"Ay Hey" music kit's lore revealed

With recent update, Valve added the Pick'Em for the Perfect World Shanghai 2024 Major along with team and player autograph stickers. That didn't round it off for the content that came in the update, as Perfect World's second music kit made it into the game - "Ay Hey". Added with the Major update, this is the second Chinese music kit in the game.

Perfect World took to X earlier today, explaining the lore behind the music kit through a video. As per Perfect World's post "Ay Hey" is supposed to be a Chinese folk song sang by the Zhuang People, a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The songs falling under this genre apparently made it to the list of Chinese National Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2008. A spectrum of the voices we hear in the "Ay Hey" music kit belongs to Lu Shunhong and Yu Xianzhuan both whom share a deep passion for the genre and have been into it for decades.

The video also features the composer-arranger for the piece, Dai Wei who shares how excited he was for the challenge of combining intangible cultural heritage music with video game music that aligns with the taste of the modern youth.

Lu Shunhong and Yu Xianzhuan go on to metaphorically explain the beauty of the songs composed within this particular genre and their enthusiasm towards preserving and pushing forward these songs. Many more artists involved in the project are featured in Perfect World's video.