About KL Chinatown Festival 2024

KL Chinatown Festival 2024 is an exciting celebration of Malaysia's rich cultural heritage, uniting tradition and innovation. Transforming Chinatown into a vibrant cultural hub from 29 November to 1 December, this 3-day festival, led by the Lou Kai Association, showcases the area's historical sites and creative spaces through a dynamic blend of music, arts, markets, and cultural experiences. 

With the theme “Together Gather,” the festival highlights local talents while fostering community engagement and celebrating the unique tapestry of cultures that define the city. By revitalizing key landmarks like REXKL, Jalan Sultan, and Lorong Panggung, the KL Chinatown Festival honors cultural diversity and community heritage through contemporary arts and music, all while paying homage to cherished traditions. There’s something for everyone to enjoy! 

Mr Fong’s Fantasy introduces Shelhiel as well as his alter ego, Mr Fong as a captivating & celestial presence, which seamlessly enhances the depth of his pre-existing artistic identity & creative expression. This party experience will delve deeper into his world, emphasizing intricate details through a blend of fashion, carefully designed sets, and music.

This dream fantasy lineup of DJ Love (pioneer of the budots genre), obese.dogma777 (Boiler Room with Manila Community Radio), Shelhiel (Eastern Margins), Mulan Theory, Lil Asian Thiccie & Core Values is a fresh perspective for the KL electronic music scene as it captivates the juxtaposition of the past & the future, east & the west, post-colonialism Southeast Asian genres of budots, funkot, manyao, vinahouse & dugem dangkut tiktokcore, as well as well known hyperpop, techno & familiar bass genres. This might be the freshest electronic music lineup KL could ask for: most interesting meet up point of the electronic music purists & tourists of Malaysia, the most truly Asia.

Shelhiel

Shelhiel is the genre-bending multidisciplinary artist making waves in the region’s burgeoning English and Mandarin electronic pop scenes. Hailing from Malaysia, Shelhiel’s music and distinct artistic genius has taken him across Southeast Asia & beyond.

DJ Love (Eastern Margins)

Sherwin Calumpang Tuna, professionally known as DJ Love, is a trailblazing Filipino music producer from Davao City. Globally renowned for cultivating the electronic dance sound ‘Budots’ native to the Filipino archipelago’s region, DJ Love co-founded the Camusboyz budots dance group in 2004 which helped catapult the genre’s exponential movement in the early 2000s. His productions have been showcased on national television in the Philippines as well as broadcasted to his global following of 180k+ YouTube subscribers. Recent highlights include being featured on his debut Boiler Room in 2023 as part of the Manila Community Radio broadcast, celebrating an exploration of Filipino maximalism through a diverse range of local talent.

Obese.Dogma777 (Eastern Margins)

Jorge Juan B. Wieneke V is a producer, musician, artist, educator and DJ from Manila, Philippines who has founded several cultural and community platforms including BuwanBuwan (est. 2012), a collective, community and label for hybrid electronic musicians; Cosmic Sonic Arts (est. 2016), a non-traditional electronic music mentorship program and school that focuses on music as a means of self-discovery and meditation, Manila Community Radio, an independent non-profit non-commercial internet radio platform “created by the community for the community”.

Core Values

Frenzied kicks. Ricocheting whirs of a pocket-sized synthesizer. High, high energy... and a bit (or maybe a lot) of manyao. Pure catharsis. Core Values is a collective consisting of members Cumboard, dwnld, ambii, and Oil Boy, driven by a DIY spirit and a shared love of genre-outing—a philosophy that has seen them through self-organised parties in their native Kuala Lumpur, sharing lineups with names like Endgame and Bulma, and on tours in Southeast Asia.

Mulan Theory

Mulan Theory is a versatile music producer, anti-DJ, and goofy ahh enthusiast who doesn’t take themself too seriously when it comes to exploiting sounds that incites a whole bag of mixed feelings upon an unknowing audience, leaving them loving or hating it like a durian.

Mulan is also part of Kerabu Komplex, a music collective that organizes anikura-adjacent parties which encompass all things internet, bass music, memes, and anime. Declaring death to genres, Mulan frequently experiments at the edges of the surreal in their own production and live performance, disrupting people’s perception of the modern music maker.

What to expect for those who wanna put Mulan in a box: hyperpoop, ads, religion, BASS, trailer, soundtrack, orchestral, AI, local slang, disrespectful transitions, stripshow, Hokkien trauma.

Lil Asian Thicie 

Powered on infectious hooks and eclectic (even, erratic) genre switch ups, Lil Asian Thiccie; Kuala Lumpur-based singer-rapper-songwriter-overall-Dope-Person, has earned a spot in the forefront of the Malaysian urban music scene. With a growing catalogue teasing trap, pop, and everything electronica in between; her tongue-in-cheek lyrics and barefaced delivery marks a distinct sonic purrrson-uh! Having established herself as a one-of-one female hip hop starlet in 2018 to her pop-empowered revolution in 2021, Lil Asian Thiccie finds her balance between eras towards defining a trademark Gen-Lil Asian Thiccie sound.