maurice, giovanni, and mic

so my fashion hobby has actually paid off quite a few times during this fellowship. i've managed to obtain a lot of random contacts from fashion websites i used to frequent. i got a bunch of bboy contacts from a fashionable bboy that had crewmates who came over to china. today i met several people somehow connected to hiphop through me searching for some fashion labels.

i heard about a store called safehouse that carried brands OTHER than A Bathing Ape, Supreme, and the general 'hypebeast' streetbrands- they carry stuff by a lesser known labels like house33, lowrider, situation normal, crooks & castles, stabs, etc. almost no stores are on ground level, so you're constantly looking up to the second levels trying to find interesting stores... unfortunately safehouse was on the third floor so i never saw it while walking around causeway bay. but after doing some research i found a website (prowolfmaster) that had pictures and an address.

safehouse

that's how i stumbled upon prowolfmaster, a design company run by a man by the name of giovanni or gio for short. on the website i found pictures of some pieces by the swat crew (which is why i posted about the swat writer a few days ago). i actually emailed the giovanni just asking about the pieces and the jackets and such- while mentioning what i was doing here. so he emailed me back and said we should meet up some time, and he would introduce me to MIC, the guy that does both the jackets and pieces i posted earlier. so a few days later i took a trip to causeway bay, i stopped at safehouse and started talking to maurice (who was bumping labincalifornia, props).

maurice (safehouse)

first about street fashion, because i specifically asked for a belt by house33. he was happy to know i heard about the brand so he started up a conversation. we eventually got into what i was doing in hong kong. he told me his friend, tracy funches, was planning on doing a documentary on asian hiphop so we should get in contact (tracy has done a documentary on pimps). while i was there giovanni gave me a call, his studio is right down the street- so we went to one of his friend's cafes in the area (giovanni gave me a little background as to why there is so many cafes and hair salons... apparently if you don't get into college (you have to take a huge standardized exam and you get ranked into a school) you can't really do anything and you're parents think you've amounted to nothing. so all these kids open up their own businesses to survive- most of them being clothing stores, cafes, or salons...).

anyway, we talked for a few hours about hong kong hiphop, the graf writers in particular. he was born/raised in chicago, moved to new york for art school, never finished- but got a job in hong kong a few years ago with EA Sports as a designer... then he quit his job and is doing prowolfmaster (which happens to be most of his old graf crew from chicago). here he's got the crew "swat" which has members in hong kong, guangzhou, and shenzhen. recently a few have been kicked out (which is a story in itself… basically two of the members got paid $10,000 to do a government art piece and didn’t tell any of the crew members about it until it was done. this was an example gio used to illustrate the “backwardness” of the hiphop culture here- or things that are holding it back). he said that there are about 20 graf writers in hong kong, but only about 4-5 of those actually “have heart”- the others are seem to be doing it out of trendiness (apparently it gets the girls too- gio also told me that anyone dressed as a gansta thug gets mad hot girls too- right under his studio there is a “urban wear” store called the ash – the first urban store in hong kong. their success brought two or three more on the same street in the same building. They all used to be friends, but they beef now that they’re competitors- but only behind each others back). anyhow, we talked at length about MC Yan, who is the godfather of hiphop in hong kong. he was in the first hiphop group that made it big (maybe the first hiphop group period) in hong kong, LMF or LazyMuthaFucka. they were big maybe 5-6 years ago, have since disbanded, and now he is a writer (goes by the tag syan) and ghostwrites (writes lyrics for) for the hong kong pop-star edison chen. gio told me about how he always talks about how the whiteman is holding the chinaman down, hiphop, and whatnot… i’m hoping to meet with him soon! he told me about the beef between him and this guy from europe (norway? I forget.. his name escapes me too who is lauded as the first person to bring graffiti to hong kong) because some locals give more respect to the foreigner than him. this is a big problem I’ve seen throughout my travels- sure give respect where it’s due.. but people in china and hong kong like to give respect to any foreigner that comes along and “claims” they know what’s up.. even when they have absolutely NO skill to back it up. and i really abhor the ones who come saying “i gotta show them what REAL hiphop is, i gotta educate them” – like they know everything about hiphop… shit, since when do you define what hiphop is for other people?... but i digress. oh a short note about the king of kowloon.

