a hutong alley in Beijing. It’s no Harlem.

Radio 4’s Hip-Hop China-style gives you some insight into what happens when Chinese rappers get stuck into the form. Guns? Gangs? Beefs? no, raps about food, amongst other things. And why not? They aren’t racially marginalised kids growing up in ghettos, or inheritors of NWA,  they are middle-class Chinese only-children experimenting. Western marketeers could learn a valuable lesson here though: just because Chinese youth may share some fashions with their Western counterparts their values, motivations and aesthetics can be radically different. And that means Chinese hip-hoppers aren’t into aping gangsters, they are following Tawainese and Hong Kong pop-rap idols or writing conscious hip-hop about regional food differences.