Chinese rap ‚ourishes despite censorship as artistes ƒnd their voices
In 2018, the censors who oversee Chinese media issued a directive to the nation’s entertainment industry: Don’t feature artistes with tattoos and those who represent hip-hop or any other subculture.
Right after that, wellknown rapper GAI missed a gig on a popular singing competition despite a successful rst appearance. Speculation went wild with fans worrying that this was the end for hip-hop in China. Some media labeled it a ban.
The genre had just experienced a banner year, with a hit competition-format TV show minting new stars and introducing them to a country of 1.4 billion people. Rappers accustomed to operating on little money and performing in small bars became household names. The announcement from censors came at the peak of that frenzy. A silence descended, and for months no rappers appeared on the dozens of variety shows and singing competitions on Chinese TV.
‘Normalcy’ restored
But by the end of that year, everything was back in full swing. “Hip-hop was too popular,” says Nathanel Amar, a researcher of Chinese pop culture at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary
Rapper Shixin Wenyue performs at a concert in Chengdu in China’s Sichuan province on March 16.
China. “They couldn’t censor the whole genre.”
What had looked like the end for Chinese hiphop was just the beginning.
Since then, hip-hop’s explosive growth in China has only continued. It has done so by carving out a
APspace for itself while staying clear of the government’s red lines, balancing genuine creative expression with something palatable in a country with powerful censors.
Today, musicians say they’re looking forward to an arriving golden age.
Much of the energy can be found in Chengdu, a city in China’s southwestern Sichuan region. Some of the biggest acts in China today hail from Sichuan; Wang Yitai, Higher Brothers and Vava are just a few of the names that have made Chinese rap mainstream, performing in a mix of Mandarin and Sichuan dialects.
The price of going mainstream, though, means the underground scene has evaporated. Chengdu was once known for its underground rap battles. Those no longer happen, as freestyling usually involves profanity and other content the authorities deem unacceptable. The last time there was a rap battle in the city, rappers say, authorities quickly showed up and shut it down. These days it’s all digital, with people uploading short clips of their music to Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese version, to get noticed.
Chinese brand
Developing a genuine Chinese brand of rap remains a work in progress. Hiphop got its start from New York’s boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx, where rappers made music out of their tough circumstances, from shootouts to crime to illegal drug dealing. In China, the challenge is about
nding what ts its context. Shootouts are rare in a country where guns are banned, and the penalties for drug use are high.
The red lines have also pushed artistes to be more creative. For Chinese rap to thrive, artistes have to
nd original voices, they say. 32-year-old rapper Fulai describes his own music as chill rap or “bedroom music” — not in the euphemistic sense, but the type of music you listen to as you lay in bed. His upcoming album, he says, is about ordinary things like ghts with his wife and washing dishes.
Still, Fulai says he talks about sex a lot in his lyrics. Chinese is a language with countless sayings and a strong poetic tradition: “There’s nothing you can’t touch,” he says. “You just have to be clever about it.”