more to show how early MCs from marginalized ethnic groups infused rap with important aspects of their own local languages, music, and narrative traditions. Aiming their critiques at the educational system and a neoliberal economy, new generations of rappers have used the art form to nurture associational bonds and rehearse rituals of democratic citizenship, making a new kind of sense out of their complicated present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9780226820583

Book preview

Cover Page for Renegade Rhymes

Renegade Rhymes

Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology

A series edited by Philip V. Bohlman and Timothy Rommen

Editorial Board

Margaret J. Kartomi

Anthony Seeger

Kay Kaufman Shelemay

Martin H. Stokes

Bonnie C. Wade

Renegade Rhymes

Rap Music, Narrative, and Knowledge in Taiwan

Meredith Schweig

The University of Chicago    Press Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© 2022 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2022

Printed in the United States of America

31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22     1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-82059-0 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-81958-7 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-82058-3 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226820583.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schweig, Meredith, author.

Title: Renegade rhymes : rap music, narrative, and knowledge in Taiwan / Meredith Schweig.

Other titles: Chicago studies in ethnomusicology.

Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2022. | Series: Chicago studies in ethnomusicology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022008944 | ISBN 9780226820590 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226819587 (paperback) | ISBN 9780226820583 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Rap (Music)—Taiwan—History and criticism. | Rap (Music)—Social aspects—Taiwan | Rap (Music)–Political aspects—Taiwan | Popular music—Taiwan—History and criticism.

Classification: LCC ML3531 .S39 2022 | DDC 782.421649/0951249—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022008944

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

In memory of my parents

Contents

Abbreviations

Notes on Romanization and Translation

List of Figures and Musical Examples

Prologue: First, the Rain

Introduction: Tales of Taiwan

Part One: Polyphonic Histories

Chapter One: It Depends on How You Define Rap...

Chapter Two: ... Because Others Might Define It Differently

Part Two: Narratives and Knowledge

Chapter Three: Masculinity Politics and Rap’s Fraternal Order

Chapter Four: Performing Musical Knowledge Work

Chapter Five: We Are So Strong, We Are Writing History

Epilogue: Then, the Sunflowers

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

Abbreviations

DPP: Democratic Progressive Party

HHCRS: Hip-Hop Culture Research Society

KMT: Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party

NTU: National Taiwan University

PRC: People’s Republic of China

PTT: Professional Technology Temple

ROC: Republic of China

Notes on Romanization and Translation

Romanization is not standardized in Taiwan. If one travels the island, one will observe multiple systems in use to render into the Latin alphabet the sounds of Mandarin, Hoklo, Hakka, and Indigenous Austronesian languages. This is the case for a variety of reasons, some of which are historical and some of which are political.

In light of this complexity, Renegade Rhymes adopts a pragmatic approach to romanization. As a general rule, romanization is provided only (1) when having some sense of the sound of language would benefit those unfamiliar with Sinitic characters, or (2) when context favors the use of a romanized term over a translation. In addition to streamlining the reading experience, this approach invites those who are fluent in Mandarin, Hoklo, and/or Hakka to read characters in the language that makes the most sense to them. Where romanization is provided, Mandarin is rendered according to the Hanyu Pinyin system and Hoklo according to the Tâi-lô system, except in cases where the term, title, or name in question is widely known by an alternative spelling (e.g., Chiang Kai-shek rather than Jiang Jieshi, Taipei rather than Taibei).

For authors with Sinitic names whose English-language works are cited in the text, preferred personal name spellings are provided without characters. The names of those whose Sinitic-language works are cited are romanized according to their preference, if known. In some cases, I provide English titles selected by artists that may differ in meaning from the title in the original language. This is intended to assist English-speaking readers who might want to locate the source material in question. For performers who follow the convention of having different English- and Sinitic-language names, both names are provided. In some cases, individuals known in their lifetimes by their Hoklo or Hakka names are instead referred to using Mandarin romanization (e.g., Zhou Tianwang rather than Chiu Thiam-ōng), concordant with the majority of references to these individuals in non-Sinitic-language literature today. Characters are given for Sinitic-language names the first time they appear in the text; thereafter, only romanization is provided.

Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author’s own. Translations of song lyrics do not attempt to preserve the rhythm or rhyme of the original-language texts but are intended to provide a sense of meaning, tone, and emphasis. In most cases, Sinitic-language lyrics are formatted according to the way they appear in album liner notes or on widely read or artist-authored Internet sites. Rap songs are rarely transcribed with punctuation marks—question words indicate questions; small gaps in the text appear in place of commas, colons, and periods; and diction, rather than exclamation points, often communicates emphasis. Punctuation is therefore provided in English translations only where it is necessary or useful for comprehension.

