The talk of the day has been Mark Griffith and Andrew Dougherty’s brilliant music video Beijing State of Mind, a tribute to this city of ours, set to the beat of Jay-Z’s famous homage to New York. The Brooklyn native’s Empire State of Mind has, of course, inspired countless spin-offs, about Chinese cities other than Beijing, too.
In fact, there was one just last week by the folks at NMA TV, which we encountered over the weekend (had it all set to go for tonight’s links edition, actually). It’s not bad, but, um — how do I put this nicely? — it’s about Taiwan. No offense to those of you who prefer Taipei over Beijing, but obviously we don’t. The video is embedded below, and here’s the webpage on which you’ll find lyrics.
Another Empire State of Mind parody, also pretty good, is about FC Guo’an, our hometown soccer team. (Dougherty sort of dissed them in his version: “Catch me wid my boys at Gongti at a Guo’an game // I made the Guo’an shirt more famous than the Guo’an can.”) This one was written by local rapper Nasty Ray, who performs in Chinese. Wild East Football has the story for you (with a hat tip to the commenter on the Griffith/Dougherty post). Youku video here.
And finally, here’s “Beijing State of Mind” by Iron Mike and Up, with footage from 2011. It has nothing to do with Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind, actually. The song used is Ray Charles’s “Mess Around.” Youku video here.
ROLLING UPDATES: There are, obviously, more Empire State of Mind parodies out there, and if you know of any, send em along, or leave a comment like kgincq did. Here’s a song about that “mountain city where dreams are made of” (“there’s nothing you can’t see…”), Chongqing:
(More info about the song here. And here’s a live performance.)
Here’s Hong Kong State of Mind, aka SAR State of Mind (pick one and stick with it, fellas), with credits to Soo Jin Koh, Shao Ong, Simon Li, Charity Battad, and Brandon Koh.
chongqing state of mind was made over a year ago and performed live many times around chongqing. look it up
Whatever happens, Ai Weiwei must never be told that there’s a meme out there he hasn’t milked for attention.
Taiwan State of Mind winning the votes. Ouch! How democracy hurts when you’re not used to it. . .
Hands up for the girls in Taipei city indeed!
And fists up for lippy slags like Peng Shuai!
Now cook me some fucking eggs – yo!
There is also this HK entry from 2011, but it’s pretty underwhelming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEk2CoyJV9E
And another entry from Beijing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXu2TSybWV8