Xinjiang is well known for its vast land and resources, and just one provincial-level administrative region accounts for one-sixth of China's total land area. It is precisely because of this that Xinjiang has always been separated from the mainland in the cultural field. Here, the HipHop culture is not a heretic, and young people in Xinjiang, who are good at singing and dancing, enthusiastically embrace this imported culture.
It is often forgotten that Xinjiang, which lives deep inland, is also a border province, where import and export trade flourishes, and HipHop records are naturally a kind of imported product. Countless audio-visual products entered through the Khorgos port, and children would even pick up broken records to play with as frisbees.
Affected by this, Xinjiang has given birth to many excellent teams in the embryonic period of Chinese rap. Like the veteran rap group Six City, which started in 2003, the hip-hop group DSP can even be traced back to 2000; the 099X, composed of A-Mac and Ma Jun, was also established in 2006. Compared with the "faltering pace" of the rap circle in the same period, the HipHop atmosphere in Xinjiang cannot be described as strong.
The protagonist of our article today also comes from the hot land of HipHop in Xinjiang. In 2002, at the age of 11, he had already begun listening to pure HipHop music; ten years later, he embarked on a journey to the mainland, proving his ability and sticking to the niche music he loved in one talent show after another.
After hiphop culture blossomed all over the country, he was finally free to make his favorite music and became "the most exuberant, psychedelic and magic anesthesiologist in the country". He's Akjan, Aka Akin.
Akjiang, whose real name is Akjan Ayiddin, was born on July 30, 1991 in Kuitun City, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. He can be said to have been born in a standard scholarly family, because Akjiang's parents and grandparents were professors and teachers at Ili Normal College. His grandfather was also a poet, not only working at Ili Publishing House, but also publishing many books.
In people's imagination, most of the children born in Shuxiangmendi should be seedlings who are full of poetry and books and are admitted to good schools step by step, but Akjiang's family is not only excellent in culture and education, but also has an open and inclusive heart. At the age of 11, under the influence of his father and grandfather, he began to be exposed to HipHop music.
It's hard to imagine in mainland families, let alone in 2002. At the time, Akjan's father used his two-month salary to buy a Nissan cassette radio capable of ripping tapes. In addition to listening to Cui Jian, his father also listened to some songs from Kazakhstan, Russia, Europe and the United States, which also influenced Akjiang's musical aesthetic.
It wasn't until later that he found himself more fond of Tao Zhe, whose R&B element made the young Akjiang very fond of him. So Akjan began his own "blind singing and blind editing", and washed many tapes for this purpose.
When Akjan had an idea of these things, he received a tape of Fat Joe and Eminem as a schoolboy, and since then, he has been particularly interested in HipHop.
In addition to Tao Zhe's enlightenment, the one who had the greatest influence on him was Michael Jackson, as well as Cui Jian, NE-YO, Mario, and Babyface. A year later, Akjan, a sixth-grader, created his first R&B original song, "Believe."
At the beginning of 2008, Akjan was invited by the Kazakh channel XJTV-3 to participate in the "Young Singer Performance", and with his partner, he re-adapted the Kazakh folk music "Keyalem Guilty" in the form of R&B, which received praise. Akjiang, who loves music, has not failed to live up to the cultivation of his family, and successfully entered a college, Xinjiang Medical University, majoring in anesthesiology.
Perhaps it was the small achievements in the musical path of his youth that encouraged him, and when he was in college, Akjan devoted almost all of his spare time to music creation, and the most common thing he did in his spare time was to study music theory. At the same time, he also performs with friends in townships and counties or poor villages from time to time.
In February 2010, Akjan did a very hiphop thing: he participated in the "Golden Triangle Hip-hop Challenge" and won the third place in the HipHop group.
In fact, Akjiang began to dance in the middle school and junior high school, but he was born in a small city in Xinjiang and did not get professional teaching, and could only imitate and grope every day on the MJ's VCD disc at home. From wanting to learn any dance style at the beginning, to slowly finding a dance that suits him, Akjan went through a long period of practice, and this experience even made him want to be a B-Boy for a while.
In January 2011, Akjiang, who had just turned 20, released his first solo EP album "Anesthesiologist and His Puppy Kaka", which included two songs including "sad meteor" and "Believe"; on May 7 of the same year, he also won the most popular single of the year at the "Xinjiang Rap Awards" with the song "Believe". In the vast expanse of Xinjiang, the nova HipHop, who has just turned 20, is on the rise.
Compared with rappers who have always loved to stay in Underground, Akjan, who has sufficient stage experience, has not chosen to develop underground, after all, he is also good at R&B and other genres, as an all-round musician, the development potential is huge. As a result, he began to participate in various talent shows frequently from this year. In the same year, he participated in the competition of the Zhejiang Satellite TV talent show "Extraordinary", and finally won the ninth place in the national finals.
