Hip hop is one of the genres of music people would commonly associate mainly with Western countries, with the biggest talents emerging from United Kingdom and United States, and being able to make sum of money as a result. This music is not particularly referred to music coming from China.
However, a new internet reality show titled "Rap of China" has given Chinese acts a good platform to make an impact in music and emerge from streets, with rap videos on the biggest Chinese video hosting website iQiyi racking up more than 2.5 billion views.
The new show has taken China by storm. The new phrase, "Can you freestyle?" is a challenge used by celebrity judges to grill contestants.
"It's like they ripped open a gap and found it full of gold," Wang Ke, or MC Bigdog, one of the contestants featured in the show, told the BBC.
"Chinese rappers have been underestimated and neglected," Wang said. "Our net worth has grown exponentially after the show, but it should have done so a long time ago."
The show has four celebrity producers whose job is to select and train the rappers who join the competition. The producers consist of singer and songwriter Kris Wu, American-Taiwanese famous singer Wilber Pan, Taiwanese MC HotDog and the Taiwanese rock musican Chang Chen Yue.
When the show was first aired on June 24, 2017, the people have widely accepted and talked about it. The first episode garnered 100 million views in just four hours. It accumulated 1.3 billion views after a month. The show was credited for making hip hop mainstream in China as several show contestants rose to popularity and got signed on different record deals.
