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www.taiwanho.com: Hip Hop with a Canadian Beat Breaks into TU By pangolin May 27, 2004  Montreal hip hop quartet Offsides landed in Taipei this week with a singular mission: spread the message that Canada's burgeoning rap scene is ready for global recognition. The group, comprised of MCs Malicious, Bailey and Lokey, along with DJ DR-One may not be household names in Taiwan yet, but they have spent the last year climbing their way to the top of Montreal's grassroots hip hop scene. Now they are ready to take Formosa by storm. Asked in a telephone interview with Taiwan Ho! this week why they chose Taipei to launch an independent Canadian hip hop release, Bailey said the whole idea came together on the fly after they sent a press kit to a music promoter friend, JJ Wakrat, now living in Taiwan. "About six hours later he called back to say he had a show set up," Bailey said. After arriving last Saturday, the band hit the ground running with a series of local appearances that kicked off with an impromptu stage call at TU, just hours after dropping their luggage at the hotel. The club was showcasing a MC open mic and they were encouraged to step up and show their stuff. The guys obliged with a surprise set of a cappella rap that received an enthusiastic response from the local music fans. "They really hadn't heard that here before, but we just had them drop the beat and did our thing a cappella and they loved it," said Lokey. "We did a sort of pass-the-mic thing. We didn't really know what to expect when we got here. We were told there would be a language barrier, but we're coming from a place with French and English spoken, so we're used to that." Bailey and Lokey both said they were pleasantly surprised at how developed they found the local hip hop scene to be. "We knew there was some appreciation for hip hop over here, and we would just bring what we bring," Lokey explained. "But we were surprised how huge it is. There is more hip hop culture visible here than there is most places back home." The chief weapon in Offsides musical arsenal is the ability of the three microphone maestros to deliver a rapid fire verbal assault of improvised rhyming, otherwise known as "freestyle". Think of on-the-fly, off-the-top-of-the-head poetry set to throbbing beats. Lokey said that local MCs may not be accustomed to the no-holds-barred form of freestyle practiced back in Canada—sort of a verbal Ultimate Fighting Championship. But they are ready to match their talents with any local MCs who want to step up to the mic. "We want to see them do their thing," he said. "We got to see Hotdog and did some freestyle with him, and that great. You know, there really isn't that sense of tension here that you might feel back home. So ‘battling' freestyle might be a bit nuts." As for how they are taking to whole new venue for their music, Bailey backs up Lokey's take on Taipei's relatively laid back scene. "It's a really cool city, really chill," he said. And what can expect this weekend? Lokey recommends preparing for the unexpected. "A lot of people are used to club beats here and that's cool," he said. "But we are going to throw a lot of stuff out, fast, slow, but nothing conservative."  | ||||||
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