Tonight the Speakeasy Bar will hold a CD release party for the Battle of the Year (BOTY) Soundtrack 2009, which was put together by DJ DSK and Sam Debell of Unity Recordings. In addition to being a CD release party, tonight's do will also be a farewell party for Debell, who has been an integral part of the Kunming music scene for as long as we can remember and is moving to Beijing.

GoKunming chatted with Unity's DSK and Debell about the new CD and tonight's party:

GoKunming: What is the Battle of The Year Soundtrack 2009?

DJ DSK: BOTY is an international B-Boy or break-dance competition held each year in Germany. This year celebrating its 20th anniversary, BOTY has grown to be the biggest international competition of its kind - there are over 30 worldwide eliminations in over 20 countries. The CD is the soundtrack for the Chinese national elimination which was held last weekend in Shanghai.

The CD is a project by Unity Recordings to promote positive hip-hop and funk music in China and also give Chinese artists a chance to reach a worldwide audience and network with artists from other countries. On this year's CD we have funk bands from Kunming, Shanghai and Chengdu, rap from Guangzhou, Aruba and the US, electro from Shenzhen, hip-hop beats from Athens, Bangkok, Qingdao and a lot more.

GK: What difficulties did you encounter while managing such an international project?

Sam Debell: It was very hard to coordinate people in different cities all around China and in six countries and get them all to meet deadlines especially as this is a nonprofit release. Also DJ DSK had many sleepless nights as he had to help record and mix a lot of the songs at the same time as having a baby! The final master CD and drums on one track were finished whilst on a tour, which meant us getting back to the hotel around 3 am and working till daylight. No matter how well you plan there always seems to be a mad rush at the end!

DSK: The biggest difficulty was the same one facing everyone making music today - no one is buying music anymore! Sales of CDs are down everywhere due to people downloading free online. So we really need people to support the project and buy a real copy. The CD is only 25 yuan and it's very difficult for any music artist to survive these days, especially in China, so if you like a Chinese band or artist, please buy their music!

GK: How does the release differ from last year's China BOTY 2008 CD?

DSK: This release has the same basic philosophy and musical style as last year but everything is much more professional this time round. We had all the music mastered in a professional studio in the UK so everything sounds more polished and up to the quality of most commercial releases, we also increased the budget to include a booklet in the CD. The artwork is again provided by famous UK graffiti writer and graphic designer DEP.

GK: What can we expect at the release party tonight?

For the release party we want people to come along and have a fun night to a soundtrack of funk, disco and hip-hop. We really want to show to people the positive side of non-commercial hip-hop and not the rubbish so called rap music you hear in the top 40.

We will also be showing the award winning movie "Planet B-Boy" at 8 pm. This movie is very interesting as it follows B-boy crews from USA, Korea, Japan, France and Canada, showing their lifestyle and what dancing and hip-hop means to them in the context of their own cultures.

Then we will have B-boy cyphers. That means music and live percussion specially for B-boys/B-girls to dance and have fun to. It consists of DJ DSK on two turntables cutting up old funk, soul and Latin breaks along with some classic hip-hop and People's Rhythm adding live African and Latin percussion. Then at 12 we have a 15 minute scratch performance of DMC routines and freestyle scratch set from me, Marco and Echo. At 12:15 DJs will be playing funk and hip-hop to party the rest of the night away. If we have enough time to organize we may also add some live graffiti painting outside from 9 to 10.30.

GK: Can you tell us some more about BOTY China competition and who won?

It was an amazing event held last weekend in Shanghai's Jing'an stadium in which crews from all over China had to perform a six-minute dance routine and then the top four crews entered a knock out championship to decide the winner. Kunming's own B-boy crew KGS came second in the dance routine rating, impressing the international judges with their mix of traditional Yunnan minority dancing and B-Boy moves. Dragon Style from Beijing came first with an impressive show using moves and make up taken from kungfu and opera. KGS made it into the semifinal battle losing to STO from Guangzhou who went on to win BOTY China 2009.

STO will go to Singapore this weekend to enter BOTY Asia along with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia - the top three will then go to the BOTY world finals in Germany in October.

GK: How are you distributing the new CD?

The CD is available in Kunming at Salvadors Coffee House and other CD shops around the area and in the rest of China through the 1973 mail order hip-hop shop.

Also, you can come to the Speak and support the release party - we are giving a free vodka to anyone who buys the CD, which is only 25 kuai. It will also be available in Europe through the official BOTY shop in a week or so - you can check our website for more details.

GK: Will you be releasing another album next year?

DSK: We hope so. It's a lot of work with little financial motivation but it's something we believe in and we will look for more sponsors to help us out. We are currently in talks and hoping that BOTY China or even BOTY Asia can be part of the 2010 Expo in Shanghai. We are always looking for producers or bands, especially Chinese, of suitable music for the next release. So if you or anyone you know thinks they have music that could be on next year's release please contact us!