Figures and Musical Examples

Figures

P.1.  View from the back of the lot at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert

P.2.  Brotherhood performs at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert

P.3.  Audience members light candles at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert

1.1.  MC Hotdog performs in Taipei

1.2.  Ill Mo and Shortee of the Tripoets performing in Taipei

1.3.  The Asia Hip-Hop Summit

2.1.  Liām-kua performers at Bangka Park in Taipei

2.2.  Kou Chou Ching promotional material

3.1.  Filming a scene for Dwagie’s Change Taiwan video

3.2.  Shao Ye and R-Flow ciphering

4.1.  Advertisement for Kung Fu Entertainment summer workshop

4.2.  A lesson in the basic tenets of DJing with DJ Vicar

4.3.  Ill Mo introduces guest lecturer MC Hotdog

4.4.  View of the interior of Beans and Beats

5.1.  Chang Jui-chuan performs at Taipei’s Freedom Square

5.2.  Members of Kou Chou Ching in Vancouver, Canada

Musical Examples

2.1.  Excerpt from Kou Chou Ching’s Good Appetite

3.1.  First eight rapped measures of Dwagie’s Forty-Four Fours

3.2.  The oriental riff

3.3.  First five rapped measures of Soft Lipa’s Homesickness

Prologue

First, the Rain

My flight to Taiwan in mid-August 2009 touches down just days after Typhoon Morakot makes landfall, triggering the worst flooding and most severe mudslides in half a century. The north of the island, where I am to live with my in-laws in Taipei, mostly escapes destruction, but the south is hit hard. The remote village of Siaolin emerges in the weeks following the storm as a symbol of its power: there, a massive landslide buries more than four hundred residents alive, the majority of them members of the Taivoan Indigenous community. As late summer fades into fall, Morakot remains a central focus of public discourse amid an endless succession of memorials, charity events, and volunteer drives. Television news channels settle into a macabre rhythm, looping the same grainy video footage of the six-story Jinshuai Hot Springs Hotel collapsing into the churning Zhiben River, and rebroadcasting the same haunting photographs of Siaolin, now reduced to an expanse of mud. The aftershocks reverberate throughout the government as families of victims allege that those living in remote areas were stranded for days before rescue teams made any effort to reach them (Jacobs 2009). Outrage mounts at a disaster response perceived as woefully inadequate, compelling the resignation of the premier and entire cabinet, and threatening even President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) seat (Bo 2009).

The island seems alternately numb with grief and apoplectic with rage. Hoping to channel righteous anger into productive action, prominent southern Taiwanese rapper Dwagie (大支) sets about organizing the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert (921.87 饒舌慈善義演) in his home city of Tainan. The event’s name kindles memories of past trauma: 87, or August 7, refers to the day that Morakot made landfall in Taiwan; 921 alludes to a massive earthquake that struck the island on September 21, 1999, killing 2,500 and leaving 100,000 homeless.¹ The reference serves as a potent reminder to those who attend, not only of previous natural disasters, but also of previous controversy surrounding the government’s response to the crises. Critiques leveled at public officials following Morakot bear striking resemblances to those that followed 921, as victims accuse authorities of lacking the skills and resources necessary to mount successful search-and-rescue missions. In a conversation we have the following year, Dwagie explains to me that his primary goal in organizing the concert was simply to encourage people to remember the storm. Moreover, by linking Morakot to the 921 Earthquake, he hoped to underscore for an easily distracted public that these things must not be forgotten; next time, when it happens again, we can’t forget what came before (interview, September 26, 2010).

I travel to Tainan, fifty-six miles west of Siaolin, to attend the all-day event. I hear the concert before I see it, and follow the booming loudspeakers down an alleyway into an open lot, where a crowd of several hundred people has gathered shoulder to shoulder (see fig. P.1). Even from some distance away, my sternum pounds so hard that it seems like the force of the sound alone could move my blood. On the graffitied walls around us, old political advertisements wilt and peel away in the humidity. Customers exit the convenience store nearby clutching cold drinks, and open-front eateries serve curry rice, dumplings, and bubble tea alongside auto parts retailers and clothing shops. At temporary kiosks, vendors hawk CDs, handicrafts, and vinyl toys in the likeness of Taiwanese folk heroes and earth gods (土地公). It surprises me that no one living or working here complains about the noise, which is substantial. And the show isn’t merely loud—it is a riot of chaotic timbres and textures, distinct from the urban white noise that permeates Taiwan’s cities, arresting and designed to draw rather than disperse attention. The lot resounds with an irregular, sometimes halting mix of speech and song; Mandarin, Hoklo, Hakka, and English languages; floor-thumping and fist-bumping low-end beats; and samples from stylistically varied recordings, from Hakka folk songs to Marvin Gaye to Blackstreet to Yao Su Rong (姚蘇蓉).

