Reggae is becoming better understood, more popular, and is even starting to infiltrate popular music in China
When you think about China’s music scene, reggae is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. However, dig just a little beneath the surface, and you’ll find that reggae’s influence runs deep, and its popularity is growing.
China’s three major reggae artists of the last few years have been Kawa, a band from Yunnan province, Beijing’s Long Shen Dao, and Taiwan’s Matzka; each has had success abroad too. But those three major artists no longer monopolize the genre. While reggae was distinctly relegated to the fringes of Chinese music scenes just 10 or 15 years ago, it is now booming and even permeating into mainstream artists’ work. Today, reggae music artists can be found in almost every large city in the country, and the sound of reggae beats can be heard in rap, hip hop, and even pop music listened to by millions.
Bars and clubs hold reggae nights, with mostly local acts taking the stage; artists are incorporating aspects of reggae into their music, and record labels are churning out more reggae music than ever before—including my own label, ChinaMan Yard (CMY), which I founded in 2016 with Beijing-based reggae artists Zulu Bob (who is originally from Antigua and Barbuda, but has been in China since 2009), and Stinging Ray. CMY is dedicated to the reggae genre, and the Chinese artists we’ve signed have enjoyed successes that would have been unheard of just a few years ago, earning tens of thousands of streams worldwide and spots on the Hong Kong iTunes top 200 chart.
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