Hip pop, hooray

Many thought the local hip hop scene would fade with the break-up of homegrown rap-rock outfit LMF in 2003. After all, Hong Kong's first rappers were also its only rappers at the time.

Instead, hip hop has enjoyed a surge in popularity in the city. Rap duo Fama infiltrated mainstream music; American-born rapper MC Jin (Auyeung Jin) made Hong Kong his new home; two former LMF members formed a fresh crew, 24 Herbs, and independent beatmakers have been tapped to inject new rhythms into Canto-pop. Now, LMF have reunited for a series of shows, including two sellout dates last weekend following a gig in Singapore last month.

'The crowd was one of the wildest I've seen in Hong Kong yet,' says concert-goer Cyrus Lo Sai-man.

It's a far cry from the late 1990s when LMF, a 10-man collective formed in 1992 by rockers from groups such as Anodize and Martyr, had to act as their own distributors, driving around town in a beat-up van to hand discs to record shops.

'The hip hop scene has developed significantly in the past few years,' says producer Tan Han Jin, one of the first in the music business to infuse hip hop elements into Canto-pop tunes - most notably in collaborations with Eason Chan Yik-shun and Edison Chen Koon-hei in the early 2000s.

'[MC] Jin coming over to Hong Kong also helped make rap more mainstream. Not only is he a strong performer, but he's positive - which is different from how rap has been stigmatised before.'