DJ DSK and Sam Debell can be contacted at unitynick [at] gmail [dot] com and unitysam [at] gmail [dot] com, respectively.

A Wal-Mart location in Kunming was evacuated yesterday morning after receiving a bomb threat, which police are calling a hoax.

According to a Xinhua report, at 8:58 an unknown individual called the service desk at the Wal-Mart located at the Daguan Commercial City near the intersections of Renmin Xi Lu and Dongfeng Xi Lu claiming that there was a bomb in the store. A police statement said that the caller was attempting to extort money from the store.

Shortly after being notified, police arrived at the Wal-Mart and began evacuating the more than 900 customers in the store and searching for a bomb or anything suspicious. Evacuation work was finished by 9:40, according to the police statement.

Police from the Kunming and Wuhua district Public Security Bureaus searched the store for several hours before declaring it bomb-free and allowing it to resume normal operations.

Police are currently investigating the call in an attempt to find out who placed it.

The Wal-Mart bomb threat comes after last summer's deadly downtown bus bombings and the Christmas Eve explosion at Salvador's Coffee House that fatally injured bomber Li Yan, who reportedly confessed to the bus bombings on his death bed.

It is also the second incident in which large numbers of police have been dispatched to a foreign-owned hypermart in the last half year. Last November Lu Zhiwen was killed by a police sniper after stabbing three women and taking a nurse hostage at the Carrefour on Longquan Lu.

Last Friday in Beijing, Yunnan provincial party secretary Bai Enpei (白恩培) told reporters that if the province's environment is destroyed "Yunnan will have absolutely nothing".

One of the major environmental issues in Yunnan is the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, whose runoff is one of the main contributors to the severe pollution of Dianchi Lake in recent decades.

With this in mind, GoKunming, Salvador's Coffee House and The Oasis Gift Shop (in between the eastern end of Wenhua Xiang and the middle of Wenlin Jie) have come together to create GreenKunming, a new organic food distribution system.

Beginning this Friday, there will be two weekly deliveries of pesticide-free, certified organic vegetables from Kunming's Haobao Organic Farm (pictured above) to the new Tianjundian Xiang shop (map here) where members can pick up their orders.

GreenKunming currently operates on a credit system, in which credit equaling 200 or 400 yuan can be purchased online via PayPal or at The Oasis Gift Shop. The credits can then be used to book delivery dates online. Initially deliveries from Haobao will consist of five kilograms of assorted seasonal vegetables for 40 yuan.

As the GreenKunming site and distribution system evolve, it will be looking for new partners to provide organic or green products for GreenKunming members. If you work for or know of potential partners for the GreenKunming network, please contact GreenKunming via its contact form.

The end of the year is a special time in which editors and writers around the world recycle content from the previous twelve months and repackage it as new content. We at GoKunming are not above this practice, so here's our look at the people and events that shaped 2008 in Kunming and Yunnan.

January
The year began with the Yunnan government shelving its plans to dam Tiger Leaping Gorge, while not necessarily sparing the Jinsha River – the headwaters of the Yangtze – from several new hydropower projects. Kunming banned the use of car horns and the city seemed to be getting a little less horn-heavy for about two weeks. A few days later the city – which is adding an average of 560 automobiles per day to its streets – issued its 900,000th license plate.

Pretty much all of southern China except for Kunming was at the mercy of a winter storm that paralyzed domestic travel and left thousands of travelers stranded in Kunming. Shangri-la (Zhongdian) was hit by heavy snowfalls that destroyed much of the area's livestock and crops plus telecommunications and power networks.

February
Yunnan was hit by a rash of sulfuric acid spills in late January and mid-February with more than 70 tons of the toxic chemical spilling near rivers and most likely entering local water supplies.

Kunming Municipal Party Secretary Qiu He was making waves a few months into his new post, ordering local newspapers to publish the names, titles, responsibilities and phone numbers of local officials in early February and firing a Chenggong investment official who fell asleep during a meeting.

Hong Kong director Stanley Tong signed an agreement with Dianchi National Tourist Resort to build a 3 billion yuan (US$418 million) television and film base that would become 'China's Hollywood'.

Yunnan's first international highway opened, connecting it with Vietnam's Lao Cai province.

March
Construction of the 'turtleback' flyover at Xiao Ximen commenced, throwing Kunming traffic into chaos. Work on the flyover – which is mockingly referred to as 'the newly added slope' (新加坡), or 'Singapore' in Chinese - was finished four months later.

Tens of thousands of bottles of counterfeit beer were found in Kunming's Majie area. The beers are expected to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amount of fake booze being sold around the city.

