MV Weekly: Li Daiguo x Rick Parker, j-fever x Chacha, Second Hand Rose

Pipa trombone jazz fusion via a sponge catalog, a theme song to China’s latest high octane comedy, and a soulful hip hop duet. It’s the latest music video session with fresh eye-openers from Li Daiguo and Rick Parker, Second Hand Rose, as well as j-fever and ChaCha.

Dali-based experimental artist Li Daiguo returns in glorious fashion with his latest – a collaboration with Brooklyn-based jazz fusionist Rick Parker entitled Free World Music­. To prep the release the twosome put out a MV for that album’s second track, “Make Way For The Mane Of Spit And Nails”, created by Magdalen Wong. It’s a vibrant, playful, and utterly ridiculous visual tour of the sponges of the world. Think I’ve used about a dozen of these in my time. Hat tip to Josh Feola and Tiny Mix Tapes.

One of Beijing’s liveliest groups, Second Hand Rose, has only been getting more and more exposure into the mainstream since their debut in 2003. And on top of touring in the US and playing in Beijing’s Workers Gymnasium (a feat for any underground rocker in Beijing), the band can add movie soundtrack to their resume as they provide the theme song \’Destiny\’ for the late summer comedy ‘A Busy Night’, directed by Wang Li and starring some familiar faces including Li Jing and Lam Suet (a Johnnie To regular). Extortion, pregnancy, and other elaborate scams and characters get mixed up in hijinks and Second Hand Rose is here to let you know it’s all fate. Let’s hope the band got a nice paycheck.

Two of the hip hop scene’s biggest personas, Beijing based wordsmith j-fever and Shanghai’s own ChaCha (of AM444) join forces and share anecdotes of love and regret on the music video for ‘Flying Disc’ – off of Jadecraft Records’ Strangers in Shanghai – a concept album that gathered some of the hip-hop scene’s most talented lyricists to spit and reminisce about love lost and found in the metropolitan juggernaut. Crisp black and white photography and the words of the lyricists carry the MV.