January 25, 2021
Malaysian Chinese rapper Dato’ Maw is going against the grain with a new and hyper-localised spin on hip hop that he defines as “Cina Music”.
Courtesy of Dato’ Maw
Hip-hop music has come a long way since its 1970s inception in New York in the United States.
The genre has, since it became a globalised art form, spread to Southeast Asia, including Malaysia – where it exploded in the late 1990s.
Malaysian hip hop became popular when pioneering Malay rapper duo Too Phat, who alternated lyrics in English and Malay, started airing on national radio in 1999. Their second album “Plan B”, which came out in 2001, went on to sell 4.5 million copies.