Soon, Akjan, a graduate of anesthesiology, will also face the problem of choosing a career. And he seems to have learned anesthesia that cannot be beaten with music, but he has dreamed of becoming a full-time musician since junior high school. In Akjan's view, "you don't have to be a musician in your profession to make music."
He gave some examples: Jack Johnson, a surfer, has a lot of platinum-sold works and has won awards; Luo Dayou, the godfather of Chinese pop music, is a master of dentistry...
In his eyes, music is something that brings joy, not a burden. So he used the anesthesiologist diploma he got from Xinjiang Medical University to music, and his R&B Hip-Hop was like a potion in a syringe, making the audience intoxicated without knowing it. Even, he has maintained the habit of "drinking a little before going on stage" - anesthetizing himself before anesthetizing others.
In 2013, Akjiang chose to participate in the competition of the Hangzhou Singing District of Hunan Satellite TV's talent show "Happy Male Voice", and he finally won the national top 20 results after passing the hurdles. In 2015, he joined Wu Mochou's "Shrimp Mi Post-90s Power Omnipresent Fun Program" and served as the producer of Wu Mochou's personal music album "90".
In June of the same year, after the release of the song "Blue Moon" sung by Akjiang and Wu Moxuan, it attracted a lot of attention. After this, Akjan began working with producer VISUDY and released musical works such as "Give u my tape" and "Seaside Motel". The unique R&B singing method and unique crisp voice are the secret weapons of Akjiang to "anesthetize" many domestic and foreign listeners.
Wu Moxuan came out of the first season of "The Voice of China" and became famous, and Akjiang, who worked with her, naturally chose to try this popular show. In 2016, Akjiang participated in the competition of Zhejiang Satellite TV's "China's New Song".
In this year, many of the contestants later had an inseparable relationship with rap music. In addition to the well-known Jay Chou team general, the low-key group of Yang and Su, and the blind selection stage was eliminated gai, there are also "rap queen" Wan Nida, Bai Jingchen who participated in "Rap Listen to Me". And Akjiang is also among them, he successfully selected the top ten of yu Chengqing's team, which also proves his good strength.
After the draft, he briefly entered the record company's signed singer mode: he got up at six o'clock in the morning to make up and comb his hair, rushed to announce at seven o'clock, gave an interview at nine o'clock, recorded a program at noon until the evening, and held a singer's meeting in the evening... However, Akjan did not like such a life.
He was forced to sing on stage by Dai Mei Hitomi, which made him feel "very unfree", after all, his positioning was never that hanging, so Akjan decisively chose to flee: "I really don't fit to take the route of a regular company packaging records." In this life, I am like this, it is good to stay quietly underground, just do what you like. ”
At the same time, Akjiang, who is wandering in the interior, has also encountered some assumptions or prejudices because of his Kazakh identity. "Asking to perform folk songs" was the most likely "hat-buttoning" and "labeling" behavior he encountered at that time.
Akjan believes that most of the people who make such a request to him do not know much about the characteristics of Kazakh national music, "they think you are a minority, you have to start with folk songs." This both disrespects the person and limits his creative genre.
Akjan firmly believes that ethnic minorities can also sing many languages and types of songs, Chinese, English, rock, R&B, and they should sing whatever they want, and may sing better than many people. He opposes the consumption of his own ethnic group, but does not shy away from his Kazakh identity, he regards his life experience and what he sees and feels in Xinjiang as a nutrient for music creation, and he hopes to find some way to reflect the charm of national music, rather than to use it.
Akjan prefers to hide the Easter egg in the details, turning the elements of ethnic music into a Hidden Track-like treasure hunting game for fans to discover on their own: "Ethnic music is too profound, I respect it very much." I might hide a Kazakh proverb or a folk song in the harmony of a song, but you won't hear it. When my music becomes more mature, when I become stronger, and I can do this thing, I will try to completely integrate the folk music with the music I am doing now. ”
After becoming famous, Akjiang did not fight alone. He set up the label Secret Life, which has friends who play skateboarding, doodles, tattoos, photography, and everyone unites a crew, doing their best, sharing resources, and helping each other. In addition to this studio, he also met Dyoself and joined the "Tianshan Swinger".
Moreover, Akjan is also doing his best to help some children in his hometown. He and his friends made a radio station where the children could vote for the work every week, and then the online voting, the children who won the first place in the work could come to the studio to make a song for free. Every month they would have a party called "Dancing Day", and they would have a party at a Livehouse and bring the kids along.
Since the release of GIVE YOU MY TAPE in late 2015, VISUDY has become a close friend of Akjan. VISUDY graduated from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music with a major in "Music Design and Production" and has held several positions as Producer, Sound Designer and DJ. The combination of retro and futuristic music has made him gain many followers, and has attracted much attention on many streaming media such as Shrimp Mi and NetEase Cloud.
