The Works：Kingsley Ng's After the Deluge, Hebru Brantley's "Flyboy" & in the studio: The Majestic G

Water has often been an issue for Hong Kong. We’ve had water rationing. We have to buy much of it from the mainland. We’ve built desalination plants that proved largely uneconomical to ensure we have enough to drink. And yet, at other times, thanks to rainstorms and typhoons, we have just too much of the stuff. After severe floods in Mong Kok in 1997 and 1998, the government constructed a massive underground stormwater storage tank at Tai Hang Tung to drain some of that excess water away. Until the end of this month, the 100,000 cubic metre underground storage tank, Hong Kong’s first, has become a venue for an art installation.
Street artist Hebru Brantley creates characters that tell stories around themes such as nostalgia, the psyche, power and hope. He’s influenced by the AfriCOBRA movement, a collective of African American visual artists that came together in Chicago in 1968 to explore and define the black visual aesthetic. Brantley uses murals and graffiti to explore his own experiences, and paints with an array of media ranging from oils, acrylic paints, watercolours and spray paints to coffee and tea. His character, “Fly Boy” is currently featured in a pop-up exhibition “Lord of the Flys” in La Galerie.
麟角樂團, the Chinese name of the seven-piece band, the Majestic G, refers to the horn of the qilin, a mythical Chinese beast that is believed to appear to herald the arrival of a particularly benevolent leader or wise scholar. Band leader CM Groovy says his aim with the band was to bring together a group of individuals to create something larger than the sum of its parts. Not only does its name refer to a mythical beast, the band, which plays funk music, is unusual in incorporating a traditional Chinese woodwind instrument, the suona, often used in Taoist funeral processions. Other somewhat less unusual elements include trombone, bass guitar, electric guitar, drums, keyboard and vocals. Majestic G is here with Billy from our sister programme藝坊星期天.