6/10 CNN Talkasia專訪之文字記實(Block A)
Wang Lee Hom Talkasia Transcript
Friday, June 16, 2006 Posted: 0657 GMT (1457 HKT)
LH: Lorraine Hahn
WL: Wang Lee Hom
Block A:
LH: Hello and welcome to Talk Asia, I'm Lorraine Hahn. My guest today is
Taiwanese pop star, Wang Lee Hom.
Born in New York in 1976, Wang grew up in the United States. Blessed with a
mix of brains and talent, he spent his youth performing in local musicals,
then pursued a degree in music at Williams College, followed by a masters
degree from the prestigious Berkley School of Music.
While in university, Wang landed a recording contract in Taiwan. His
breakthrough album, Revolution, garnered rave reviews and firmly established
him as a rising star in the Asian music scene.
In addition to writing and producing his own music, Wang has also dabbled in
movie projects around Asia.
Lee Hom, it's so good to see you! Thank you. (WL: It's great to see you
again.) Thanks for coming in. Your music, a blending of east west. You also
sort of embody this mix. How would you describe your style?
WL: Um, actually I call my style -- and I hope I don't offend any of the
viewers -- but I call it "chinked out."
LH: I'm glad you said it and I didn't.
WL: Well, the "chinked out" style is a school of hip hop - that's the way I
like to think of it - that incorporates Chinese elements and sounds. Uh, I
started it off in my last album called Shangrila. And this album incorporated
the music of ethnic minorities, in China, in Tibet, in Mongolia, Shenzhen.
There's 50 some odd --some people say 54, 55 different ethnic minorities --
tribal music. It's a -- beautiful and original to Chinese culture. And this
new album called Heroes of Earth incorporates Peking Opera and Quen-chu which
are thousand year old traditions that are also unique to Chinese culture.
Very unique instrumentation, costumes, singing styles. And it invigorates hip
hop music. I don't think anyone has ever done this before in hip hop, in the
hip hop world.
LH: Now when you use this so-called "derogatory" racial slur (WL: Yeah) Did
you not think you would offend some people?
WL: Well, I mean this is this is music. (LH: laughs) I'm an artist. I think
I'd rather make people think, and coin new terms, and coin new sounds. You
know, I think that saying this music is chinked out. I don't want to offend
anybody. I want to repossess the word, and this is a word I heard growing up
in New York. It was derogatory at the time. And you know, I hope I can make
it cool.
LH: Right. So you don't mean it in a bad way then.
WL: Definitely not.
LH: Right. Your main influences when you're writing music. What are they?
WL: Well, I've got so many influences. As far as um popular music is
concerned, there'd be people like Stevie Wonder and Prince. Um, Alisha Keys
and Outkast. Missy Elliot. R Kelly. The Neptunes, people like that. And um,
in classical music Leonard Bernstein, Bartok, Stravinsky, you know 20th
century great composers. In Jazz there's the great Jazz pianists -- because I
studied jazz piano as well- like Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett, Kris Tiner,
Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans.
LH: Now I've heard that you carry a PDA all the time with you.
WL: Well, I carry my computer with me everywhere I go.
LH: And you write on it, right away?
WL: Yeah, I write and do all my arrangements on my Mac. And um, I use Logic
Pro, which is a great software program. It's got all these synthesizers,
software since... it's got a whole orchestra inside. (LH: wow.) And actually
I did this whole album, I'd say 90% of it, all the programming, at least, in
my laptop.
LH: Really? (WL: Yeah) On the road?
WL: On the road. On the airplane, in hotels.
LH: So technology is pretty important for somebody like you?
WL: Oh absolutely. Um, I think it makes the music more natural to be able to
incorporate the production just in your every day life. You get an idea, and
you just pull out your computer on the bus, or on the car, or wherever, and
say , "Oh, I'm going to lay down another track," you know. It's just painless.
LH: Your mother tongues isn't Mandarin, right? (WL: no it's not) You had to
learn it as an adult?
WL: Well, I learned it growing up in a Chinese household. But that was in the
States so it was, by far, not fluent at all.
LH: So is it difficult for you to sing and write in mandarin initially?
WL: Initially. But I really I think paid my dues. You know, I studied it. And
I'm still studying it because, colloquially for me, it's not a problem now,
but when you go back and work with Peking Opera and you're looking at the
scripts from, thousand year old scripts, and the way the Chinese language is,
the ancient Chinese is so different than contemporary Chinese. I mean it
would be very hard for your typical Chinese, native speaker, to understand
that either.
LH: Right. But so far, of all you albums, none of them have been sold in
English yet.
WL: I've never really had the urge to make an English album. (LH: Any plans?)
I've done plenty of English singles though... are collaborations with artists
from the States or other countries. I've just had a wonderful time doing
Chinese music, and it's been so rewarding for me. I feel like there's so much
potential in mandarin music, and there's so much, you know, ground left to be
broken.
LH: So that's on the back burner -- an English album -- for the time being.
WL: Yeah. It is, it is. I mean, I love singing in English. And it's a
wonderful language to sing in. Yeah.
LH: But not your preference at the moment.
WL: Not now. I mean, Chinese music is -- I hope everyone gets a chance to
hear what's going on in Chinese music because it's, it is new. And everyone
knows that the Chinese world is exploding and you can watch CNN. You can see
all these news broadcast about the economy, etc. But as far as the music is
concerned, it's the same way. Pop world, pop music, or movies, or etc, you
know. Um, so there's a lot of interesting stuff going on.
LH: Right. You've won a number of awards the sort of Chinese Grammy Awards.
(WL: Right) What do these awards mean to you? Are they important? Are they a
validation of to what you do?
WL: Well. The first time I won, uh like you just said, when I was 22, it
meant a lot to me. It was like...I didn't know I could make this happen, I
didn't know I could get this kind of recognition. So back then, it was a huge
boost of confidence. And I don't want to say ego, but confidence. I think
every artist needs confidence.
LH: Speaking of awards now, you recently, co-hosted the MTV Asia Awards with
Kelly Rowland. (WL: Yeah.) Who was here as well, as I mentioned earlier. (WL:
Yeah, she's such a sweetheart.) I mean any funny, anything happen
interesting, during that time?
WL: That was my first time hosting. And well, I know what pressures a host
has so I really appreciate your job. (LH: Thank you.) Cause, I mean, I'm a
musician because I'm just not a good speaker. You know, ever since I was a
kid, I didn't want to talk to anybody, I just wanted to play my piano or the
violin. So this really forced me to, you know, work on it. And to be able to
read the cues and to read the teleprompter even though I'm not used to doing
that. But Kelly was fantastic. Kelly was so sweet and she's really smart.
Great timing. So she made my job easy.
LH: Lee Hom, we're going to take a very short break. When Talk Asia returns,
we'll talk to Wang Lee Hom about being born in the USA, and life before fame.
Stay with us!
--
那回城的票根 你留做紀念 不必害怕面對離別 ◢◣◢◣
剪掉一束頭髮 讓我放在胸前 走到那裡都有你陪 相隨 ◥██◤
◢◣◢◣ 腦袋都是你 心裡都是你 小小的愛在大城裡好甜蜜 ◥◤
◥██◤ 念的都是你 全部都是你 小小的愛在大城裡只為你傾心
[32m ◥◤ 烏黑的髮尾 盤成一個圈 纏繞所有對你的眷戀
那一種寸步不離的感覺 我知道就叫做永遠 王力宏～大城小愛
--
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