Dominating Hong Kong's Hip Hop Scene with Homegrown Rapper Jiggie Boy

Hong Kong’s homegrown rapper Jiggie Boy (JB) takes after his father, a former musician who emigrated to the city in the 1980s, as inspiration for a rap career that has taken the local hip hop scene by storm in the past four years.

“Filipinos love the energy of music,” JB explains to The Beat Asia, “we trust the power of music more than people, a source of entertainment in Hong Kong.”

Growing up in Hong Kong as a fluent Cantonese speaker with a strong Filipino and Tagalog identity at home, JB brought the energies and vibrations from his father to forge a career of his own.

A figure on the dancing scene for more than a decade, street culture has remained important to the rapper, leading the Hong Konger to create tunes and raps to pair with his footwork tricks.

JB entered the music only five years ago in 2018, a relative newcomer, after becoming popular at street shows, where he would pair instrumentals with self-written lyrics, cyphering with other rappers.

A song JB dropped in January 2019 titled ‘潮共’, inspired by his former days at a streetwear store in Mong Kok before his rapping days, garnered 6 million views on YouTube with his sharp shot music video.

It immediately catapulted him into a local fervour that has lasted over half a decade, earning him the accolades of Artist of the Year, Best Male Artist, Best Live Performer, and Best Hip Hop Artist at Whats Good Music Awards 2022.

In previous takes of JB, critics and fans are eager to focus on his clashing identity of Filipino and Cantonese, highlighting his figure as a Filipino rapper that raps fluently in the local dialect. “For me,” he explains, “I want people to focus on my music, rather than saying, he’s a Filipino guy and raps in Canto, that’s dope.”

“I am just a guy who makes music here. You don't have to focus on whether I am a Filipino or not.”

JB tells The Beat Asia that growing up in Hong Kong that "Filipinos here think I don’t look Filipino enough. Hong Kongers think I look like a Filipino because of how I carry myself, but I am not Hong Kong enough.”

In 2023, the rapper wants to build off the boom of local rap and hip hop catalysed by shut borders during the pandemic in Hong Kong, to bring Cantonese lyricism international, with his label Greytone Music alongside rappers in his path.

“I hope I can show the people who want to rap to after me the path to make it big and become known in Hong Kong. I'm walking the path for them to show how you can make a living and a name.”

“If you want to be a rapper in Hong Kong, you got to have something to say or a message. Rap is not just hard music and rhyming, because many rappers focus too much on rhythm and the beat, but there’s no message.”

Lyrically-inspired by Eminem and Mac Miller, and dressed like ASAP Rocky and Lil Wayne, in his own words, JB is eager to reap the recent success of rapping at the Coloratura Music Fest with Korean-American rapper Keith Ape to work overseas and export Cantonese rap.

“I want to work with international rappers, get features and bring them to Hong Kong stages, and they can bring me to their stages. Me and Greytone want to bring Hong Kong rap music to different audiences. It’s different and unique.”

This interview was edited for length and clarity.