Last summer, an online reality show single-handedly ignited China’s passion for hip hop, racking up more than 2.5 billion views and shooting its contestants to stardom.
Now The Rap of China is back for a second season, and it’s determined to keep hip hop in the mainstream -- even as audiences and censors alike get tougher.
Here’s this season’s opening, which features the show’s five judges spitting bars:
The show’s debut in 2017 brought the hip hop subculture into the national limelight for the first time and injected a huge amount of cash into the industry.
Season two boasts of giving an even bigger platform to Chinese-language rappers. Auditions were held worldwide, including in the US, where rappers were selected by famous trappers like MC Jin and Grammy-winning hip hop trio Migos.
So far, results are promising. the first episode of the second season, which aired last week on China's largest online video hosting website, iQiyi, was an instant hit with more than 160 million views.
But this year, the show faces not only higher expectations from hip hop fans, but also increasingly stringent rules on variety shows which aim to ensure a “positive” media environment for China’s youth.
Mixed reviews
On iQiyi, there’s been a mixed response so far to the new season. Some have praised it for seeming more professional, which critics have called it not exciting enough.
Many lament that none of the contestants this year can compare to GAI, one of the two winners of last season, who drew flocks of fans with his feisty rapping in the Chongqing dialect of southwestern China:
“Everyone seemed so docile in the first episode of this season,” writes Xi Ha Luan Bao, a hip hop blog on China’s biggest social media platform Wechat. “There is much less confrontation between contestants, and they are forced to present ‘positive energy’.”
The “positive energy” had been requested by China’s top media regulator, which recently suspended or delayed the broadcast of three variety shows, including China’s own version of Saturday Night Live.
Jeffrey Kung, an American-Chinese contestant who has run a hip hop radio show in China for 10 years, tells Inkstone that it doesn’t all have to be about confrontation.
“The watchers of the show want something more entertaining,” Kung says. “But if they're listening to the lyrics, and they're listening to the actual music itself, this year the rappers are very strong.”
Underground to mainstream
Before The Rap of China, hip hop was always an underground scene. Many of China’s popular hip hop groups, such as Yin Tsang and Yinsaner, started out in the early 2000s, influenced by American rappers like Eminem and Jay-Z.
But hip hop has struggled to take center stage in a society that often associates the genre with violence and decadence. 17 songs from Yinsaner were banned by the Ministry of Culture in 2015 for promoting pornographic and violent content.
Nevertheless, hip hop prospered in grassroots clubs and with competitions like the Iron Mic, where rappers battled freestyle in cities as far-flung as Urumqi in the western region of Xinjiang.
That’s where Newqiran, this year’s breakout star so far, is from. The ethnic Uighur rapper charmed judges in a 60-second slot in the show’s first episode.
In 2017, when hip hop made it to the national stage for the first time, old school rappers like Jeffrey Kung weren’t surprised. He calls the genre a “perfect medium” for self-expression for young people in search of an identity.
Addressing concern that hip hop has been neutralized for public consumption, Kung admits that the show does dilute the genre – but he points out that hip hop doesn’t have to be negative, violent or sexist.
“The fact that hip hop is even on TV, and they're willing to give the show a platform, is a start,” he says. “If you watch the show and it makes you research other rappers, listen to their music, then that's cool too.”
Star scandal
The Rap of China’s massive success has also brought problems. Things took a dramatic turn when PG One, another winner of the show last year, was embroiled in an alleged affair with a married actress and was accused by state media of being misogynic, vulgar, and promoting drug use in his lyrics.
The scandal quickly snowballed into a crusade against rap, which eventually led to the government’s suspension of Triple H, a hip hop label which represented dozens of rappers, including PG One.
PG One has since apologized on social media, including putting the blame on “black music” which he said he had learned from, but had twisted his values. The star has yet to appear on TV since his apology.
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