@ the star ferry (tst side)

Tsang Tsou-choi is renowned throughout hong kong for his graffiti- marking up hk streets for more than 40 years. his "calligraffiti" consists of incomprehensible texts that include names of family members, ancestores, chinese and british historical heroes, and places in HK. apparently the guy is 78 years old and on cruches yet he still hits the streets with his calligraphy brush (talk about gettin' over..). the cops have busted him numerous times, but i think they have stopped since some people regard him as a working-class man's hero. so he's the real king of graffiti in hong kong.

back to our conversation- we also talked about hong kong kids in general. I’ve gotten some insight through talking to my cantonese tutor, jenny, who was born/raised here and went to toronto for college (unfortunately i’m not learning much cantonese, I should’ve bought an electronic dictionary instead of taking classes!). the education system here is much like the rest of asia- where your life seems to be contingent on one exam in high school (a few years ago there was a large problem with teenage suicide because of this exam). this seems to create a lot of kids that give up on school and have to find something to do (which is why they end up opening clothing stores/cafes/hair salons like i said earlier) or if they are rich enough they can go abroad and study somewhere. again, money is probably the most important thing here, aside from family- except the family wants you to make money to support them. so most of the kids here are still living with parents/grandparents, since paying for your own place is super expensive and its probably a cultural thing too. this gives you a bunch of kids that are constantly being nagged by their parents to go make money to support the family. so hiphop is usually not an option. this also may be a factor in the creation of a mass that wants “easy entertainment”. by this i mean things that are easily accessible and things that you are not required to use brainpower to consume because your workdays are long and you just need a dose of some depressing romantic story to make you feel like your own love life isn’t so bad afterall (haha). hiphop is not “easy entertainment”, unless of course you are just in it for the fashion and are content with eminem and 50 cent. this is where the magazines come in. here in hong kong there are weekly magazines full of the new shit that comes out- its basically like a catalog- they show the new products, the prices, and what shop you can go to get them. so when any small label starts up, if they have magazine coverage then people are going to flock there and buy it (if of course the editors say its hot shit). so in hong kong, the easiest way to start interest in anything is through fashion- because these magazines are centered around fashion and that’s what everyone cares about here (even though its not entirely evident when you walk the streets).

milk and touch magazines (for research purposes only of course!)

i’ve probably mentioned this before but to reiterate myself… culture, fashion, and music all seem to be separated from each other here. for example you can dress punk but that isn’t considered to an indication of your musical preference, you can be a skater but you probably listen to canto-pop and not punk or hiphop, you can be a street baler and don’t know who 50 cent is for example. here it seems fashion is for the sake of fashion only… well maybe to show how much money you have haha. (though oddly enough, i first heard of hong kong hiphop through fashion and "street toys". an artist by the name of michael lau did some crazy street toys 5-6 years back, inspired by the aforementioned LMF).

anyway, mic came sometime in the middle of our conversation and was rather quiet- probably because we were talking english really fast. he was happy to answer my questions though. gio told me mic gets hired to teach graffiti in high schools too (which gio scoffed at), but it illustrates how graffiti is viewed here.. as a trend, something cool to do. he also gets hired to do ‘custom’ shoes for little shops (but just does designs they want- like designs of popular cartoon characters and such- when I asked why he doesn’t do things his own style like the jackets he did- he responded that hong kong kids don’t care about originality- they just want whatever is cool at the moment- the brand logo or the character…) he said he’d do a jacket for me, so hopefully i’ll come back to the states with one! and the next time he goes bombing, he’ll take me along… which I hope actually materializes, cause that would make for some dope footage!

i also got hooked up with some PWM stickers and MIC stickers

prowolfmaster

MIC (SWAT)