At Taiwan’s premier music competition, artists went political with their tunes and lyrics.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Social actions have lengthy used music to unfold messages and rally help. Musicians from throughout Taiwan gathered within the southern port metropolis of Kaohsiung just lately to attempt to remind folks of the precarious geopolitical state of affairs during which they discover their island. Ashish Valentine studies.
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ASHISH VALENTINE, BYLINE: Final weekend, tens of hundreds of followers gathered to see a number of the greatest Taiwan’s music scene has to supply. The competition, which acquired some native authorities funding, took over the most important harbor in Taiwan – therefore its title, Megaport.
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VALENTINE: Though they got here right here to blow off steam, escalating tensions between Taiwan and China had been on many followers’ and artists’ minds. Final month, Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, labeled Beijing as a, quote, “hostile international drive.” Many bands urged followers to remain united, saying this is not the primary time Taiwan’s folks have risked their lives for a greater future.
Taking the stage on the competition’s second day, rock band Sorry Youth shocked everybody midway by means of their set by debuting a cartoon based mostly on a narrative even a child may acknowledge. Three little pigs – Taiwanese pigs, that’s – speak concerning the information, whereas a sure huge, unhealthy wolf lurks within the background.
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UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR #1: (As character, by means of interpreter) You guys actually assume there will be a conflict?
VALENTINE: They discuss sending their youngsters overseas earlier than the third little pig interrupts, saying they need to keep and defend their residence.
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UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR #1: (As character, by means of interpreter) However what will we do? We’re simply regular folks. What energy do we’ve got?
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE ACTOR #2: (As character, by means of interpreter) Only one unusual individual has no energy. However what about 10,000 unusual folks, 100,000, 1,000,000? So many individuals sacrificed themselves so we will stay the best way we do now. The remainder is as much as us.
VALENTINE: The band launched right into a music known as “Justice In Time.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SORRY YOUTH SONG, “JUSTICE IN TIME”)
VALENTINE: It pays tribute to generations of activists who resisted 4 a long time of dictatorship, which solely resulted in 1987, and guarantees that future generations will maintain their hard-won democracy secure. They weren’t the one artists who fearful a few potential Chinese language invasion. Hip-hop artist Yang Shu-ya’s single “2045” wonders what struggling for democracy would imply in Taiwan if every little thing burns to ashes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “2045”)
YANG SHU-YA: (Rapping in non-English language).
VALENTINE: She imagines Taiwan as a conflict zone beneath Chinese language occupation, fundamental freedoms gone. Not everybody enjoying at Megaport was so ahead, although. Yang says it is a results of bigger tensions within the music scene.
YANG: (Via interpreter) So many artists from Taiwan resolve they should go to China to develop their careers.
VALENTINE: The consequence, she says, is barely a handful dare to talk up overtly. However Yang says she has little interest in going to China or enjoying by their guidelines.
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YANG: (Via interpreter) There’s by no means been a separation between music and politics. Music is political.
VALENTINE: For lots of the artists and followers at Megaport, they’re going to use the competition to rejoice and protest for so long as they will.
For NPR Information, that is Ashish Valentine in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
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