ABSTRACT
Introduction: Th e Arrival of Hip Hop onto the Music Scene in Hong Kong
Th e music scene in Hong Kong has been dominated by Cantopop (Cantonese pop songs) since the mid-1970s. Th e early prominent Cantopop lyricists and singers such as Sam Hui were legendary in laying the foundation of the genre and the tradition of the lyrical styles which appeal to the masses through the rise of local Cantonese cinema and television. With easy-listening melody and simple lyrics about ordinary working-class people’s plight, Sam Hui’ s music and lyrical style marked the genesis of a new popular music form in Hong Kong, known as Cantopop (Erni, 2007). Cantopop has arisen as an indigenous music genre that the majority of Hong Kong people identity with. It has served as “a strategic cultural form to delineate a local identity, vis-à-vis the old British colonial and mainland Chinese identities” (McIntyre, Cheng, & Zhang, 2002, p. 217).
