Published
Mon, May 29, 2023, 08:00
- After years of brutal lockdowns and targeted drug raids, the country's underground music scene is suffering.
China's electronic music scene is still reeling from the impacts of the Covid-19 lockdowns and heavy-handed drug raids on clubs and bars.
According to numerous Chinese and China-based DJs, promoters and producers, the effects of the pandemic have caused many departures from a once-thriving scene. This has been compounded by the government's crackdown on illegal drug use, which has seen police raid clubs and bars, drug testing everyone inside and performing random follow-up drug screens on those suspected of associating with recreational users.
MIIIA, a DJ and producer of Chinese heritage who was born in Canada, moved to China in 2008. "Over the past 14 years, I pursued my craft in the vibrant music scene of Shanghai," she told Resident Advisor. "However, recent events prompted me to permanently relocate back to Vancouver just a month ago. The four-month lockdown period last year was a harrowing experience that left me shocked and horrified. Additionally, the drug raids that occurred in recent years were intense and had a detrimental impact on the underground scene and culture. Many DJs, especially foreign-born DJs, have chosen to leave China due to these reasons."
China initially imposed relatively few restrictions in response to Covid-19, though international travel was severely impacted, making it difficult for DJs and producers to tour. In 2020, when most of the world was closing venues and telling people to stay at home, China's bars and clubs stayed open. But all that changed in 2022 when sweeping lockdowns were imposed across major cities, confining many families to their homes for weeks or months and closing all nightlife venues for an indeterminate time.
"The lockdowns were definitely part of the reason I left," said Malaysian-Chinese DJ Tzusing, who moved to Taiwan in early 2023 after 15 years in China. "The lockdowns last year were very intense. We had a hard time securing basic necessities. Even after the lockdown, the daily mandatory Covid-19 tests were also wearing me down, and I wanted to be able to take some gigs outside of China. I had to forfeit some incredible opportunities in 2022 because of the lockdowns."
Tzusing left China just after the lockdowns ended. Around the same time, artist Tianzhuo Chen, who ran the Asian Dope Boys parties, left China for Berlin. "Over the past few years, a lot has happened that's just crushed people's hope," he told RA. "During the pandemic, it was very hard to do any sort of performance art, but also because of increased censorship it looks like it will be harder to do anything in the future, too."
Chen, who is from Beijing, sees Asian Dope Boys as a blend of theatre, performance art and music, bringing avant-garde art out of the galleries and into underground clubs. Now, he worries the concept is no longer welcome in China. "Being an artist, you have to have a place where you feel free to do everything you want and create your own content," he said. "I feel that's going to be difficult now in China."
Last year, Chen curated an album on Shanghai label SVBKVLT, which has been a major force in releasing experimental club music from China. However, at the start of this year, just after the lockdowns were lifted, the label also left China, relocating to the UK.
Even before the pandemic, Chinese authorities had started to clamp down heavily on illegal drug use, conducting raids on bars and clubs in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chengdu and other cities. Some ravers reported being taken away on buses and given urine tests or having samples of their hair snipped and analysed. Chinese clubbers caught with drugs in their systems were given a few days in jail and a fine. Foreigners were either jailed or deported.
This immediately impacted the health of China's nightlife. RA spoke to one DJ who had been based in China for 12 years. After a holiday in Thailand, he was drug tested on the way back and the authorities found traces of weed in his system. "I was initially told it would be a fine, only to find out two weeks later I was being deported," he said. "I already had plans to leave, due to the pandemic lockdowns, but this was the nail in the coffin."
The DJ (who asked to remain anonymous) said that plenty of others from the electronic music scene have left this year, "some immediately after the lockdown and some, like me, soon after that. Local Chinese who have made a name for themselves have travelled abroad to develop and raise their profiles and visibility, but most foreigners have left because of a whole host of other reasons—most notably the lockdowns and the drug crackdown."
It's unclear whether China will continue this strict approach to illegal drug use. In the past, large cities could feel relatively permissive about drug taking, as long as it was done discreetly. Crackdowns on vice are sometimes launched and pursued aggressively before being quietly relaxed, once the Beijing authorities feel they've achieved their purpose.
However, anecdotal evidence heard by RA suggests that Chinese nationals who were caught in previous raids have been re-targeted recently for random drug testing, with police officers either turning up at their doors or detaining them in the street.
That said, not everyone from the electronic scene has fled. In a country of 1.4 billion people, there are plenty who chose to remain to drive the scene forward. Ma Haiping, who has put out music on labels like Axis Records and Cratesavers International under the alias Mhp, is staying put.
"Many DJs and producers around me have left China," he said. "But I have also seen some connections being rebuilt. Some producers have still released music abroad in the past three years. Starting in 2023, some underground clubs in China have started to book international DJs again, although the electronic music environment in China is generally not optimistic."
For Mhp, China cut itself off from the world during the Covid-19 crisis, and this hampered its homegrown electronic music scene.
"Because China shut down almost all international cultural communication during the Covid-19 period, electronic music as a subculture is in a completely closed state," he said. "The Chinese government locked down Shanghai for three months, making people in the scene feel disappointed and doubtful about the future. No electronic music scene can be strong without being connected to the rest of the world."
Photo: Zhou Xian