MV Monday: Li Xia, Xiao Ou, Death to Giants, \’Happy in Beijing\’

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Apple finally decided to stab me in the back and run off with all my most recent video files, so I’ll be spending most of this week digging through my hard drive to retrieve said videos – good times. Anywho, don’t let that stop you from enjoying these music videos which reside safely on the interwebz including a stellar performance from Nuceus frontman Li Xia, a loving ode to the Family Mart courtesy of Death to Giants, Beijing via Norway rapper Xiao Ou’s tour preview, and the delightful viral hit of Beijingers staying ‘Happy’ amongst suffocating smog. Check it.

That’s a geek heavy moment if I ever saw one – Dos Kolegas royalty Li Xia, lead singer of grunge outfit Nucleus and folk ensemble Li Dong got his shot at the big times recently, appearing on the Chinese version of The Voice (how many of these shows do they have in China?), Sing My Song. Performing ‘Midnight Express’, it’s a great showcase for Li Xia who absolutely kills it – just look at those judges’ faces, they can barely contain my enthusiasm. As BeijingDaze states, this is gonna push Li Xia and company to sure stardom, perfect timing as Dos Kolegas opens its doors open again. Between this and Menba minority folk singer Yunggiema reached second place last year on Chinese Idol, it’s great to see local talent achieving mainstream success.

Last week I spoke highly Death to Giants’ swan song ‘Family Mart Anthem’ mainly on the basis that shoving beer cans galore into my pockets before hitting up some of the pricier venues in town (you know who you are) is my life in a nutshell. Now the death pop duo have released an accompanying video which pretty much plays out like an extended promo for Family Mart themselves, so I can only assume these guys are rolling in royalties right now. Watch as a bunch of Shanghainese prance around the convenient store. Vimeo for you kids outside of China.

Norwegian, Beijing-based rapper Xiao Ou has returned to the winter wasteland that is Beijing from what I presume a much colder winter wasteland – either way, he’s ready to get his China tour on and he’s got the video to let all the young wordsmiths out there know where at. He’ll be joined by DJ Peewee who looks nothing like the Peewee I grew up with. Nevertheless, looks like it’ll be a pretty wild time . Check out the complete list here – the tour swings through Beijing March 29th at the Old What? Bar. Props.

Lastly, I couldn’t avoid mentioning the viral craze ‘Happy in Beijing’ that’s been swarming the other English-language platforms about town (or I just ran out of other videos, you be the judge)  – a vignette of Beijingers smiling and dancing set to the super duper catchy Pharrell Williams song ‘Happy’. It’s pretty dang cute, chalk full of cameos from local scenesters (hey, it’s that crazy hot pants wearing Swede who lived at my place for a total of two weeks) and big ol’ smiles. It’s pretty damn infectious though not everyone is taken by the video such as TimeOut writer Jared Cline who proposes a different take on the song. You feel the love Beijingers?

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