Fig. P.1. View from the back of the lot at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert, September 27, 2009. The image projected on the screen is of a Buddhist monk in prayer and the text reads Go Taiwan (台灣加油, lit. Taiwan add oil). Photograph by Chen Wen-Chi (陳文祺).

I turn to a young woman on my left and ask her what brought her here. In response, she gestures absently to her flimsy pink-and-white-striped plastic bag of vegetables and says that she is just passing by, on her way from the market. She is one of a very small number of women I perceive in the crowd—as I push through the throng to approach the stage, I am surrounded almost entirely by young men, arms uplifted, bodies pulsing. Many record the spectacle using cell phones and digital cameras more sophisticated than the one I purchased for fieldwork. They appear to be typical urban Taiwanese university students and young professionals, distinguished perhaps by their penchant for locally coveted streetwear brands like Nong-Li (農麗), Tribal, and Joker. A small group to the right of the stage sports a rebellious look: shaved heads, heavy chain necklaces, and ornate Japanese-style tattoos. A young man positioned to my left wears a white T-shirt inscribed with the English word RENEGADE in black lettering, all caps. For me, the term immediately conjures the renegade province terminology famously favored by the global English-language media to describe views of Taiwan’s political status from the perspective of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Because that phrase is seldom invoked on the island, however, I read it instead as a declaration of its bearer’s self-perceived nonconformism.²

The atmosphere is simultaneously somber and high-spirited. Nearly fifty artists and groups take the stage over the course of the day, performing for ten or twenty minutes at a time. Some present upbeat, danceable fare with joyful lyrics about partying and romance in the hopes of cheering the crowd. Others play more solemn songs addressing Taiwan’s political status, environmental degradation, and the systematic erosion of local languages and lifeways. Their lyrics are dense and complex, but surprisingly intelligible in performance. I never take for granted that popular music in Taiwan will be aurally comprehensible without the aid of a printed text, not because I lack the necessary language proficiency, but because the Sinitic languages widely spoken on the island are tonal and changes in articulation give rise to changes in semantic meaning.³ In particular, the singing voice in contemporary popular music almost always suppresses tonemic contours in the service of melody, increasing the listener’s reliance on context or the printed word to extract meaning. Rap, with its declamatory style of vocalization, facilitates articulation of tone for performers intent on clear communication. It is difficult to tell where music ends and linguistic signification begins: when uttered aloud, lyrics have contours defined by the four tones of Mandarin, the six or seven tones of Hakka, and the seven tones of Hoklo.⁴ On one level, I can perceive how the pitched pronunciation of tonal language might contribute to the musical interest of a rap performance. Beyond their aesthetic qualities, however, these contours are themselves constitutive of meaning.⁵

Making meaning—of and through sound and text—is the distinct objective of events such as this one. When the horrors of catastrophe do not overwhelm the human capacity to describe what has happened, the writing of memory can function as a means of restoring what was in danger of being lost for good: in particular, a sense both of agency and of continuity with the past (Gray and Oliver 2004, 3). Acts of remembrance endow victims and witnesses alike with the power to interpret and make sense of trauma, intervene momentarily in the production of historical narrative, and determine whether what has happened constitutes convergence with or divergence from what has come before. The 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert provides an opportunity for rap artists and fans to engage in such remembrance, reflect on current hardships, and contemplate their relationships to prior catastrophes. In speech and song, performers make deliberate attempts throughout the day to embed Morakot not just in a history of natural disaster in Taiwan, but also in broader sociopolitical narratives characterized by intense, often combative relationships with authorities. The impulse to weave the typhoon into a larger musical narrative of discontent seems a strategic and ultimately affirming one. In the potent moments after rupture, artists call attention to an array of possible futures—some anarchic, some conciliatory—moving forward.