The two met through a friend's introduction in the WeChat group. Once VISUDY came to Shanghai, and he and Akjiang were strangers to each other, and he stayed at Akjiang's house for one night. The two hit it off and talked happily, and then made a song and decided to go side by side. Together, they experienced the HipHop blowout in 2015 and the aftermath of the events in the circle a few years later.
VISUDY believes that he and Akjan are still lucky, "people who eat crabs". According to his recollection, "In 14 or 15 years, there should be no more than 10 music producers in China who were partial to psychedelic, electronic, and Future series, and they did not end up red, but instead the people who came later came out." ”
And Akjiang said, "When I came out with VISUDY for the first song, I can confidently say that we were the first in China." In fact, at that time, we didn't know how to define it, and it was later defined as R&B, but with the Future series of Beats. ”
But for this memory, Akjan's emotions are somewhat complicated—not contrary to his partner's ideas, but Akjiang is strongly aware that because of the inflated inner circle environment, which inevitably mixes fish and dragons and entangled interests, the pure creative blowout has stalled for two years. He said, "I will always have regrets."
At that time, people from all over the world were collaborating on songs, and it seemed that everyone's creative inspiration was erupting at that time. And now who do you want to work with, others will think: where are you going to send it? Is it to be exclusive to any platform? Is there any sponsorship related? Akjan believes that after the show pushed HipHop up, everyone tasted the sweetness and began to perform wildly, but it was not as simple as it was at that time.
In 2017, the show boom swept the country, and Akjan kept some distance from it. He participated in Shrimp Music's "Light Hunt Project", which aims to discover emerging musical talents who are lurking underground and have outstanding abilities. Like the GALI and future star that we are familiar with, they were actually excellent rappers created by the Light Seeking Project. Akjan and VISUDY, under the name of "Artush Surfer Boy", appeared in this year's light-seeking program.
The "members" of Artush Surf Boys include Visudy, a perennial hardcore partner producer in Akjiang, SUSUSU (NOPANGPANG), a musician who specializes in romantic styles, as well as emerging producers Yocho and Eddie Beatz, as well as overseas production force Delf, British producer Harikiri behind the South China hip-hop scene, and Bohan Phoenix, a popular Chinese rapper.
At this time, Akjiang has found the most suitable state of music creation for himself after countless programs and stages: with the R&B style as the base point, Akjiang can adapt to almost any style. Whether it's future, funk or hiphop, he can interpret it in his own way.
As a representative of the domestic neo-soul, Akjiang does not stick to the basic way of creation, with a futuristic composition structure, surging bass and dense melody. It is refreshing to make R&B, Soul, Funk and other styles of music with retro feelings and futuristic expressions.
His sensual and delicate gentle voice and difficult to imitate the transposition skills have made many netizens label his music as "healing", "rioting" and even "making the ears pregnant". Even the 25 answers to the zhihu question "How to evaluate Akjan Aydin", none of which were bad, were affirmations of him in all aspects.
However, Akjiang, who has received so much praise, does not feel that he can become popular on short video platforms such as Douyin. He said: "The qualities you exude determine what kind of music you make, and many things cannot be deliberately forced. I just hope my stuff can bring warmth to everyone. ”
Last year, on Akjan's 28th birthday, he released a documentary about himself, "Down the Current", starting from the daily life of a musician and seeing how a musician spends his daily life. Last year's cooperation with fellow Huang Xu,"The Sound of Wine", also allowed him to enter the vision of more listeners.
In his free time, Akjan often chooses to relax with games. He plays games like GTA, FIFA and The Witcher 3 at home. Akjiang is particularly good at FIFA, and he once participated in a competition held in Shanghai and won the third place in Shanghai of FIFA20.
And he usually plays football in reality, as for playing "GTA", Akjiang is quite comfortable, listening to radio songs and driving around and enjoying the sea view after doing tasks, which is also a beautiful thing.
For now, Akjan is focused on restarting the national tour that was interrupted by the pandemic and was joined by him and VISUDY. For every listener who craves solace in the world of music, listening to the music of Akjan and VISUDY is itself a process of enjoying the work and attaining healing.
Following the album "Heartbreak Boys Club" at the end of last year, Akjiang's new songs "Sad Nipple Syndrome" and "Absurd World Star" were also launched on NetEase Cloud some time ago, and his consistently prolific efficiency also allowed listeners to feast their ears.
Looking to the future, Akjan maintained his usual casualness. He said, "What remains unchanged is my belly, which will change into the state of life." Akjan and VISUDY hope to give new definitions to trends as they follow them. With their poetic creative methods and unique interpretation styles, they must achieve both the musical works themselves and a higher level of themselves...