controlled performances is one of them.
There used to be more of a raucous indie
music scene, flashes of which can still be
seen. But, by and large, the city’s police,
who in recent months have become pre-
occupied with shutting down anything
fun, will come knocking well before the
sun comes up.
One way in which even the grungi-
est of musicians can curry favour with
the local authorities, though, is to make
their political allegiances clear. Nowhere
is this more apparent than in China’s
hip-hop scene.
Party’s delight
Grassroots hip-hop has existed for
decades in China, particularly in the
southern cities of Chengdu and Chong-
qing, where rappers spit rhymes in the
distinctive Sichuan dialect. But in 2017,
the notion of ‘Chinese hip-hop’ went
mainstream as a breakout act, Higher
Brothers, burst onto stages around the
country and even achieved international
attention; the Sichuan foursome were
profiled by The New Yorker in March 2018.
Higher Brothers channelled the style
and demeanour of US West Coast doyens
from the 1990s, but with a Chinese twist.
As well as rapping in a Chinese dialect,
the topics they address are idiosyncrati-
cally Chinese: songs like ‘Made in China’
and ‘WeChat’ play with national refer-
ences and concerns. ‘There’s no Skype,
no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram/
We use WeChat,’ raps Masiwei. Part of
Higher Brothers’ appeal in China is that
they have adopted subversive, youth-
driven culture from the West and turned
it into something unapologetically
Chinese. Internationally, they buck the
stereotypes of Chinese youths as studi-
ous, meek and unworldly.
But, in 2019, a celebration of all things
Chinese is inextricable from Communist
Party loyalty. The nationalist drumbeat
of the CCP over the past two decades, and
especially under President Xi Jinping –
who popularized the slogan, the ‘Chinese
Dream’ – has been that China’s glory
days are back, and they are led by the
Party. So it was not surprising when
in August 2019, two members of High
Brothers, Melo and DZ Know, posted the
Chinese flag on their blocked-in-China
Instagram accounts. While a national
flag might be innocuous, the posts came
during the protests in Hong Kong, where
the symbol was being used by Beijing
loyalists to insist on their message that
Hong Kong is a part of China. It’s hard
to imagine the likes of 2Pac or Biggie
Smalls, in their heyday, swearing alle-
giance to the stars and stripes during a
political crisis.
The other two Brothers didn’t post
Chinese flags on social media, so it’s
likely that Melo and DZ Know’s flags
were a personal choice rather than man-
dated by their management or higher
powers. But in a country where censor-
ship is ubiquitous and the Party is the
ultimate gatekeeper of power, the lines
between statements being forced, judi-
cious or genuinely felt are blurry.A star is gone
It’s not just musicians who feel the
patriotic heat. In July 2018, the actress
Fan Bingbing, who was China’s highest
paid celebrity, with a net worth of $100
million, suddenly disappeared. She re-
emerged three months later, having
been accused of tax evasion, and was
ordered to pay back $131 million. In her
apology on social media, she begged for
her fans’ forgiveness and wrote: ‘Without
the Party and the state, without the love
of the people, there would have been no
Fan Bingbing!’
The reasons for Fan’s temporary
downfall for an offence that is known to
be widespread in the film industry are
complex.^1 But the nature of her apology
highlighted the changing pressure onNOVEMBER- DECEMBER 2019 35
I
ChinaVOICES
FROM
CHINA
LIU SHENBO,
VEGETABLE SELLER,
KUNMING
As told to Alec AshWhat has been the biggest change in
your life in the last 10 years?Ten years ago this tomato cost a few mao
[pennies], now the price has doubled. And
my wages have also gone up... So there
is more money now, everyone is earning
more money. People like me don’t know
much about other things... like politics. It’s
not that we don’t care, just that we don’t
know about it. I’m 64, and when I was a
child I didn’t have enough to eat. Now
everyone has plenty to eat. That’s what I
care about.