Taipei-based quintet Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤) takes the stage after nightfall to present their 2007 track Civil Revolt, Part 1 (官逼民反, Part 1). Backed by DJ JChen (陳威仲), the group’s two lead MCs, Fan Chiang (范姜) and Fish Lin (林家鴻), enter from opposite sides of the stage and ask the audience to raise their hands, imploring them, in both Mandarin and English: Fight for your rights! The song’s multilingual lyrics argue that the government pushed the people into chaos, giving rise to a time of unrest following the Qing Dynasty’s annexation of Taiwan during the late seventeenth century. It begins with the blaring of a siren and the hypnotic repetition of the recorded Hoklo phrase civil revolt, civil revolt... chanted by a female vocalist who traces a pentatonic melodic figure reminiscent of the characteristic opening and closing measures of the River and Lake tune (江湖調) frequently performed as part of traditional vocal musics, including Taiwanese opera (歌仔戲). Taken together, the sounds of the siren and the repeated urging toward rebellion create a sense of imminent emergency, while the citation of local opera roots the crisis firmly in Taiwanese soil. As Fish Lin and Fan Chiang deliver the lines of the opening chorus in the Hoklo language—The government fucks with the people, the people get pissed off! Overthrow corruption, Taiwanese people rebel!—audience members respond by pumping their fists on the off-beats and shouting an affirmative Yes! Yes! in powerful unison.

The lyrics to Civil Revolt, Part 1 do not address natural disaster, but disaster that is human-made—specifically, the interethnic feuds among Indigenous, Hoklo, and Hakka communities that roiled Taiwan throughout the period of Qing rule, which the central government sought alternately to curb and to exploit. Kou Chou Ching invites listeners to reflect on how the fractured twenty-first-century political landscape of Taiwan might be an extension of these events, which took place hundreds of years ago. By performing the song in the context of the Morakot benefit, they recast a story about Qing mismanagement as an allegory for the failure of the ruling Kuomintang (國民黨, Chinese Nationalist Party, or KMT), to protect its citizens from harm following the storm. Jenny Edkins has written that what we call trauma takes place when the very powers that we are convinced will protect us and give us security become our tormentors (2003, 4). Kou Chou Ching’s performance at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert suggests that Taiwan’s past and present tribulations are the result of repeated iterations of the same betrayal.⁶ And yet Civil Revolt, Part 1 also envisages a future, one in which Taiwan’s peoples—regardless of their ethnic, linguistic, or political affiliations—practice self-determination and seize control of a collective destiny.

Kou Chou Ching proffers a counter-hegemonic narrative, but the group’s imagination of life post-Morakot is characterized by community solidarity. In contrast, Taipei-based rapper Chang Jui-chuan’s (張睿銓) cover of American hip-hop group N.W.A.’s 1988 track Fuck tha Police augurs a more dystopian future.⁷ Chang recontextualizes the song—which decries racial profiling, police brutality, and other forms of state violence inflicted on predominantly Black communities in the United States—by introducing it with the dedication: This is for our government. Backed by Taipei-based DJ Point (點), his performance summons the gravitas of N.W.A.’s original recording, the contours and intensity of his vocal inflections closely matching Ice Cube’s. As he launches into the chorus, several young men thrust their hands up and begin to thrash along with the beat; a group around me, clearly familiar with the song, begins to mouth the words. Although Chang hews closely to N.W.A.’s lyrics throughout, he alters the concluding lines, in English, And when I’m finished, it’s gonna be a bloodbath, of cops, dyin’ in LA to of cops, dyin’ in Taipei.

The song’s racial and geographic provenance are elided as the details of N.W.A.’s revenge fantasy recede behind the anger expressed through insistent repetition of the phrase fuck tha police. Later, Chang tells me that he envisioned his version as a protest anthem, harkening back to episodes of colonial and authoritarian violence in Taiwan, especially under martial law (戒嚴令), from 1949 to 1987 (interview, December 3, 2009). His performance was intended to recall a historical period during which the Taiwan Garrison Command (台灣警備總司令部) actively suppressed initiatives that might have undermined KMT rule, including pro-Communism, pro-democracy, and pro-independence activism. Moreover, it implied a particular recommendation for the future—namely, that Taiwan’s peoples reject such treatment and strike out against authority figures who fail to protect them in the wake of catastrophes like Morakot.

