T9

There are at least 2 bands with this name: 1) T9 - folk-rock from China 2) T9 - hip-hop from Russia --- T9, sometimes T-9 was a rock band from Beijing, that combined rock music with traditional Mongolian music. Yiliqi, son of a Mongolian and a Mandshurian, formed his first band in 1996 and at that time he did nothing close to Mongolian folk music. The name was Qingpi, which translates as lazy person, and can be categorized into the grunge genre. Even as he formed T9 in 1998, he was mostly interested in music from bands such as Rage against the machine' and other hardcore bands. However after some time, Yiliqi grew bored to be always angry on stage, to be always singing about drinking, being frustrated and to have to write about fear about one's own future. In the years 2001 and 2002 he often remembered how his father and his grandmother sung Mongolian folk songs to him as a kid. Therefore he traveled more often into his parents' hometown, Xilinhot in Inner Mongolia. From that city he moved as a 12 year old together with his parents to Beijing. In Xilinhot, Yiliqi met Ob So Rung, a famous singing teacher, who taught him Mongolian overtone singing - a way of handling the voice with which a singer is able to sing two or more voices at the same time. In addition to that Yiliqi learns several Mongolian instruments, such as the Tobushuur and the Morinhuur. Therefore the at that time 26 year old, who grew up speaking Mandarin and so far only sung in English, decided to from now on only to sing in Mongolian language. Even though the T9 record "Fix it" had been really popular - along T9 concerts - in Beijing, Yilinqi wasn't as much interested in rock music anymore and he let his Mongolian influences flow into his music. A little later these influences couldn't be integrated anymore into a rock and and so Yilinqi disbanded T9 and formed the band Hanggai.