‘We’re trying to connect’: black hip hop artists in Hong Kong reach out to home-grown acts through their events company
- Hong Kong’s small hip hop scene wasn’t easy to crack for non-Cantonese speakers before Wesley Jamison and Christopher Onoja founded Mama Told Me in 2017
- The events company has since put on more than 30 shows, and Jamison says they are trying to collaborate with as many Hong Kong hip hop artists as possible
When they started performing in Hong Kong more than eight years ago, R&B singer Wesley Jamison and rapper Christopher Onoja quickly became tired of being booked in places where they didn’t belong.
“Before the 2019 protests, the hip hop scene was really small,” Jamison says. “When we started, the only people that would book us would put us between a set of reggae and drum ’n’ bass. There was no space for us to perform and exist.”
Being black artists and part of the non-Cantonese-speaking community further limited their opportunities on the Hong Kong music scene.
That is why, in 2017, the pair created Mama Told Me, an event organising company. Its goal is to uplift the Hong Kong hip-hop scene through live concerts, and to share knowledge of the rich culture behind the music genre on an English-language platform.
Since its launch, the company has organised more than 30 shows, live and online.