China played Australia's Socceroos in a World Cup qualifying match in Kunming that ended in a 0:0 draw. The match looked like a sure victory for China when it was awarded a late penalty kick, only for kicker Shao Jiayi to kick a slow roller into Oz goalie Mark Schwarzer's waiting hands. Team China went on to fail to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

April
The old standby F visa option disappeared for foreigners living in China as visa restrictions tightened in the runup to the Beijing Olympics, while protestors vented nationalist anger at Kunming's Carrefour outlets.

May
The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences World Congress, originally scheduled to be held in Kunming in July, was canceled - apparently due to Olympic-related security concerns.

On May 12, an earthquake measuring 8.0 in magnitude centered in Wenchuan devastated much of Sichuan province and killed at least 69,000 people. Yunnan did what it could to help its neighbor to the north by treating victims from the disaster zone, taking children into its schools and raising money for the relief effort.

The Yunnan white-handed gibbon was declared extinct.

June
Free plastic bags at retail outlets were banned in China.

The Olympic torch passed through Kunming. The torch was originally scheduled to pass through areas including Beijing Lu, Wenlin Jie and Yuantong Jie, but its route was altered at the last minute, keeping it out of the view of most Kunming residents. The torch continued through Yunnan to the cities of Lijiang and Shangri-la before heading to earthquake-battered Sichuan.

The third hydropower station on the Lancang River – as the upper reaches of the Mekong River in Yunnan are known – went online.

July
Yunnan announced a total ban on the production, sale and use of plastic bags across the province, beginning on January 1, 2009.

Jackie Chan announced that he would open a 'Jackie Chan Peace Garden' outside Kunming in the city of Anning. Meanwhile, Kunming was in the middle of planting 800,000 trees throughout the city.

Two people were killed and 14 injured in double bus bombings that took place on public buses on Renmin Xi Lu. A militant Islamic group took credit for the bombings, a claim which was refuted by local police. The bombings were not declared solved until the suspected bomber blew himself up while trying to plant a bomb in Salvador's Coffee House almost half a year later.

August
After an unprecedented buildup, China hosted the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and several other cities, winning 51 gold medals, more than second-place US (36) and third-place Russian Federation (23).

Kunming unveiled its 12-year development plan, detailing how the city intends to handle a major influx in residents and an increasingly important role in regional trade and transport.

September
It was announced that Yangzonghai Lake, one of the largest lakes in Yunnan, was suffering from heavy arsenic pollution, with the bulk of the blame placed upon Yunnan Chengjiang Jinye Industrial and Trade Company, which allegedly found it easier to pay the relatively low fines for not treating wastewater than to purchase and install the equipment necessary for cleaning wastewater. Shortly afterward, Yunnan established a special court for handling crimes against the environment.

October
A government study of HIV/AIDS infections in Yunnan revealed that that women and gay men had emerged as the fastest-growing demographics for new infections, replacing intravenous drug users. It was also noted that new infections were moving away from ethnic minorities in rural areas to Han Chinese in urban centers throughout the province.

A group of fossilized crustaceans from 525 million years ago found near Chengjiang were said to display the first example of collective behavior among animals.

Citing difficulties with the local business environment, Hong Kong-listed property giant Shui On Land pulled out of its Yunnan development projects.

November
Starbucks announced that it would market Yunnan coffee via its hundreds of mainland outlets.

Kunming Airlines announced that it would launch operations in January 2009, the first step in its quest to become a dominant regional airline.

A delegation of Yunnan officials and businesspeople visiting India asked the Indian government to establish a consulate in Kunming to facilitate the visa application process for Yunnan residents wishing to take advantage of the direct flights between Kunming and the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.

The famed Shaolin Temple announced that it would take over management of four Kunming temples for 20 years, during which time it would receive all of the temples' revenue. Shaolin Temple's abbot was accused of being a 'CEO monk'.

December
A man stabbed three women and took a nurse hostage at the Carrefour on Longquan Lu, before being lured to a door where some rice noodles had been placed for him and getting shot in the head by a police sniper, ending the five-hour standoff.

Ground was broken on the 'South Asian Gate', a 72-story, 316-meter tall building that will be completed in four to five years and will be the tallest man-made structure in Yunnan province. It is expected to serve as a hub for business between China, Southeast Asia and South Asia.

A bomb exploded in popular foreign-owned cafe and restaurant Salvador's Coffee House, killing the man who was wearing a backpack with an ammonium nitrate bomb in it near the rear bathroom. Nobody else was hurt. Police concluded that the man, 30-year-old Li Yan of Xuanwei, had also been behind the unsolved bombing of two buses in Kunming in July.

Direct flights opened between Kunming and Taipei.

The GoKunming team thanks everyone who visited the site in 2008 and wishes all of its readers a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.

