Results tagged “thelab”

We've got a pretty awesome weekend ahead of us. Even if you're not going to one of the many music parties planned for tonight (which you can check out in our midweek music preview), there's still a lot more going on. For instance...

With everything that's going on tonight, FREE the WAX has got one more gig vying for your attention featuring American electro-cinematic producer maestro Eliot Lipp who is best known for his seamless weaving of 80s electro, 70s jazz-fusion and Bay Area hip hop.

          

We came, we saw, we tasted. On Saturday, everybody who had reserved for the week before's Miracle Berry tasting party finally convened at The Lab on Jiaozhou Lu. Before us was a spread of everything from bittermelon to beans, tomatoes to tabasco sauce... and of course, lemons. Lots of lemons.

The Lab, a non-profit, non-cost DJ Hip-Hop workshop studio, is throwing its Third Anniversary Party tonight at the Shelter. Debuting two new talents, DJ Freeze and DJ Sense, the lineup features ten total DJs including founding member DJ V-Nutz (a.k.a: Gary Wang).

Turntablism, also known as scratching, started as an integral part of hip hop in the 80s and has expanded into numerous other genres. At its basic level, turntablism involves manipulating a record and crossfader to create quick chops, fades, cuts, and stutters in the music. True artists juggle beats back and forth, switching between numerous songs at lightning-fast speed. Not only does it sound amazing, it's also extremely badass to watch a DJ manipulate a record in his own fashion and create an entirely new piece of music on the fly.

Shanghai DJ collective The Lab celebrates their second anniversary this weekend. As a sort of reverse birthday present, they've gifted us with turntablist wizard and mixologist DJ Kentaro. Kentaro is the 2002 DMC World Champion and a two-time DMC Japan Champion, so he knows a thing or two about scratching records. But don't just take our word for it. Kentaro's label Ninja Tune describes him thusly:

On Friday, if you happen to be looking for a chill night of music that is frequently plopped in the shoe gazer genre (sucks for those of us too fat to stare at our own shoes), then elusive Shanghai band 33 Island will be entertaining a captive audience (people staring at shoes) along with musical comrades, Muscle Snog at 4Live. If, by chance you aren't into shoes, or gazing at them, then tonight will be a little slow, making it a good night for some quiet self reflection. Or then again, maybe not.

"People say they love hip hop, but then they go to Guandii. To me, we’ve never had hip hop in China. We just took things from the States. It’s never been homegrown. And I really hope we can have a scene to call our own."

Killa Kela hasn't been in town that long but, already, he's been getting around. And by 'around', we mean in the doing-lots-of-things sense, not in the slutty sense (unless any readers want to come forward and tell us otherwise...)

Less than two hours until we choose the winners of our four pairs of tickets for the big show tonight. So get your entry in soon. Just fill out the form below.

Win tickets to see Bugz in the Attic this Thursday!

GigShanghai/GigLive: We never left!

Tonight, we were all set to show our out-of-town visitors that hip-hop is alive and well in Shanghai. The tide, we reasoned, was beginning to shift, and if the previously moribund live music scene could find its second wind, why not a bona fide community of true hip-hop heads? Of course, much of this speculation hinged on the continued growth of So Much Soul, the weekly hip-hop event sprung into action by the Lab, and hosted by everyone’s favorite hole-in-the-wall that isn’t really a hole-in-the-wall, Tang Hui.

So Much Soul is the brainchild of the hardworking folks at The Lab, which some of you avid readers might remember us unfairly labeling “too small” a few weeks back. In fact, it’s a great resource for aspiring turntablists and those interested in hip-hop as an artform—in all its ragged and resplendent glory. Get familiar. As for Tang Hui, if you’re at all like us and tired of seeing salsa lessons every Thursday night with nary a soul in sight, it’s a refreshing change, and one, we might add, that precludes your presence at Guandii or Attica, venues hopelessly in need of savvy DJs, rather than salacious ones. SMS is a much-needed antidote to top-40-itis, featuring hip-hop, funk, soul, and reggae by people who know their Blackalicious from their Black Eyed Peas, and in the kind of venue that favors intimate, chilled-out vibes over mountains of bubbly and freak-a-leek histrionics. Scratchmasters DJ V-Nutz, Mr. Tsang and Fortune will be on hand, as well as mic-wreckers RedStar, and a host of cats hungry to show off their freestyling skills. Think of the famed Back to the Roots parties (also hosted by the Lab), except on a weekly, not monthly basis.

The strip of Changle Lu just west of the gao jia is fast becoming one of the more interesting strolls in town. Check it out.

There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to face the facts — that not every (alpha) dog has his day; that haters gon hate; that open bar doesn’t always mean what you think it means. And that all ABCs just looove Guandii. Well, not this ABC. Sure, one could chalk it up to difference in opinion, or taste in hip-hop, or a simple case of sour grapes (not picking up enough ladies, for instance). But let’s not consider all that. Let’s just nip it right in the bud: In order for the hip-hop “scene” in Shanghai to truly thrive, and blossom into the NBT (Next Big Thing) it so richly deserves to be, ABCs — and everyone else, for that matter — need to stop jocking Guandii so hard.

We here at Shanghaiist are experiencing quite a bit of Robbie Williams "Deja Vu." BonBon -- the club behind Jay-Z's supposed after party (we also heard Attica was working on the after party ... go figure) -- are stating that Jay-Z will NOT perform in Shanghai due to his "lyrical content."

Shanghaiist was at the Pause DJ Party at The Lab last Saturday. It was an exciting evening of Drum & Bass, Hip-hop, Brazillian Beats and Minimal Electro. The cops stopped by, beer was flowing, people were dancing and that was only at 7pm. We had a good time. Shout-outs to The Lab, Phreaktion, :e:klek.tik, Xanadu Figure Land, The Antidote and Uprooted Sunshine for throwing down an excellent party.

Shanghai finishes the summer in style this weekend with a 40-strong DJ performance at Dino Beach under the guise of the Splash! music festival, kicking off at 3 pm this Saturday.

Admittedly, we attended the Black Eyed Peas show with a detached sense of superiority -- but ask anyone, even those of us who don’t “get” hip-hop, it was, to quote the girl behind us, “a show that made my summer”. Parts of the show that made us forget about those annoying glow sticks?

GigShanghai: Hawaiian death metal, cAntipop and Black heads back