When I was a youngster growing up in New York
City in the 70s around the time when hip-hop
was invented, these movies, martial arts movies,
Bruce Lee films as well as blaxploitation films
created like a whole new bunch of heroes
for kids in urban areas where we didn’t
often see people of color as the main guy.
So it was a big thing and it was a cool thing
and it’s amazing how 30, 40 years later,
this stuff continues on and on and on ’til
the break of dawn, like we say in hip-hop.
Between hip-hop and kung fu I think there’s
something common.
It’s in the spirit.
In kung fu we put everybody to an equal level
and then combat.
Same as hip-hop so we let everybody join the
battle and to see who’s the best.
From our culture, we don’t encourage, Chinese
culture we don’t encourage kids to express
that much, but in this world everybody is
expressive.
Except for this black one over here, which
is kind of a newer figurative thing that I’m doing
I just use this one particular image
of Bruce Lee which I love and just tried to
use it in crazy ways.
You know a lot of my work now is composed
and I consider what I do kind of like sampling
and remixing as in the way hip-hop inspired
the creation of music.
Hip-hop is worldwide, it’s a worldwide lesson.
We’re all students.
