THE SONG "I AM A BBC" HEATS ON YOUTUBE: British Borned Chinese rapper strikes back the discrimination
By Phil Yang Published: 00:52, 19 May 2014 Edit By Cindy ChenArt Editor Lisi Liu
British born Chinese Thomas Lai is currently leading a double life. By ‘day’ he is a busy Chinese takeaway deliver. When night falls, he turns to be a rap artist who is busy penning lyrics to new rap songs. His latest song “I am BBC” now get heat on YouTube, especially widely spread among the BBC groups.
Lai is receiving interview by BBC Radio Manchester
In 1972, Lai’s parents moved to UK from Hong Kong. The early years for their parents are difficult to make a living. So Lai wrote a song to show his love to his parents. Within his song, he sings that he will return his love to his father and mother in the future.
His spend most of his childhood to help parents in the Chinese takeaway, which contribute his final career to managing a Chinese takeaway.
But the biggest difficulty is not only the survival problems, but also the confusion of personal identity and racism.
“I’m deemed a foreigner in the UK and I’m also deemed a foreigner in Hong Kong. So where do we belong? There is a little bit of an identity crisis because we are both British and Chinese.”
The identity problems bothered him from his childhood to adulthood, which stimulates him to write the song “I am BBC”.
Unlike the negative and contemptuous attitude towards personal identity, he shows himself as a BBC bravely and proundly. Different from the violent and aggressive rap song, he sings the BBC’s normal life in a peaceful way.
The video of “I am BBC” got 40,000 viewers within months, which sooner gains resonance from those British Bored Chinese.
In the interview of BBC, Lai says “it is quite surprising why BBC artists haven’t managed to make their mark on the UK music industry yet. I say YET, because I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time. As for BB’s is getting into the HK music industry? I’ll work on it!”