Nasty Ray is easily one of my favorite rappers in China – a true, homegrown, Beijing-back-alley freestlyer. First drawn to hip hop when he heard a Naughty by Nature track on an NBA videogame in 1998, he‘s now a battler who never shies from the mic. Nasty Ray is best known for his Dirty North CD released on the YinEnt label with Lao Zheng, but continues to collaborate with Aidge Rock of the Aesthetics Crew based in Los Angeles. A big fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, he also got to fulfill a dream by opening up for Ghostface Killah when he rolled through Beijing last year. The video above was taken at last month’s Section Six hip hop party. It showcases Nasty Ray whiling out with his crew followed by a song featuring heavyweight MC Daxiao. Also, as part of the upcoming Jue Festival, Nasty Ray will perform at the “Slam, Rap, Words” event held at 2 Kolegas. I’ll end the post with a rhyme he wrote for me when I took his portrait last September:

从我嘴里说的词, 到唐宋念的诗, 这跨越的是五千年文化的历史, 我代表团结湖讲着老北京的话, 欢迎来到我的家和我一起岔

The words from my mouth to poems of Tang and Song / Stretch over history 5,000 years long / I represent community, spit real Beijinghua /Come over to my house and we’ll cha (battle)

Getting down to funky beats in China has been around much longer than grabbing the mic and spitting rhymes. Many point to pirated tapes of Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo getting wide circulation in the late eighties as really triggering the b-boy and b-girl movement. More established breakdancing scenes in Korea and Japan also influenced and catalyzed rockers in China. Now there are dance crews all over major cities with Beijing and Shanghai at the epicenter of this urban dance movement. One of the best places to catch these kids throw down on the dance floor in Beijing is the Section Six hip hop party held on the last Saturday of every month at Yugong Yishan, but competitions are held on the regular throughout the city. Otherwise there are plenty of dance studios in town if you feel like practicing before busting a move in public.

Nanshan is making a big push this winter with more and more kids strapping on snowboards and taking to the slopes. Although Nanshan might be an over-glorified hill, it is still home to one of the best snow parks in China and remains the closest one to Beijing. Every year it hosts The Red Bull Nanshan Open, now considered a top-level slopestyle competition, and attracts snowboarders from around the world with its large cash purse. Otherwise, it has been hosting a series of events called the Nike 6.0 “Five Gates” Jam Series which, “replicates the historic Three Kingdoms story of a captured General and the five gates he had to fight through to return to his rightful home and family – in this case replacing gates with obstacles and battles with jam sessions!” Quite an interesting way of incorporating Chinese history into a snowboarding event. All the same, it is bringing more and more snowboarders out to Nanshan and helping pave the way for yet another extreme sport in China. I predict we will be seeing many more visits like Shawn White’s during the Air & Style competition in the coming years. These photos were taken at the first Nike 6.0 “Five Gates” Jam Series event entitled The Ledge. There are still two more events left on February 12 and 26 at Nanshan. Catch a bus and head for the hills.

Gum Bleed just released a new EP, No War But Class War, on October 15. The evening also celebrated their fifth year anniversary as a band. Gum Bleed are, “the youngest and most revolutionary street punx in People’s Republic of China,” according to their website. The lead singer rocks a hardcore, deep-throated growl as he expounds on the problems of the working class and the socioeconomic excesses of a now globalized China. It’s hard to discern what he is singing on stage, but the lyrics are incendiary to say the least. I don’t usually see punk bands openly publicize such lyrical discontent to this extent. On the website they also post separate links to a host of both international (Myspace, iTunes, YouTube) and domestic (Douban, Youku, Renren) media sites – very savvy. Buy some of their badass t-shirts which are also on sale. Here is to another five years of fighting the system. Onward and upward with Gum Bleed!

I attended the Baby Dragon Skateboarding Competition finals in Hangzhou last weekend. Sponsored by the government and major international clothing brands, the national contest sought to raise awareness for the sport and develop better skills amongst China’s practitioners. Han Minjie, often considered the godfather of China’s skateboarding community, estimates that there are only 40,000 to 50,000 active skateboarders in China. Still, urban street culture is on the rise and considerably more rebellious youth are looking to skateboarding and the tight-knit circle of friends the sport engenders as a social outlet. Lots of pundits also tie the rise of skateboarding to hip hop which continues to be a burgeoning musical form in China. The biggest development for skateboarding in Beijing, however, was the opening of the Woodward skate park on the outskirts of Beijing this summer. Although its facilities are top notch, it still remains to be scene if it will work economically. Some skateboarding insiders in Beijing feel that the money would have been better spent building smaller skate parks closer to the city center. Be sure to check out KickerClub, Skatehere and Funboxx for more information on skateboarding in China. The skateboarders pictured above were Baby Dragon Skateboarding Competition finalists while the three below were female skateboarders participating in the open sessions that also take place during the contest.

Two of my favorite rocker outfits are now working out of Shanghai. Duck Fight Goose, led by Miniless Records founder Han Han, and Booji are playing amazing concerts of their self-styled Death Ray Rock. Let it be known: Duck Fight Goose and Booji are officially killing it. Check out Dan Shapiro’s post on CNNGo for more information and other interesting facts.

What could be naively described as a hipster transformation is taking place in Beijing. Although some may only dress the part, others are the first in China to truly embrace alternative lifestyles that fly in the face of social conformity so desperately imposed by the Chinese state. Whether shopping at second-hand clothing stores, scouring the Internet for fringe media, pursuing careers in the arts and generally rejecting the popular molds of their communist past, these youth are seeking to stand out from the masses. This increasing tendency toward individualism coupled with newfound online forums for self-expression is one the cornerstones of China’s emerging civil society and often comes with a social stigma that is hard to imagine outside of China. Many don’t wish to participate in a largely vacuous and unsustainable consumer culture taking hold of the country. While they might not brazenly attack the government, their embracement of such a lifestyle is a powerful statement in and of itself. The biggest congregations now occur at major music festivals sprouting up all over the country. All of these portraits were taken at the 2010 MIDI Music Festival.