The Kunming Public Security Bureau held a press conference Saturday afternoon to address the recent bombing of Salvador's Coffee House, which has been connected to the public bus bombings in Kunming in late July of this year.

During the press conference, the identity of the bomber was revealed for the first time. 30-year-old male Li Yan (李彦), a resident of the northeast Yunnan city of Xuanwei who had only received education up until middle school, was identified as the bomber.

Li had been sent to prison for 9 years in 2001 for his involvement in robbery and assault. He served five years in a prison in Yiliang county, where he spent much of his time involved in electrical repairs, an experience which is believed to have aided his bombmaking.

Members of the special task force created in response to the Salvador's bombing went to Li's residence in Xuanwei, where they reportedly discovered ammonium nitrate and bomb casing materials that matched the samples taken from the Salvador's bomb, which apparently detonated prematurely, blowing the lower half of Li's body off. Li died two hours later at Honghui Hospital.

The bombmaking materials found in Li's residence in Xuanwei also matched samples taken from the bombs used on two buses on Renmin Xi Lu that had been bombed in July, killing two and injuring 14. In addition to 1.1 kilograms of ammonium nitrate, police also found homemade gun with 21 rounds of ammunition at the man's home.

Li's motive in bombing Salvador's and the buses is still unclear. Police reportedly obtained a deathbed confession from the man moments before he died, but details of what he said – other than confessing to the bus bombings – have not been released. It is also unclear whether other individuals were involved in either the bombing of Salvador's or the bus bombings.

Many early Chinese media reports about the explosion at Salvador's were highly inaccurate, making claims that a gas canister had exploded in the kitchen, that Li was a Salvador's employee, that a man had been cooking food with gas in front of the restaurant, etc.

Salvador's owner Colin Flahive was just outside of the restaurant when the bomb detonated on Christmas Eve. Flahive has summarized what he and co-owner Kris Ariel (Salvador's other two owners were out of the country when the explosion occurred) experienced on December 24. GoKunming has been given permission to publish their account, reprinted below:

According to Chinese media reports, Kunming police have stated that the man involved in yesterday's bombing at Salvador's Coffee House confessed to involvement in the unsolved July bus bombings shortly before dying.

Kunming police told the Yunnan Info Daily that yesterday's blast was not due to a natural gas canister explosion - as had been reported earlier by some Chinese media - but rather ammonium nitrate, the same compound which was reportedly used in the bus bombings this summer.

Police said the ammonium nitrate had been brought in to the restaurant by the man, whose identity has yet to be made public. The blast, which appears to be an accidental detonation, went off in the back of the restaurant outside of the kitchen, severing the man's legs.

According to the Yunnan Info Daily report, police had found more than 8,500 yuan (US$1,240) on the man, as well as a piece of paper with nine red thumbprints scattered across it, which, according to the report, may suggest involvement by other individuals in the bomb detonation at Salvador's Coffee House and perhaps also July's bus attacks.

The man is not the first to take credit for the bombings of buses on Renmin Lu which killed two and injured 14 – the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) claimed responsibility for the blasts in late July, vowing to attack again during the Beijing Olympics. Yunnan security officials denied ETIM's involvement in the incidents.

This morning at 10:30 the bustle of Wenhua Xiang's cafes and restaurants was violently interrupted by an explosion at Salvador's Coffee House.

We have spoken with Salvador's co-owner Colin Flahive several times since the explosion and he has confirmed that the explosion was set off by a man who had entered the restaurant with an explosive device.

Flahive said that none of the staff or customers present at Salvador's this morning were seriously injured and that the man with the explosive device had suffered serious injuries.

Few details about the incident are currently available. Salvador's has been sealed off by police, who have been investigating the scene since shortly after the explosion.

This is the first bombing attack in Kunming since the double bus bombings that killed two and injured 14 in June of this year.

Update: Kunming media is now reporting that a man - presumably the man with the bomb - has died in a local hospital.

Voting is over, the ballots have been counted and the winners of the Best of Kunming 2008 awards are as follows:

Food: Best Chinese Restaurant
Heavenly Manna

Food: Best International Restaurant
Salvador's Coffee House

Food: Best Fine Dining
Moonlight Corner (Expo Garden)

Food: Best New Restaurant
Moonlight Corner (Green Lake)

Drink: Best Café
Salvador's Coffee House

Drink: Best Bar
Halfway House

Drink: Best Wine Selection
Pizza da Rocco

Entertainment/Arts: Best Gallery
TCG Nordica

Entertainment/Arts: Best Live Music Venue
TCG Nordica

Entertainment/Arts: Best Dancing Venue
Uprock

Thanks to all readers who voted and congratulations to the winners. Winners will receive framed certificates commemorating their selection as the best of Kunming in early January.