“To say I’m happy to be back [in Taipei] would be a colossal understatement,” says Marcus Aurelius, on returning from an eight-month sojourn in Shanghai.
Known to many as a trailblazer in the hip-hop scene here in Taiwan, Aurelius lived in Taipei for 10 years before moving to China’s largest city in September to take up a residency at Volar and play gigs at underground spot Shelter and top nightclub Attica.
A former Vinyl Word writer, Aurelius, 33, is a deejay married to hip-hop, funk and soul, though he’s been known to dabble in dub, dancehall and reggae.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARCUS AURELIUS
He uses the MP3 mixer Serato, a laptop and turntables, which allow him the freedom to mix quickly with up to four tracks on the go at once.
With rapid changeover mixes, Aurelius rarely plays full tracks, which is a style of deejaying born of the Serato. Though some purists are not keen on this form of mixing, preferring to hear longer tracks, Aurelius says, “in a two or three-hour set I can blaze through 200 to 300 songs. We live in a world where people watch TV and work on their laptops with three windows open while at the same time they are chatting to two friends on MSN and playing online poker. My deejay sets reflect this brave new world of overabundance.”
While living in Taipei, Aurlieus had played several gigs in China, and was all set to take the PRC by storm as tourists flooded in for the Olympic.
So why return to Taiwan? “The main reason was visa issues,” says Aurelius. “In China they cracked down on the visas hard. Now every freelancer [artist/DJ/MC/writer] has either left the country or traded in their Doc Martins for teaching shoes because they needed a work visa.”
Digging a little deeper, another reason is discernable. “From the outside, China seems like a tightly controlled country. On the inside, however, there is actually no law,” says Aurelius. “No, that’s not true. There is one law there … ‘get yours’ and not give a ‘funk’ about anyone or anything.”
Aurelius is critical of the prevailing attitudes to performers in China and the reception given to artists, especially musicians. “Beyonce’s DJ
is playing tonight? Someone will hate it because it’s too commercial. Nu-Mark from Jurassic Five will be playing at an underground venue? Nah … they don’t have bottle service there,” says Aurelius.
“On my final day in Shanghai, I wanted to watch the sun go down from my apartment. I could only see a small orange dot over the horizon of construction and smog. Taipei gives me shades of pink, purple and orange burning through the sky.”
“Sometimes you have to leave to know how good we all have it here,” he says of Taipei. “Taiwan’s music scene is always growing. There is a lot of room for different acts. Everyone has their own little circles and we intertwine in various ways.”
Read next week’s Around Town section for news on Aurelius’ upcoming gigs and former Taipei resident Trix, who now lives in Shanghai but is returning for a gig.
ON THE NET: www.myspace.com/djmarcusa
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