Tainan-based Brotherhood gestures more directly to Morakot with their song LUV, written in 2008 to protest environmental degradation (see fig. P.2). In the context of the benefit, the song’s lyrics highlight human responsibility for the mudslides that regularly strike rural parts of the island and attained new levels of deadliness with Morakot: So they blindly cut down trees, and without the retention of water or earth, the landslides accelerated... Theirs is a slow, contemplative piece, one that does not corral the furious energy of Civil Revolt, Part 1 or Fuck tha Police, but instead paints a series of grim pictures—of skies growing dark, of people moving slowly off the streets, and finally of a massive mudslide washing away the dreams of children playing in the rain.

Fig. P.2. Brotherhood performs at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert, September 27, 2009. Photograph by Chen Wen-Chi.

The three MCs who make up Brotherhood rap in Hoklo at a deliberate pace over a plaintive, wordless melody, sped up and looped repeatedly in the fashion of Wu-Tang Clan’s Snakes. The sound of lead MC Dadi’s (大帝) voice is soft and mellow as he utters, barely above a whisper, wishes for a better tomorrow: Taiwan has suffered, you and I know, but with just a little bit of love our motherland will heal. And yet Brotherhood also suggests that love, when rendered in the form of aid, is a limited resource in a part of the world so frequently afflicted by natural disasters. At the end of the second verse, Dadi raps: I will not send my love out to Sichuan, but will keep my love in Taiwan. His words reflect a critical view of the financial support that the Taiwan government and individual Taiwan-based donors sent to the PRC following the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. This skepticism has a powerful visual correlate in the T-shirts worn by the MCs to the left and right of Dadi, which bear anti-PRC slogans. In a performance scarcely four minutes long, several concentric narratives ripple out all at once: the central story of LUV, about a mudslide caused by soil erosion from irresponsible land-development activities; the story of Morakot—and perhaps more specifically Siaolin, summoned by the song’s reference to a deluge, subsequent damage to rural areas, and human suffering; and a larger story questioning the government’s responses to natural disasters, including those that affect the PRC, with which Taiwan has a fraught relationship.

Fig. P.3. Audience members at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert light candles on the ground in the shape of Taiwan, September 27, 2009. Photograph by author.

Toward the event’s conclusion, rapper and Tainan-native RPG (張活寧), who acts as master of ceremonies, welcomes Dwagie to the stage, and the two engage in some patter. Dwagie is a celebrity here in Tainan and also an active, affable member of the community. Earlier, he and many of today’s performers lit incense and made offerings of pineapples, papayas, and ghost money to the local gods. Now he receives a visit from Su Tseng-Chang (蘇貞昌), a prominent member of the Democratic Progressive Party and a locally popular political figure. It is clear from the crowd’s applause and cheering that Dwagie is a hometown hero, widely admired, perhaps even beloved. He announces the debut of a new song written expressly for the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert with local R&B singer and producer J. Wu, which they call Unforgettable Pain (勿忘傷痛). Although I know him primarily as a performer of Hoklo-language hip-hop, Dwagie’s desire for communicative expediency here favors the use of Mandarin, Taiwan’s official national language (國語) since the KMT’s arrival in 1945. The rapper’s voice is hoarse as he delivers his bars in the verse, but J. Wu leans into smooth soulfulness on a sung chorus in which he vows to soothe victims:

山河大地被風雨撕裂

哭喊的我的兄弟姊妹

我讓你依慰 讓你依慰

記不記得一起祈禱的那一夜

擦肩而過的志工你是哪一位

那一天

看見 不一樣的美麗新世界

the mountains and rivers were torn apart by the wind and rain

the crying of my brothers and sisters

I will comfort you, will comfort you

do you remember the night we prayed together

among the volunteers rubbing shoulders, which one were you

on that day

I saw a new and different beautiful world

Although the chorus begins with a description of the storm’s violence, it swiftly shifts focus to the ways in which Morakot has brought out the best in people, especially those who have volunteered to help out in hard-hit areas. Accompaniment to Dwagie’s and J. Wu’s voices is sparse, a simple drum kick and short piano riff consisting of a descending five-note figure. This is layered on top of a chopped-up and repeated sample of a vocalist performing a nonspecific Austronesian melody, a sonic mnemonic that reminds listeners that many of those affected hail from Indigenous communities.⁸ The intermingling sentiments of hope and loss, poetry and pain, link the song to so many others performed throughout the day. It feels like a summation.

As Dwagie wraps his set, I head for an exit and pass a dozen young men painstakingly lighting hundreds of tealights on the pavement, arranged in the shape of Taiwan (see fig. P.3). Several weeks after Morakot, the weather is still erratic, and gusts of wind blow out the candles again and again. But the candle-lighters persist in rekindling each extinguished flame, such that the borders of the island constantly recede and reappear, always vulnerable, but ultimately intact.

