is an ongoing column on 香港六合彩资料网 in which we profile Shanghai-based promoters and music makers living and putting on events in this city, specifically within the context of the larger cultural, economic, and arts landscape in Shanghai. These are your manufacturers of cultural capital, Shanghai. This is the business of art and music.
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Hip Hop Hijack started as a roaming party, an attempt to put on a serious night of new-school hip hop in a town that had no real hip hop parties. It moved around for a while, then found a home at Zeal, before switching to Geisha, where it鈥檚 now a weekly, Friday night thing.
Hip Hop Hijack has become a brand 鈥� The Council 鈥� which manages a couple of DJs, books international DJs for China tours and promotes hip hop culture here and across China.
SmSh sat down with DJs B-Kut and Choyce Kutz, and Cyril Delon, who helps them run The Council, ahead of their three-year anniversary celebrations which happen this weekend at The Geisha on Friday night and Arkham on Saturday.
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SmSh: So what鈥檚 the Council and what鈥檚 Hip Hop Hijack, how does it all work?
Cyril Delon: Most people know us as Hip Hop Hijack but our company name is 鈥淭he Council鈥�. Hip Hop Hijack is the party name, the concept.
DJ B-Kut
SmSh: You do this full-time, now? You鈥檙e not English teachers by day or anything?
Choyce Kutz: We do it full time, the three of us. We have our other DJ gigs, but we鈥檙e here in the office five or six days a week.
B-Kut: All day in the office and all night at the clubs.
SmSh: What are you doing apart from Friday nights at the Geisha, what else are you doing that turns this into a full-time job?
Cyril Delon: We do other events, like have another event coming up at Bar Rouge. At Arkham, we have this new party called Dongxi that involves more Chinese people, more Chinese rappers, Chinese dance crews, so we try to push hip hop, you know, not only to foreigners as we did for the last few years with Hip Hop Hijack, but touch more Chinese and get them involved, and show everyone that it doesn鈥檛 have to be foreigners on one side and Chinese on the other. For the love of hip hop we can all regroup together for the love of the music.
Choyce Kutz: The last Dongxi was really good. We partnered up with Golden Age, which is another hip hop collective here, and we featured 12 different rap crews, that was an hour and a half show and then we party-rocked after. We鈥檝e got another one coming up [this Saturday] as the second half of our two-day anniversary, with some new kids. We鈥檙e featuring every one of the dance crews that night, too, to get everyone involved.
Choyce Kutz
SmSh: But how do you make it pay. You鈥檙e doing two or three gigs a week, but still, there鈥檚 three of you, there鈥檚 the office rent. If you鈥檙e doing it with the other crew and having 15 rappers... How do you get paid?
B-Kut: [Laughs] Mostly we don't.
Cyril Delon: We have a management thing as well. We manage a couple of DJs from the U.S. and we put other DJs on tour around Asia. We usually have an international guest every month, so we don鈥檛 bring them all the way around the world just for one show in Shanghai, we put them in other cities.
SmSh: OK so let鈥檚 go back to the start. When did you three come together and what were you each doing around that time?
Choyce Kutz: I was here in 2007 and I was playing at Bar Rouge and I met B-Kut one night and we just connected through being hip hop DJs in the city, and there aren鈥檛 many of us, not many foreign hip hop DJs.
B-Kut: It was mostly after a night I was doing at LOgO, an R&B night.
Choyce Kutz: Then we started to play together at M1NT on Thursdays and then when they started going more electronic, really the hip hop scene was gone. I used to play at Guandi, but that was gone by then, too. There was basically Shelter and that was it. So we got together and said, Let鈥檚 do this.
Cyril Delon: I had just quit my engineering job at that time and we were sitting in M1NT and complaining that there was no more hip hop so we said we should just do it ourselves.
SmSh: What was the first show?
Choyce Kutz: Lune.
B-Kut: November 19.
Cyril Delon: 2010.
Choyce Kutz: I think 180 people came to the first one and we just grew from there.
Cyril Delon: At first, we chose the name Hip Hop Hijack because we were hijacking every club, moving from club to club every month. We did that for almost a year.
Choyce Kutz: It鈥檚 so hard to get a club to let you play actual hip hop.
B-Kut: On a Friday.
Choyce Kutz: Then we got a call from the old owner of Dragon 鈥� I used to do Thursday nights at Dragon 鈥� and he was like, Listen I鈥檝e got a new club, do you guys want to come here, and that was Zeal, and that was when we started to be able to bring bigger DJs.
B-Kut: The challenge was to bring hip hop to a high-scale place rather than doing it at a venue like Shelter, where they already have an underground hip hop scene.
Choyce Kutz: It was scary. To go from 300 people to, like 800. I didn鈥檛 sleep. I don鈥檛 have nightmares but I had nightmares that weekend. No one鈥檚 going to come!
SmSh: Obviously there鈥檚 far fewer hip hop DJs in Shanghai than tech house bozos but for the big Chinese clubs, for that kind of crowd, I would imagine the commercial end of hip hop is going to be quite normal for them.
Choyce Kutz: No, not at all. Listen, I don鈥檛 consider Britney Spears and Pitbull to be hip hop. I鈥檝e played at M2 and these other Chinese clubs and it鈥檚 all mash-up, 128 BPM. For us, hip hop doesn鈥檛 go above 110, 105, so it鈥檚 a totally different ball of wax.
SmSh: How would you describe your musical styles, do you play similar stuff?
