FEATURE: Banned rappers struggle to perform

Sat, Jan 02, 2016 page5

FEATURE: Banned rappers struggle to perform

HARD HOP: IN3 were praised as the ‘bling dynasty’s bad boys’ by Chinese media in 2008, but now they find themselves on the Ministry of Culture’s blacklist
- AFP, BEIJING
Straight in at No. 1 on the Chinese government’s banned songs chart is IN3 (陰三兒), a trio of brash, tattooed rappers who mix the earthy language of Beijing’s streets with classic hip-hop beats. And No. 2. And three. And so on, down to No. 17.
They have played packed houses in Beijing for a decade, but all three were detained after the Chinese Ministry of Culture published the list of 120 songs barred from the Internet for “trumpeting obscenity, violence, crime and harming social morality.”
The hard knocks came as the Chinese Communist Party tightens regulation of culture under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), who has called on artists to “serve socialism.”

From left, the three members of rap music band IN3, Chen Haoran, Jia Wei and Meng Guodong, perform in Yugongyishan livehouse in Beijing on Sept. 17, 2010.

Photo: AFP

IN3 always had a confident swagger, but avoided strictly banned topics such as condemning the party leadership — preferring to namecheck Nike trainers and Playstations, but now they may never be able to perform in their home city again following the online ban.
Their best-known song, Beijing Evening News (北京晚報), third on the government’s list — chronicles the capital’s night life, touching on drunken driving, chasing women and brawls with bar owners. It also contains broadsides against high medicine costs and school fees, heavy traffic and even poorly soundproofed apartment blocks — topics generally acceptable to state censors.

“Some sleep in subway underpasses, others eat out on government expenses,” the group chant, obliquely referencing official corruption.
Wearing a black baseball cap labelled “Compton” and brown Converse shoes, band member Jia Wei (賈偉) said: “We don’t want just to criticize society, we want society to progress.”
“I’m not giving up hip-hop,” he said.
The group saved their harshest rhymes for China’s strict education system, which Jia has called the country’s “biggest problem.”
It was pilloried in probably their most outspoken track, Hello Teacher (老師好) — where they threaten to draw sexually explicit doodles in their exercise books, and call on “shameless” instructors to “die quickly.” It was No. 1 on the ministry’s Top 120.
Relations with authorities were not always as tense.
One band member, Chen Haoran (陳浩然), studied clarinet at China’s prestigious Central Conservatory of Music.
When the Olympics arrived in China’s capital in 2008, local television filmed the group in the city’s ancient hutong (衚衕, alley), rapping: “Beijing is your home, even foreigners speak like Beijingers, they will cheer team China on.”
The same year they won praise from the state-run press which dubbed them the “bling dynasty’s bad boys,” but their flow has been interrupted by ever-tighter limits on expression. Official approval for shows has been harder to come by in recent years, Jia said, while others have been shut down at the last minute.
In 2014 Xi urged artists not to chase popularity with “vulgar works.”
“Art and culture will emit the greatest positive energy when the Marxist view is firmly established,” he said in a speech which drew comparison with the diktats of Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Their new blacklisted status means IN3 are unlikely to grace Beijing’s stages again.
“Of course I’m upset. They rap about the kind of stories which happen every day to my friends,” local fan Amy Wang said.
Searching for an alternative venue, IN3 held a gig in Yunnan Province, about 3,000km from Beijing, but just minutes after they landed back in the capital police boarded their flight to handcuff and hood them, Jia said.
The band — whose members have previously been open about consuming cannabis — were all held on drug-related charges, Jia said.
Beijing has stepped up a campaign against celebrity users which in January last year saw Jackie Chan’s (成龍) son, Jaycee Chan (房祖名), jailed for six months.
Jia said he was released after a week when police found no evidence he had dealt the drug, but added he believed their music was a factor in the detention, just weeks after the blacklist was released in August.
“I think we were taken in because of our songs,” he said. “We were locked into interrogation chairs, and they kept the hood on us. They wanted to scare me.”
Police did not respond to a request for comment.
Since their release, IN3 — who cite The Clash and Bob Marley as influences — travelled to Atlanta, Georgia, to record at the studios of hip-hop legends Outkast.
The genre is still marginal in China’s music scene, dominated by love songs, imported pop and patriotic tunes dating from the era of Mao.
China’s first major rap collective Yin Tsang (隱藏) released their first album in 2003, shunning politics in favor of goofball intonation and uplifting anthems, and their songs still receive regular airings on Chinese radio.
There are now dozens of similarly commercial acts, but IN3’s lyrics “are reflections of our generation and are real,” said DJ Wordy, a mainstay of the Beijing scene. “In hip-hop, if you don’t talk about the government and real stuff, you can do whatever you want.”
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