Introduction

Tales of Taiwan

This book is about the community represented by the artists and audience members at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert and about their engagements with rap music as a trenchant form of narrative discourse in Taiwan following nearly four decades of martial law (1949–87). Building on and moving beyond debates about how global forms of hip-hop proffer resistance to hegemonic ideologies or complicity with neoliberal ones, I position rap songs in Taiwan as synergetic efforts to imagine new forms of post-authoritarian sociality. I argue that rappers’ performance practices and pedagogical ambitions—their desires to teach with and through their musical activities—configure post-authoritarianism as a creative political intervention, whose ultimate object is the reordering of epistemic hierarchies, power structures, and gender relations.¹ The narrative ethos of rap is instrumental to its efficacy in this regard, shaping indelibly the processes by which rappers grapple with ontological questions about the nature of Taiwaneseness and coax revelatory musical effects from the idiosyncrasies of local languages. Drawing out the threads between their practices of masculine self-fashioning and claims to authority within the rap community, I reveal their art as a key site of knowledge production in a time of ongoing and profound transformation, a space in which to reflect, unmake, and remake their worlds.

I did not set out in 2009 to write a book about rap music or hip-hop culture. My initial interest in the scene emerged, rather, from my long-term ethnomusicological research focus on local forms of musical narrative performance and my awareness that some artists and audiences on the island posit rap as an extension of older genres. There was, I had found, no single gloss for the English term rap. Many Internet sites and some performers used traditional musical narrative genre designations—such as the Hoklo liām-kua (唸歌, songs with narration) and, more rarely, the all-encompassing Mandarin shuochang (說唱, lit. speaking-singing)—to describe Taiwan rap’s sound and storytelling ethos.² I did not know how widespread this conception of the music was, or whether the island’s MCs understood their art as, first and foremost, articulated to US and global hip-hop cultural practices. Attuned to the critical importance of globalization and localization discourses in conversations about the perils of neoliberalization and the cultural and political legitimacy of Taiwanese identity, respectively, the question seemed to me an important one.

The viscerally compelling performances at the 921.87 Rap Benefit Concert offered evidence of little consensus, as some, like Kou Chou Ching, gestured decisively to traditional musical narrative forms while others, like Chang Jui-chuan, more clearly invoked the globally ubiquitous sounds and visual codes of hip-hop. Whether they heard it as something fundamentally local or as something localized, however, all artists gathered that day marshalled the sonic resources of rap to unfold tenaciously complex and contextual narratives that imagined different through lines between past, present, and future. Multiple, often contentious stories and histories interwove within and between songs, sometimes echoing, sometimes amplifying, sometimes ricocheting off one another. In addition to active listening, their successful decoding demanded of the predominantly young, male, middle-class audience in Tainan—representative of rap’s broader interpretive community (Fish 1976)—a substantial base of heterogeneous knowledge. Songs were written in multiple tongues, heavy with idiom and rife with indexical reference. Even if feeling their affective charge did not require of listeners any specific preparation, assimilating the full totality of their meanings unquestionably did.

That rap music tells stories, and that these stories are especially meaningful to local audiences, is not by itself a revelation. Almost anywhere in the world that rap sounds in its multifaceted guise as hip-hop music, it profits from analysis as narrative. Although insistently technological and distinguished from earlier Black musics in its mediation by sampling and sequencing (Walser 1995, 197), rap’s sonic and semantic strategies have antecedents (if not necessarily roots) in an array of African and Afro-diasporic oral narrative traditions, including but not limited to the African American verbal games known as the dozens, Jamaican toasts, and West African griot. These connections and others underscore the music’s identity in the United States and elsewhere as a form for telling tales, as Imani Perry declares in her pathbreaking scholarship on hip-hop’s poetics and politics: The narrative in hip hop is a kind of storytelling, a late-twentieth-century and early-twenty-first-century extension of traditional African American folktales, the MC replacing Dolemite or Brer Rabbit (2004, 78).³ Storytelling is also ubiquitous in the discourse about rap, which has, in the United States, often been credited with surfacing the stories of the Black and Latinx communities that originated rap.⁴ Underscoring this point and extrapolating out geographically, Jay-Z writes in the concluding pages to his 2010 memoir: "That’s my story. But the story of the larger culture is a story of