Rhythm and Renewal: Hip-Hop, Motherfunk and Keelung’s Revitalization

Hip-Hop Culture in Keelung

During the day, Huilong Market  is a quiet place with a few vendors selling fresh fish, vegetables and fruit. Its bustling heyday of heavy foot traffic with a constant stream of customers are memories to the mostly older generation of stall owners who now pass much of their time sitting and talking with one another. But on certain nights of the week, Huilong Market comes alive when Motherfunk, a bar and community space for local hip-hop culture turns on its neon lights, slides up the stall doors, and lines the nearby hallway with tables and chairs for patrons.

The origins of Motherfunk

Motherfunk, which opened in early 2024, is just the latest manifestation of a series of projects that have promoted hip-hop’s rap and dance culture in Keelung. The group behind Motherfunk formed organically as a collective whose members were all engaged in the city’s hip-hop scene. Many of the members grew up in Keelung and have been interested in hip-hop culture since they were teenagers.

Starting sometime in the 2010s, they would often meet in front of the Keelung Cultural Center, as the large entranceway provided a setback space with a roof that also had mirrored walls so the dancers could monitor themselves as they learned and practiced. The city’s main Cultural Center also made sense as a hub to promote hip-hop culture, but somewhat ironically the local government did not always agree. Though the members felt they had a positive impact with their presence, the city eventually prohibited them from practicing in the space, which led to the search for their own space.

Forming Keelung hip-hop cultural association

By 2016, many of those involved officially formed the Keelung Hip-Hop Cultural Association, and they started to put on their first events in the area around the Harbor. They began conducting educational and outreach in coordination with the local government shortly after that, and have been steadily building a community rooted in hip-hop’s aesthetics and ideals. In 2019, the acquired a studio space for practicing and performing in the upper floor of the market which opened in 2020, which the association still runs along with the bar on the ground floor.

Huilong Market as a hub

Huilong Market provided the Association’s crew members with a central location in Keelung, but it was also a welcome innovative concept for the market. While it might seem like a clash with the older generation of vendors, many stall owners were excited to have something new in the market hall. Motherfunk was eagerly invited into Huilong Market, with the hope of bringing young energy into the space. It’s joined by other ventures, such as Keelung for a Walk’s Memory Market (雨都好室).

Building a deeper understand of hip-hop culture’s role in urban areas

Wei Lin: one of the core members of the association who feels a deep connection with Keelung, his hometown, and hip-hop culture.

Wei Lin remembers his involvement starting as early as 12, when he met his friend Max who shared his passion for hip-hop. Wei started to learn how to make beats and DJ, while Max developed his skills as a hip-hop dancer. After they graduated from high school, Max started to mentor younger kids, such as Jack, who is not an active member of the association. “That’s how this whole thing started,” Wei recalls.

Wei Lin’s Master’s Thesis: The core values of city and hip-hop

Things began to develop more formally after Wei and the original members graduated from university. Simultaneously with developing the programs of the association, Wei also earned a master’s in urban planning by studying Keelung’s history as a port city. “In the 1970s, this city was one of the biggest ports in the world. In terms of the amount of trade, it was the seventh busiest port.”

Wei chose to study more about the city’s development in the post-industrial era, focusing on the emergence of hip-hop in Taiwan while traditional industries were in decline. The studies were personal to Wei, as he grew up knowing the city’s more prosperous days were behind it. In his memories, Keelung was a place without opportunities for the youth, and as a result many teenagers turned to drugs and gang culture, especially for kids from working class backgrounds.

Building on social movement, hip-hop helps build engaged citizens

Jack: a break dancer in the association who was born in Taipei, but he grew up in Keelung from the age of six.

For all those involved, there is a clear passion for enriching the cultural life of Keeling. For Jack, Keelung is his hometown, even if he has to travel to the capital for work at time. He feels that there is more possibility to make an impact in a place like Keelung. “We can make a difference, even just a small part.”

The influence of Sunflower Student Movement in 2014

Jack cites the Sunflower Student Movement in the spring of 2014 as causing a crucial shift in the mindset and outlook of people throughout Taiwan. After the Kuomintang (KMT) party passed a trade agreement with mainland China without a clause-by-clause review, activists, mainly students, took to the streets and Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan to protest, eventually causing Taiwan to withdraw from the trade agreement.

Young people return to their hometown

“And after that protest, young people around Taiwan started to go back to their hometown to do something different. They want to change the local politics. In Keelung, since 2014 a lot of people came back and started businesses, different kinds of businesses, like handmade cakes or something.”

He feels that people’s ideology started shifting towards some ideal about the city, but Wei is hesitant whether to say it’s all good or bad. “There are some more progressive people who are active, but they also have some special relation or tie with the old politicians as well.”

Negative connotations of hip-hop culture

The members of the association are also not unaware of the many negative connotations hip-hop culture has for many people. “Hip-hop is not the same as you see on television—it’s not about selling drugs and driving nice car, or woman abuse or something. Hip-hop is not like that. That is a commercial product. Hip-hop is a lot more than that, so we are trying to give this information to the young people.”

Hip-hop’s positive impact for youths in Keelung

And he’s seen first-hand the positive impact their activities and outreach can have on Keelung’s youth. He said that many of them come from a working class background,  and as opportunities for jobs have decreased in Keelung, those who become involved with the association realize that if not for hip-hop and break-dancing they realize they might have ended up involved with drugs and gangs.

Many of them have said that hip-hop and break-dancing saved their life…

“Many of them have said that hip-hop and break-dancing saved their life… It’s the same anywhere with hip-hop, isn’t it? It’s often the people that kind of need it the most, that can relate to it, that see it as a bad influence when it’s actually a positive for so many people,” said Wei.

Wei and Jack see Motherfunk as a connection with more people

Wei and Jack see Motherfunk as a way to expand their project and connect with more people in the city. It gives them more visibility while also offering another space to host hip-hop activities.

“One of the main purposes for our space is to have a place for us to hang out. We should be working together to do something and to make this city look different. And also the other reason is that like, out of the central area of the city, there’s no activity at night, actually,” Wei said.

Enjoy various activities in Keelung

“We want to provide some place for young people that’s not so crowded or not so loud, where you can enjoy music or have a conversation with your friends or somebody quietly. And also, we need some place to have our base. Yeah, because we have some, in any activity, that allow us to connect to other groups and organizations and promote our activities.”

Information: 
Huilong Market & Motherfunk

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