BROWN, BLACK, YELLOW, WHITE: FILIPINO MUSICIANSHIP IN HONG KONG AND THEIR HYBRIDIZED SOCIABILITY

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of hybridity as one manifested in the everyday experiences of migrant Filipino musicians in Hong Kong, with a particular emphasis on their differences in a dialectic of the self and other as mobilised in performance, and, as a continuum woven into their racial colour and various social statuses. Where hybridity in music is the concern, most studies focus on hybridity as a matter of aesthetics, while in nonmusical areas, hybridity is addressed in the context of the relationship between colonized and colonizer during western imperialism, and between migrant and host in the contemporary age. This article combines these two areas: it will briefly include, but also move beyond the concern with aesthetics and propose hybridity through the cultural analysis of musical performance more as a form of social action resulting from colonialism, neocolonialism and transnationalism.