Mic-shouting in China and Hong Kong, 1996–2020: Toward Histories of non-Western Local Electronic Dance Music

This chapter documents the cultural origins, dissemination, musical characteristics, and development of mic-shouting (hanmai), a local style of electronic dance music (EDM) that was developed in Hong Kong and China. It also assesses mic-shouting’s local distinctiveness vis-à-vis core Western EDM, cultural hybridity, and positive sociopolitical meanings. The chapter has two theoretical objectives. The first is to help bridge the research gap on non-Western local EDM. Scholars have discovered and discussed local EDM styles in South America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Africa, but rarely those in China. The second objective is to explore the cultural legitimization of non-Western EDM. It finds that this cultural legitimization can proceed through the investigation of the historical development, local distinctiveness, hybridity, and sociopolitical progressiveness of the non-Western EDM style in question. This chapter illustrates that a research program on the histories of local EDM from various cultures, regions, nations, and localities will be fruitful.