Reggae music was made popular globally by one musical messenger known as Bob Marley who spoke of Africa and freedom for oppressed people globally, but did you know that the people of Republic of China love Reggae music?
Early Chinese record producers were mostly behind-the-scenes guys, the technicians and distributors.
Meet Long Shen Dao, one of Chinese Top Raggae Band who have won the hearts of many reggae lovers in China.
We can likely thank the latter for the birth of the Chinese mainland’s first-ever reggae band, Longshendao.
Though Chinese immigrants played a well-documented role in the birth of reggae more than 50 years ago, the genre didn’t catch on in the Chinese mainland until 2006, when a handful of seasoned Beijing rockers-turned-dreadheads launched Longshendao (龙神道), a name as cultural as it is hippified that means “the Tao of the dragon god.”
Chinese reggae may seem like an oxymoron, but for nine years, Beijing’s Long Shen Dao has been spreading the good word of Marley and friends.
While their reputation has spread abroad, they’re hitting the road for their longest national tour yet, stopping off at MAO Livehouse on December 18.
However the music from the roots reggae era has continued to spread throughout the world.
Laohan, the lead singer of Kawa.
The band’s music is a blend of Jamaican island rhythms and influences from their own indigenous group.
The name, Kawa, reflects their identity, the Wa, who are dispersed throughout Myanmar, Thailand, and Yunnan, China’s most southwestern province—and its most ethnically diverse.
Kawa and their lead singer, Laohan, whom young fans look up to as their own Bob Marley.Kawa is composed of Wa people, an indigenous group that’s considered a minority in China.
Their claimed ancestral home is a territory that straddles the border between China and Myanmar.
The lead singer Laohan characterized with standard style of Regae was engaged in folk songs of Wa and accumulated the core creative energy in the simple, forceful melody of the Wa nationality.
The connection between Wa folk music and nature, the awe of the world, the joy and freedom of the Wa people all precipitated in the works of Kawa.
Watch video below:
Story by: Mandy Woods
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