Hip hop's tie-in to Bruce Lee
Illustrations of Hong Kong's film icon are on display at an art exhibition in New York, a city where rappers can truly relate to his fights against 'the man', writes Ben Sin
July marks the 40th anniversary of the death of perhaps the most famous Hongkonger ever: Bruce Lee. While his influence on this city, its people and cinema, as well as the global martial arts scene is widely recognised - the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, for example, will host a Lee exhibition from July 20 - perhaps lesser known is how the martial arts icon served as an inspiration to early hip-hop culture. That's what an ongoing art exhibition in New York City sets out to explore.
Featuring 12 graffiti-styled illustrations of Lee, "Kung Fu Wildstyle" debuted in Hong Kong last autumn, then made its way to Shanghai to start the year, and is now on exhibit at Lincoln Centre in New York until July 15.
As far as graffiti street cred goes, it'd be hard to top this: the dozen pieces on display were illustrated by Fred Brathwaite, aka Fab Five Freddy, and Chan Kwong-yan, aka MC Yan.
Brathwaite was among the first graffiti artists in New York in the 1970s, a time when what would eventually become the global phenomenon known as hip hop - graffiti, beatboxes, rapping and breakdancing - was merely an obscure subculture in the streets of Brooklyn and the Bronx. Chan is a founding member and chief lyricist of Hong Kong's first rap group, LMF, as well as a major local street artist in the mid-'90s.
