Another guest post from Carl Lee. Some care needed over the contents of the lyrics and imagery here.
You aren’t really starting to get a handle on the rapidity of change in 21st century China until you’ve spent an afternoon watching Chinese rap videos on YouTube.
Let me confess, for a British 63 year old music fan, albeit one who is a Sinophile and hip-hop fan going back to the 1980s, Chinese rap, grime, trap, drill, Memphis beat, whatever label you want to hang on it, is more of a social phenomenon than a musical one.
Musically most Chinese rap is generic and draws primarily upon US influences.
It skews from ‘pop’ lite to sparse ‘trap’ with its minimalist beats set out by synthesized drums. To some extent that is not the point. The point is more what the rappers are articulating and that is very much Chinese although the usual rap tropes of guns, girls, cars and cash also figure widely.
To get a flavour of what is hot in Chinese rap and how in China’s more socially conservative and government mediated society rappers offer an outlet for transgression and complaint a few rappers who have risen to the fore in 2025 are worth considering.
To get a flavour of what is hot in Chinese rap and how in China’s more socially conservative and government mediated society rappers offer an outlet for transgression and complaint a few rappers who have risen to the fore in 2025 are worth considering.
Perhaps most transgressive is Chengdu’s Four4444, a young female rapper who recently said “What if Hello Kitty carried a Glock?” Her shtick is cosplay pinks and bows offset by venomous sexual put-downs of men.
The polar opposite of this is GuiXiang, a 60 year old cleaner from Suzhou who raps about the price of vegetables and how unclean her local fish market is.
Both are TikTok and Douyin sensations in China and both work with a minimalist beat palate.
The most successful, particularly in terms of exposure outside of China is Lanlao who trades by the name SKAI ISYOURGOD and is currently the most streamed Mandarin speaking artist (although he often raps in a rural Cantonese accent) on Spotify with nearly five million monthly listeners.
The most successful, particularly in terms of exposure outside of China is Lanlao who trades by the name SKAI ISYOURGOD and is currently the most streamed Mandarin speaking artist (although he often raps in a rural Cantonese accent) on Spotify with nearly five million monthly listeners.
What Lanlao has done that sets him apart is that he hasn’t copied US artists and the themes that they rap about.
His focus is on modern Chinese society, its obsession with wealth creation (set out in the track ‘Blueprint supreme’), the inequalities it creates, and how that plays out not in the shiny first tier cities of China such as Shenzhen or Shanghai but in small town China and the aspirations, often thwarted, of that ‘left behind’ population.
His focus is on modern Chinese society, its obsession with wealth creation (set out in the track ‘Blueprint supreme’), the inequalities it creates, and how that plays out not in the shiny first tier cities of China such as Shenzhen or Shanghai but in small town China and the aspirations, often thwarted, of that ‘left behind’ population.
Blueprint Supreme - English version.
Twenty-eight year old Zhang Fangzhao aka ‘God of Henan Rap’ has a more melodic and melancholic take that has resonated with many in China. Coming from the coal-mining town of Jiaozuo, Henan is from a town which is very much a part of China’s ‘rust-belt’.
Zhang’s song ‘Factory’ begins with the words.
“The smoke from the factories covers the stars”
and he goes on to refer to those who choose to stay in the polluted backbone of China’s industrialisation as ‘nails’. His take on a side of modern China is a world away from the media narratives found inside and outside of China. This is not the world of gleaming towers, consumer affluence and neon lights.
The mournful video that accompanied its release is a good counterpoint to the tunes twinkling pianos and muted trumpet.
If I was still teaching A level geography or undergraduates I might use this video to challenge their potentially preconceived notions of what makes up today’s China. It is a big place, with 1.4 billion people living in a continental scale nation with a multitude of languages and dialects, and Chinese rap is helping to shine a light on parts of this evolving society from the vegetable markets of Suzhou to the bleak industrialisation of Henan via the small-time ‘gangsta’ bosses of Guangdong.
Of course as Joe Strummer once sang ‘they think its funny turning rebellion into money’, and rap in China has gone mainstream with iQIYI a subscription based streaming service producing seven series of a series called ‘The Rap of China’ show where aspiring rappers attempt to impress a panel of judges.
Unsurprisingly, this being the world of rap, many rappers have produced diss tracks about the show focusing on its sanitised public appeal where any references to sex, drugs, police or anything that appears to challenge Chinese nationalism or the central importance of the state are removed.
You can be absolutely certain that Four4444 will not get an invitation to appear on 'The Rap of China'.
You can be absolutely certain that Four4444 will not get an invitation to appear on 'The Rap of China'.
Carl Lee is retired but was a lecturer at The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, taught A level Geography for 20 years at Sheffield College, is the author of five books about geography and has a PhD in economic geography. He has been nuts about music since buying his first single in 1973: 10cc’s 'Rubber Bullets' if you were wondering.
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