Meng Ren played one final DJ set in Beijing at an underground show the day before her flight left for Dallas to pursue her doctorate in ethnomusicology from UNT's College of Music.

Music has always been part of her life -- from listening to banned CDs while growing up in Beijing to researching hip-hop in China as a student in the U.S.

And now she's combined her culture with a passion for music and politics into a documentary that offers an insider perspective into the creative, complicated and controversial world of Chinese hip-hop.

Over the last year, Ren has been showcasing Forbidden Sound at various film festivals, including the Hip Hop Film Festival in New York City, the Denton Black Film Festival, and it will show at the Thin Line Film Festival at 3:30 p.m. April 27, at the historic Campus Theatre in Denton.

The film was created to serve as an accompaniment to her dissertation, "Forbidden Sound: The Art, Culture and Politics of Chinese Hip-Hop."

"Ethnomusicology is studying music as an insider," Ren says. "The visual medium allows for a dynamic and immersive experience, providing viewers with a tangible sense of the individuals and settings that constitute the focal points of my inquiry."

'Musical Garbage'

Growing up in Beijing, Ren was pressured to be best at STEM-related subjects, but she found her strengths aligned with creative arts. After getting an average score on the college entrance exam, she sought to continue school abroad.

In 2008, Ren was still teaching herself English when she moved to the other side of the world to study journalism at the University of Missouri. Most of what she knew at this point came from listening to "dakou" CDs.

When CD consumption in the Western world peaked, excess or damaged -- dakou, meaning cutout -- products were shipped to China to be discarded. In China, most western music is censored, so those CDs were recycled to sell on a black market.

"Rock and roll, hip-hop, progressive metal, things you can't receive at all on Chinese media," Ren says.

Any free time during Ren's teenage years was spent rummaging through this "musical garbage," as she calls it. The first album she remembers discovering was the politically influenced record The Wall by English rock band Pink Floyd.

Radio Reggae

For a year during undergrad, Ren studied in Hong Kong as an American exchange student and stayed in a guest house with other diverse young adults who spent their free time playing and experimenting with music.

This time opened Ren's eyes to unique music and led her to meet many interesting musicians, including one who referred to himself a "Chinese Rasta Man."

In 2012, Ren finished her bachelor's and immediately got a job as a radio DJ in Missouri during the "wee hours of the morning" when she could experiment with genres. In her off time, she frequently traveled back to China to stay with the "Rasta Man," learning about Rastafari culture and music.

He largely influenced her to go back to the University of Missouri, where she earned her master's in 2016 with a thesis titled "Yunnan Reggae: Music and Politics," about the field of music in the Chinese province.

Inspired to Inspire

Before UNT, Ren moved back to Beijing in 2017 where she spent the next two years as a DJ playing at underground shows and clubs and becoming infatuated with the ongoing hip-hop movement, unknowingly gathering inspiration for the film she would later develop.

Steven Friedson, UNT Distinguished Research Professor of music and anthropology, inspired Ren to leave this life behind and move to Texas.

While she was still living in Missouri, Ren had the chance to visit UNT with her then-boyfriend, who was a recent alum and encouraged her to explore the school.

She quickly fell in love with the city's music scene and met Friedson while touring the College of Music. He sparked her interest in an upcoming doctoral program in ethnomusicology and she applied when applications opened in 2019.

Friedson encouraged her idea to go back to China to create a film that complements her dissertation. He also teaches her favorite course at UNT -- Music Cultures of the World -- which Ren, who is now a teaching assistant, taught to students last semester. She hopes to become a professor.

"He really changed my life," Ren says of Friedson. "I'm hoping I could be someone like that, too."