Beijing now takes aim at online deejays
You can’t even call it a style. It’s just a freak product made by Chinese farmers, country bosses, village folks, and second-tier city residents with low culture. Liu Liangji, a Shanghai-based rapper
BEIJING: Authorities in Beijing are now taking aim at online deejaying in a pre-emptive move to prevent ad hoc revolutions.
Even hanmai — a style of emceeing popular in northeastern China — has come under fire.
One of China’s earliest and most popular livestreaming platforms YY has announced a string of measures aimed at “cleaning up the online livestreaming space.”
One new rule was forbidding usernames that contained the words “MC” or hanmai — literally “microphone shouter.” Offenders, the notice warned, would have their accounts shut down, and severe violations could result in legal action.
Hanmai is a homegrown genre of online performance that was once described by GQ China as “county-level DJ music + tractor-fast tempo + loud voice + northeastern accent.”
As part of the cleanup, YY banned 1,000 livestreamers and 77 popular hanmai songs, reported a media outlet on the Jiemian business and finance news platform. Scores of livestreamers swiftly changed their usernames, including MC Tianyou, a hanmai celebrity with over 24 million fans on the platform. He removed “MC” from both his YY and Weibo microblog accounts.
The ban comes in the wake of the official clampdown on hiphop — though many urban hiphop artists sneer at hanmai and don’t consider it to be part of their genre at all.
“You can’t even call it a style,” Liu Liangji, a Shanghai-based rapper better known as “Mr. Weezy”. “It’s just a freak product made by Chinese farmers, country bosses, village folks, and second-tier city residents with low culture.”
Last month, several hip-hop artists were banned or cut from television, starting with GAI — the other winner of “The Rap of China” — who was cut from Hunan TV’s television singing competition “The Singer” and the broadcaster’s YouTube channel with no explanation given. A week later, Shanghaibased rapper Vava had her appearance cut from variety talk show “Happy Camp.” A TV quiz show even blurred out flashy, hip-hop-style jewellery worn by one contestant.
On Jan 19, online news outlet Sina Entertainment published a directive from the State Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film, and Television. In the notice, its publicity department director Gao Changli stated that television series must not depict hip-hop culture, subcultures or artists with tattoos.
“Absolutely do not use actors whose hearts and ethics are not aligned with the Party, and whose morality is not noble,” the notice warns.
The changes deal a heavy blow to China’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, say industry pundits. Jiang Yao is a teacher and rapper who performs in a Shanghai-based group called “Xiyong Boys” using the stage name “P.J.” He reckoned that the genre’s future in China is on shaky ground.
“Most rap artists in China like hip-hop because they think it’s cool, especially the ‘gangsta’ style … which isn’t allowed,” Jiang said.