What he lacks in conventional attractiveness he makes up for in charisma. Average height and dark-skinned, with a wide nose and sunken cheeks, he is not handsome by conventional Chinese standards, which at the moment favor Korean-style, baby faced good looks-or xiao xian rou, which translates to "little fresh meat." But Chinese beauty standards also don’t have much to say about Lil Uzi Vert-style dreads or nose piercings, both of which Masiwei manages to pull off. Ma siwei,or Masiwei, 24, is the Higher Brothers' undisputed leader. Just last week, the Chinese government banned "hip-hop culture and tattoos" from television and, though it's a huge blow to the country's growing scenes, it's also a testament to how far the culture has come. When I returned to Beijing this September after a month back in the States, Chinese hip-hop was wafting from restaurants and blaring in coffee shops. Since it debuted, the show has ignited widespread interest in an art form that was once known only to a tiny subculture. The success of the show is due in part to the star power of its host, Wu Yifan, aka Kris Wu, a former member of the Chinese-Korean boy band Exo who remains a big name in China ( he has an endorsement deal with McDonald’s). When hip-hop finally blew up in China, it was not because of the Higher Brothers but because of "The Rap of China," a rap-battle reality competition show that premiered on the video site iQiyi in July and has since racked up 2.5 billion views.
#BEAN BATTLES PROFILE TV#
It is not broadcast in taxis or at the supermarket or in TV commercials, and it certainly wasn’t a decade ago, when the Higher Brothers first fell in love with the genre as young teens.īut in China, things happen fast, and the mainstreaming of hip-hop was no exception. Chinese children are not saturated in hip-hop like their American counterparts. Up until very recently, I had never met anyone who expressed more than a passing interest in hip-hop. In my time in China-first as a high school English teacher, then as a graduate student at Nanjing University, and now as a journalist-I have met hundreds of Chinese young people. Namely: Where did they come from? And: How did they get here? And, most crucially: Who the hell are they?
#BEAN BATTLES PROFILE DRIVERS#
I should admit now that, even after spending several days with the Higher Brothers, I'm still plagued by the same questions that flooded me a year ago, when a friend sent me the video for "Black Cab," a trap ode to unlicensed cab drivers of Chengdu, rapped in their Sichuanese dialect. In March, they will travel to Austin for South by Southwest. And this spring, they will finally take America, hitting 10 American cities (and two in Canada) on their Journey to the West tour. At the end of last year, they toured Asia alongside 88rising labelmates Rich Brian (fka Rich Chigga) and Joji, with dates in Seoul, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta. They spent last summer performing to sold-out crowds all over China in support of their first studio album, Black Cab-even crossing the strait to the renegade province of Taiwan and the estranged city of Hong Kong, where relations with the mainland are more strained than they have been in years.
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