With my name is Alicia Cabin Bella E mean Nigeria residents in Beijing, China.

A loving father, businessman, a husband, music lover and, of course, uh, chief representative off the rails.

Since becoming the main mandate off Kadji house in China, African musicians and artists have started making a name for themselves.

Uh, correct.

Something that will bring Chinese people on, uh, Africans here in China together.

I've been in China for more than a decade down.

Of course, there's racism in China, just like you have all over the world.

E faced racism.

The first time I came to China, E found out that it was going to be difficult for for a black man, you know, to get a job most time you send an application, they they're always, like, prefer the whole that raised.

So that's part of racism.

But I didn't let that get to me, you know, because afterwards I met some very beautiful Chinese.

You know, that also assisted me.

It was also Chinese assisted me.

E came China when I was very young, and I think at the beginning, when way got a black people together, authorities want to know they want to find a check or disrupt activities.

It was very, very challenging in about the time.

With the assistance of our authorities.

Yeah, we started getting a bit relieved, e I was just lucky.

I think I was looking at the face so much off racism because I made my wife who is up?

I came to China.

Uh, she showed me the love.

She showed me that Chinese are not just once I've seen you doing good, you know, because of course, I knew that they were going to face a lot off.

Discrimination is cool, so I always make them to know that you're black.

Your father is black from other Chinese.

That's why you're black.

So you have to be confident.

Just know you're beautiful, you know, a very strong Children, so they don't feel intimidated.

If you ask them how they feel, they will tell you that you I'm black.

I'm beautiful.

So I think I'm very strong.

E came to China when I was very young, and I think I've spent, like, the most interesting part of my last one in China.

E I would love to stay in China for as long as I can because I have my family and NGO.

You know everything that has been napping.

Eso ofcourse, the environmental see table.

I would love to China ASL Long as I can't Get down.

Get down, Get down, get down, Get down, everybody, It's m c t moved on.

Grandma Anna, I'm originally an artist from Washington D.

C.

Uh, based in Harlem.

I'm a multimedia artist.

Bilingual rapper raps in English and Mandarin Chinese Thai Chili I.

My work is about bringing forward a whole new internationalist world and way of being where it's not weird for black dude toe rap in Chinese.

I started studying Chinese in high school, have been a lifelong fan of hip hop.

I was a study abroad student.

I got invited to participate in doing a documentary on the hip hop scene there for a show called Sexy Beijing and an episode called Bling Bling in Beijing.

And so this was like the first introduction for a lot of Westerners thio like hip hop, homegrown hip hop scene that was in China.

So Sufi called me up, and I said, Of course, I come all the way from Washington, D.

C.

Chocolate City just to come check out Beijing and see if the hip hop is really, really, really not so really, year after that, I applied for Fulbright Grant Toe really develop this study of hip hop in Beijing and, uh, you know, really embedded myself with a network of, like rappers, DJs with three D writers skaters over the course of a year.

And I found a lot of solace within the hip hop community there, you know, belong to like a culture.

We gotta go break dancing together.

I'm gonna wrap together, You know, they're challenging me and challenging them this and, like, you know, stop rapping in English.

You know, you could wrap in English.

Wrapping Chinese was Plus, we can't understand.

Um, there was a real community around that, and it waas you know, Section six, hip hop cipher 6 4007.

you have a bunch of folks like nasty Ray D J.

Wordy, uh, in sorry in song A lot of these kind of denizens of the old hip hop scene and I was there as a student, I jump up on stage, have a shirt that says, Tim, Bhutan that I got from some tourist trap in green Lane and, you know, start rapping in English and Chinese.

Andi there, you know, folks, audience members start shining out like I'm cheating.

You don t jump shooting team, you don, That's your gender Nintendo, you know, Tell July and from there, like it was really That's really where the moniker and seating you Don came from the mask I actually got in Dolly as part of Found Sound China when I was performing as the artist in C.

T.

Move on, and that really came from kind of being like walking through Disneyland but the main attraction and so grab the mask and started rap and performing that that fish out of water, that would be the experience.

When you get to China, you know you're a foreigner, but then you're also like a black person.

And, you know, you have people like I don't know shit generation.

May Warren Mom, make Bush into my data.

I'm watching.

You know, Americans aren't that dark.

You see this pervasiveness of stereotypes that that's their both negative and positive, like I haven't been stopped in first in China, but I have been walking down the street and, uh, Chinese person turns around and they go like, Oh, you know, And it's like you scared about like, like, you know, why is it shocking to, you know, you know, or what I would even get through my like homies in the hip hop scene was like, Oh, why aren't you?

But aren't you like, from the hood?

Like, why aren't you more like gangster?

You know?

Yeah, Those were the major distinctions where it wasn't the same kind of look over your shoulder fear.

There was those instance off, like people like, generally wondering people who were functioning from that but limited from their framework because of you know, just the pervasiveness of white supremacy and stereotypes.

But it's not like you won't find the same conventions and notions in any country in the world when you look at, like, historical connections between black America and China with like Paul Robeson, you know, introducing chill, I thio audiences in Parliament bound woman raising money for the Chinese Workers Party.

And, you know, Maosheng correspondence with civil rights leaders and delegations from black America to China, right to kinda build this bridge.

And I think a lot of it really does come down to like recognizing this shared history and working together to actually create a vision of the future.

You know, kind of what I was describing.

Like, what would actually revolutionary vision of the future and art and culture looked like that was inclusive.

That was internationalist.

You know, that's really what I see the role of these like idiot, rising and wrap of China.

What they could actually do right now is actually present a whole different vision of what, like Chinese rap, Asian hip hop looks like feels like could be can be about And that's the world that I see myself e venture mayo mean by this we face is the game of death Don't matter if you black, white, yellow need everyone to fight back No second row spectator sport So names um Lucena Ye shi Andi I'm Nigerian, probably 26.

This year I moved to China when I was 16 years old in that school that I was going to number 19 high school exposed.

It was fun being in that school because, you know, I love the teachers.

They taught us a lot about Chinese culture, Chinese history.

I learned about 60% of my Mandarin because you're forced to speak the language.

You ready?

E?

How's that sound?

Okay, E Like they love to tell stories visually then.

So that was how I started Photography e Suppose that was how I got into it properly.

Uh, I'm as I develop my skill, I started taking gigs here and there.

Mostly true.

I'm schoolmates.

Alright, Roll it.

Action.

The bent out say is a za creates a creator in Beijing that I also struggled with is, um collaborators.

It's easy to find Caucasians that I could work with models or actors.

I'm Nigerian, you know?

So you know, just like tell are influenced by my own existence.

So it would be weird for me to store Very I would say a story where the characters obviously black But then it explains a white person or Chinese person e s.

So that's one of the difficulties that I have not having access to enough black people.

Enough Nigerians just to work with e want them to nail it.

E think that's a black trader in China.

That's the biggest thing.

That's the biggest issue that I have.

But as far as myself.

I'm just having access to opportunities for the most part has been pretty good because my team has made a book for Chinese women on and it made the experience or easy for E.

Believe that when when you are in a locality should just surround yourself with locals because that's how you get access into the marketplace, right?

You don't just surround yourself.

Foreign is it's gonna restrict you.

And a lot of times that's what foreigners invading China dio.

I want you guys, like in the shots.

Try to think about what the audience needs to be seen right now.

Okay.

Because when we cut way, need something e on for me, you know?

So you know, I always joke with my friends about being have Chinese because I spent, like, you know, almost half my life in China and all of my adult life in China.

So I definitely feel like, um, that China has raised between to a certain degree, it, um All right, Okay, cut, cut.