Meet Black Panther
Many of you would have heard of Wong Fei and her ex-husband, Dou-wei, and possibly think what a bastard he was for cheating on the Canto-Pop queen. But many of you would not have known of the vocalist Dou wei’s rock band from China.
Meet Black Panther, known in China as 黑豹. Formed in 1987, Black Panther has gone through 20 years of music in China, with some of its original members leaving and newer bloods coming in.
Perhaps many would have think twice before enrolling Black Panther as Rock and Roll genre. Going through a series of events in history, the rock and roll music scene in China is unique in its content socially and culturally. Rock music entered China in the 80s, just right after then cultural revolution ended, creating a regeneration of music in China. Many of its artists were affected by the oppression by the communists, and needed a new voice out.
Some would have considered China rock music is commercialised, running along the red agenda of the government’s voice.
But this is what the band said, in accordance to such a statement, during an interview in a concert called “The Sky of Peace“, a concert commemorating 60 years after World War II ended:
Rock band Heibao (Black Panther) said: “Many people think that to be a rocker, you have to be scruffy, long haired and semi-hysterical. That’s wrong. Rock has many forms. Red rock is not a yielding to commercialism, it is just the theme of this certain concert.”
And no, even though most of the rock bands in China love their country, the government find it hard to digest their genre and choice of music, hence rock music in China is not easily deemed as politically correct or within the safety zone of public security for China.
CRIonline has a special issue covering Hei Bao here. It’s good to read if you want to know how their music had changed throughout these twenty years.
And if you want to see how they looked like over the years, peekaboo here at Gizhou.
I will end off with a music mtv found in Youtube by them. Enjoy and try not to laugh too hard, the music video was long time back, where having long hair and wearing tight leather pants were consider devilish and ice-melting hot!
Singaporean, eh don’t pway pway. Black Panther was in Singapore performing and they got fans in Singapore too! Read the article in Chinese on how Black Panther got into our Lion City for a performance in 2004.
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