Choyce Kutz: I grew up on 鈥�90s hip hop, so that鈥檚 always been where I came from. When I was in Montreal, that was when the whole 鈥渙pen format鈥� thing came around. I鈥檝e always been into crate digging and funk and soul, R&B and all this stuff, so that鈥檚 when I got into more open-format style.
SmSh: Explain open format, you know, ahem, just in case anyone out there is unfamiliar with the term鈥�
Choyce Kutz: Basically every genre. Being able to play funk, hip hop, rock, pop, and being able to mix it, mash it and blend it all together into a party rocking style with tricks and all that stuff.
Cyril Delon: But Hijack isn鈥檛 like that.
Choyce Kutz: Hijack isn鈥檛 like that. Hijack is new stuff. Even though we like 鈥�90s hip hop and that鈥檚 what we grew up on, there was no avenue to get the new Rick Ross the new Meek Mill, the new thing that鈥檚 hitting in the States right now. That鈥檚 why Hip Hop Hijack came about, as a place to hear new hip hop in Shanghai.
B-Kut: I started more with funk and R&B when I was younger. In France I was playing funk and new hip hop. When I arrived here, I started to play in Chinese clubs and they asked me for a hip hop party but every time I was going, I had to play that Lady Gaga stuff which is not hip hop. So I was trying anyway, to put some hip hop track inside my sets and I noticed that after two or three parties they were like, We don鈥檛 need you any more. They wanted a DJ who would play more commercial.
SmSh: So how did the first one in Zeal go, where you had more of a Chinese club set up, but also a lot of foreigner clientele?
Choyce Kutz: That one was really surprising. We had a friend of mine, Rob Banks, who was a world ITF champ. We were blown away by the community who came out. I think we did 850 people that night.
SmSh: It鈥檚 surprising that there鈥檚 only one regular new school hip hop night in Shanghai, because it does seem to me like there鈥檚 a Chinese scene. You see Chinese DJs who are amazing turntablists, battle DJs. But why do you think the music doesn鈥檛 have so much traction here?
B-Kut: Right now the hype is a lot on electronic music. All the big clubs around the world want to play electronic music. The marketing is on the 100 Top DJs, who are all electronic DJs. And those clubs in China want to be like the other big clubs in the world, so they鈥檙e going to tell their DJs to play electronic. Even good DJs who like to play hip hop, they are going to play electronic because the club asks them to and the club is paying them.
Choyce Kutz: You鈥檝e got V-Nutz doing his stuff and Come Correct on Wednesdays at the Shelter, but when it died in Chinese clubs that鈥檚 when we saw the change to EDM. It鈥檚 hard to get people to take a chance on changing to something new when they鈥檙e making money with Pitbull and Lady Gaga remixes.
SmSh: What was the Chinese crew you mentioned, Golden Age? They鈥檙e from Shanghai? How did you get involved with them?
Choyce Kutz: Yeah, two Shanghai MCs PQ and Tanking. I had Tanking MC with me for some years when I was at Muse. They鈥檝e been in the Shanghai scene for quite a while. They were doing hip hop parties before at Yuyintang but they were more based around MCs. That鈥檚 why we鈥檝e come together, with us more focused on party rocking and them on MCing.
SmSh: What about producers, do you hear any Chinese producers that are coming up?
Choyce Kutz: We鈥檝e been pushing two artists who played with us at Midi Festival. This is Al Rocco and Busy Kidz, who are from Shanghai. El Roco is from Hong Kong, but he鈥檚 come up here to make more music. And their music is great, we play their music at our nights and people go wild.
SmSh: Which guest has been the most fun to look after?
Choyce Kutz: Jazzy Jeff was fun. It was great to have a legend with you and his whole crew is hilarious to hang out with. We took him to shopping. We took him to the fake market. Skills and everybody were all there. And they all stay in touch, even now.
B-Kut: They keep pushing us.
Choyce Kutz: They did their Vinyl Destination video and talked about us to the whole world. Then we had other DJs, this guy called Clark Kent, who saw it and hit up one of our friends and say, I want to play Hijack. It鈥檚 getting out there.
SmSh: So this weekend it鈥檚 the third anniversary. What do you have on?
Cyril Delon: We will do our usual party on Friday night at Geisha, and we have a guest coming, DJ Big Ben, he鈥檚 on Hot 97 DJ from New York, he鈥檚 the prot茅g茅 of DJ Enuff. That鈥檚 100rmb or 50rmb on the guestlist.
Choyce Kutz: Then Dongxi鈥檚 going to be the second day and we really want to push that and what鈥檚 happening there. We have DJ Jam, who鈥檚 Snoop鈥檚 DJ. He鈥檚 going to headline, then we鈥檙e supporting with Al Rocco and Busy Kidz doing a performance, and then a bunch of dance crews, five dance crews. I think it鈥檚 30 Chinese artists in total, doing little sets.
SmSh: What about in the future, what鈥檚 coming up?
Choyce Kutz: We want to push for more MCs to come to Shanghai. We have so many international DJs but very few MCs. The last one was Ludacris at Black Rabbit. But we鈥檙e working on it. We want to see a hip hop stage at a festival. We鈥檙e working on that now. We鈥檙e working on something for next year, but we can鈥檛 say anything more about that now.
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Hip Hop Hijack does its third birthday at the Geisha on Friday and Arkham on Saturday. RSVP to both of those for cheaper entry. Details here and here.
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