Back in the late 1980s, we were of the opinion that the Oaktown (Oakland, California, USA) was a fetid, hopeless, de-industrialized, white-flight created shit-hole, but all of that was changed sometime around 1990 with the arrival of Oakland native MC Hammer onto the music scene. If America had gorged itself during a whole decade on the fashion excesses of pop stars, Hammer was like the long belch after the meal, but even if we had to squint and shield our eyes whenever MC Hammer was on MTV, before long, sparkle shirts, parachute pants, baggy suits, and spandex shorts with suspenders—standard issue Hammer wear—became firmly etched in American pop culture history, and in retrospect, we can say we are the better for it.
This long-winded preamble was merely a way of introducing Jiangsu Province’s own MC Qiangqiang (MC 强强), whose work we discovered on video-sharing site Youku.com. The above video is his homage to MC Hammer’s “You Can’t Touch This.” (Check out the original MC Hammer video here for comparison.) MC Qiangqiang has other videos which showcase not only his dancing but also his singing skills (he can sing the male AND female parts of duets!). MC Qiangqiang’s renditions of Michael Jackson’s moves aren’t bad, but not quite as convincing as his Hammer moves. For good measure he’s also done a version of Bobby Brown’s “On Our Own,” a great song from the soundtrack of Ghostbusters II. (“Too hot to handle too cold to hold/They’re called the Ghostbusters and they’re in control.”)
So for all of you who, like us, are STILL trying to master the “running man,” please know that there is a guy in Jiangsu who can put you to shame. Sound the bell—school’s in, SUCKA!