Lesson 3: Beijing 2 NY Part 1
In the next two lessons you will be learning eight lines from the song "Beijing 2 NY" by Young Kin.
Young Kin is half Swiss and half Chinese, and he grew up in Beijing. Like most hip hop music in Mainland China, Young Kin's music is underground, and not easily accessible through Chinese internet. Nevertheless, he has fast-growing reputation in the underground hip hop scenes of Shanghai and Beijing.
This song is a homage to New York hip hop, as it samples instrumentals from three famous songs from New York Hip Hop artists. With no chorus, Young Kin "freestyles" about various subjects related to philosophy and Chinese culture. His lyrics are highly critical of Chinese media, politics and modern society, which is why he will always be an underground rapper.
Note that, unlike the rest of the songs we will learn in this course, this song is NOT 100% tonally consistent. I chose this song because the tones are largely subdued, allowing you to focus more on the sounds and syllables that you learned in the Sound System Primer.
Even though you may not understand what these lyrics mean, listening to this song repeatedly will help your brain lock in on the nuances of these syllables and develop your ability to "parse" Mandarin speech. We will correct the tones for this song after this Unit in Tone Bootcamp.
Young Kin is half Swiss and half Chinese, and he grew up in Beijing. Like most hip hop music in Mainland China, Young Kin's music is underground, and not easily accessible through Chinese internet. Nevertheless, he has fast-growing reputation in the underground hip hop scenes of Shanghai and Beijing.
This song is a homage to New York hip hop, as it samples instrumentals from three famous songs from New York Hip Hop artists. With no chorus, Young Kin "freestyles" about various subjects related to philosophy and Chinese culture. His lyrics are highly critical of Chinese media, politics and modern society, which is why he will always be an underground rapper.
Note that, unlike the rest of the songs we will learn in this course, this song is NOT 100% tonally consistent. I chose this song because the tones are largely subdued, allowing you to focus more on the sounds and syllables that you learned in the Sound System Primer.
Even though you may not understand what these lyrics mean, listening to this song repeatedly will help your brain lock in on the nuances of these syllables and develop your ability to "parse" Mandarin speech. We will correct the tones for this song after this Unit in Tone Bootcamp.
