Between sets I chatted with concert-goers about the rap lyrics debate. Vinayak Londhe, a 26-year-old manager for Zodiac, a flashy Indian clothing label, was a little surprised he didn’t have to cross a picket line to get into Snoop’s concert. “I was thinking it was going to be controversial,” Londhe said, sporting a chic dress shirt with a black-and-white striped Nehru collar. “People complain about Honey Singh but Snoop Dogg is much bigger.” He chalked up the inconsistency to Snoop rapping in English while Singh raps in an Indian vernacular language that is more accessible to the masses of the subcontinent. When I asked to snap his photo, he obliged, flashing the gangsta hand signal for “West Coast.”
Jackie Chan may have stirred up a maelstrom in the US, but in Asia, he's laughing all the way to the bank. Last month, the 58-year-old action star claimed in an interview that the US is "the most corrupt" country in the world, and argued that Chinese citizens should keep criticisms of their country to themselves.
"If you talk about corruption, the entire world, the America, has no corruption? [It is] the most corrupt in the world," he said in a Dec. 13 broadcast on Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV.
When the comments spread to the American press last week, they sparked widespread controversy.
Yet while the comments aroused indignation in the US, where Chan built his film career, they have done nothing to dent the popularity of his new film, "CZ12" (short for Chinese Zodiac).
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