Yeah! Shanghai:
An Intro to Shanghainese Hip-Hop

Yet another reason for your narrator to learn the Wu Dialect (Shanghainese).

From BoingBoing.net:

This bizarre sibling of American rap made up of English, Mandarin, and Shanghai- nese...just blew me away. The sound is typically rap but the lyrics and topics have a very distinctive Chinese/ Shanghai-nese spin. The lyrics are jammed with "trash" words in different languages. Topics are typically social commentaries such as the track named "Made in Shanghai" that takes a shot at the Chinese youth's blind infatuation with foreign pop cultures (Japanese, Korean) but also has a good amount of softer topics about unrequited or lost love. BBC has a good story about of the rapper named "Little Lion" -- Link. the boingboing story

Check out the site to download more of these songs:

***Yeah Shanghai: This song is kinda shit for the first minute as it cycles through samples of the various versions of "Night Shanghai," the most popular "pre-lib" Shanghainese pop song--and the first one I ever heard. First there's Zhou Xuan, the one with the golden voice. Then the post CultRev bunch. Then the musak-ish versions. Get past the first minute and that shit's gangsta--perfectly indistinguishable and, thus, great hip-hop, right?

***Lover by MCBoy has soul, but little else.

***Guandiao (close down) sounds like it was recorded on a tape recorder. It's completely incomprehensible Wu plugged with "muthafucka," "rap," and "son of a bitch". Great fun.

***I can't get "Made in Shanghai" out of my head.

***Don't Sham is not as silly as the title might suggest. It actually sounds pretty good. For a good time, download.

***McTang's No 1 has some pretty catchy hooks. It's is pretty ego-rich and full of easy-to-understand English lines "It's a gangsta shit" and "shut up motherfucker" and "AK-47 in my hands, better watch your mouth." Honestly, I can't take this very seriously. Maybe I need to see a concert. Shanghai is far too safe to support this "McTang's" lifestyle.


If I wrote a song, it would be called "Stinkcity."
Some sample interjections: "why don't y'all bitchez outlaw two-stroke engines, aight??"

and "That shit ain't no moto. yo punk ass is ridin' a muthafuckin' chainsaw on wheels"

and "that garbage truck smell nasty/but the real shit's the nasty i gonna be gettin' on with the garbage men". (OK, maybe I'm sick, I know. But at least I'm not classist.)


Here's a link to the Shanghaiist.com story.

write your own Shanghai Hip-Hop lyrics in the comments section!