F For: Hong Kong Protest Music Vol 1

Description

Published through a kickstarter, F For : Hong Kong Protest Music Zine is a not-for-profit publication project that chronicles the 2019-2020 Hong Kong democratic movement through the music made throughout the protests, in 3 volumes. 

Popular music in Hong Kong is often criticised for being too commercial and lacking in diversity. However, the protest movement has breathed new life into the local music scene. Many amateur and professional musicians alike have made music of different genres to respond to the movement, providing an authentic local perspective to understand the dynamics and nuances of the series of events.

Music has also taken a more political role and become a means to protest. We have witnessed the power of music, be it through performing spectacular singalongs at shopping malls, singing hymns at the police forces, or playing drums at the scenes of protest.

Seeing the extraordinary power of music in the movement, we believe it is of utmost importance that all these musical utterances would not only be well-documented but also receive the recognition and respect they deserve.

Reconstructing the timeline of the events, the project is divided into three books that respectively cover three consecutive periods: the first volume covering the early phase of the protests: June and July of 2019; the second volume covering the most intense phase of the movement: August and September of 2019; and the third volume capturing the remaining events throughout October of 2019 up to the present time.

In the book we use each song to either illustrate an event or elaborate on a protest-related phrase or phenomenon according to its release date or content. Apart from chronicling the movement, the book also contains interviews with musicians. Here is a list of all the musicians featured in volume 1:

• Anthony Wong
• Fang Hung A
• Luna is a Bep
• SquareFruit
• Kevin Kaho Tsui
• J Fung
• Yellow!
• Wong Hin Yan
• Roger Chung

We are a team of nearly twenty volunteers whose professions range from writers to designers and from translators to animators. Most of us were strangers to each other before, but we have come together because we believe in the value of music and want to make a contribution to the democratic movement in Hong Kong.

Initiated by the long-running music website 3C Music, the project has received warm support from the likes of music lovers and players from the creative field. Music platforms, such as glass onion 音樂筆記 and Music and Story, have joined forces. The independent art publisher Small Tune Press is our collaborator on the distribution and production front.

Although our publications are going to be professionally produced, we define our publications as a “zine” project so as to echo with the D.I.Y. ethos embedded in the word zine. This very independent creative ethos is also the driving force that underpins this leaderless pro-democracy movement. It is only fitting that we also use an imaginative approach that is true to the spirit of the movement. This is why we refrain from a traditional journalistic approach that is limited to texts and photos, but instead we use illustrations and the content of the music to illuminate the complexity of the events.