LMF

Musicians are constantly using music to raise awareness about certain rising social problems or crises occurring around them. For instance, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie wrote, “We Are the World” to raise awareness about the Aids epidemic and in 2010, a bunch of more relevant artists rerecorded the song to raise awareness about the devastation in Haiti; both songs were received positively by the public, internationally; but how come, when musicians use rap instead of the normal pop-like melodies, to express their concerns, they are received negatively? During class, we stated many rappers from the United States that have run into this conflict but I’d like to bring this across the Pacific Ocean to Hong Kong, where a rap group by the name of LMF, which stands for Lazy Mutha Fucka, encountered the same problem.

In 1993, a time period where hip-hop hardly existed in Hong Kong, a group of men banded together to form a hip-hop group. A constant theme throughout their music was the identity of Hong Kong. Hong Kong was under British control up until 1997 and because of this, LMF urged the youth to remember their Chinese roots and create a distinct Hong Kong identity that is separate from the British and the mainland Chinese. They also heavily criticized parents for sending their children to the Western hemisphere or international schools where they will be raised as “Caucasians with yellow skin” instead of taking full responsibility of their own children. Although their songs might contain a heavy dose of both English and Cantonese cussing, they certainly expressed only positive messages but yet the people of Hong Kong referred to them as bad influences for their children.

LMF disbanded in 2003 but many of the original members are still very relevant in the growing hip-hop culture of South East Asia. Canto-pop star, Edison Chen, along with partner Kevin Poon have started a rather successful business, Clot Inc., which revolves around the hip-hop culture, proving hip-hop has made vast progress in Hong Kong; but whether that progress stems from the re-appropriation of hip-hop into mainstream culture or instead the success of how well audiences are accepting the underlying messages, we will probably never know until hip-hop isn’t really mainstream.