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Between wushu warriors and queens: articulating gender and identity in Sinophone rap music videos

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Between wushu warriors and queens: articulating gender and identity in Sinophone rap music videos

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Content BETWEEN WUSHU WARRIORS
AND QUEENS:
ARTICULATING GENDER AND
IDENTITY IN SINOPHONE RAP
MUSIC VIDEOS
Tiara Monae Wilson
A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC DORNSIFE
COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
EAST ASIAN AREA STUDIES
December 2021
Copyright 2021 Tiara Monae Wilson
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract…………………………...................................................................................................iii
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1: The Power of the Outlaw….........................................................................................12
Untangling Masculinity, Wushu, and Jianghu...................................................................13
Becoming Bruce Lee and Tupac........................................................................................17
Now, Even Hip Hop is Made in China…..........................................................................25
Towards a Transpacific Alternative…….........................................................................32
Chapter 2: Return to the Throne....................................................................................................36
Constructing Rap as a Masculine Art Form.......................................................................38
Rearticulating Gender for Women’s Empowerment.........................................................40
Return to the Throne..........................................................................................................47
Conclusion….....................................................................................................................50
Chapter 3: Welcome to the Queendom………………….............................................................52
The Rise of New Generation Feminism and Made-in-China Feminisms.........................54
Performing Blackness and Feminism through Beyoncé……….......................................58
The Queendom..................................................................................................................63
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………69
Conclusion……………….............................................................................................................70
References.....................................................................................................................................75
iii

Abstract
To many, the popularity of the competition reality show The Rap of China ( 中国新说唱)
is indicative of the popularity of rap music in China. However, the show, which holds auditions
internationally in cities such as Los Angeles and Kuala Lumpur, also demonstrates that China is
not the only place where “Chinese” rap is made. This thesis project looks specifically at how
Sinophone rappers negotiate gender and Chineseness in rap music videos. It tackles questions
such as how Chinese masculinity is constructed in rap videos, how do Sinophone women rappers
challenge the male-centricity of hip hop, and how does national positioning influence iterations
of gender in rap music videos? To answer these questions, I close read four music videos from
different Sinophone rappers Miss Ko, Al Rocco, the Higher Brothers, and Vinida. I investigate
allusions to violence in the forms of martial arts aesthetics, military iconography, and intimate
partner violence in these music videos as a way to understand how Sinophone rappers of
different genders and nationalities construct gender in their rap videos. I demonstrate that each
rapper uses characteristics specific to their region in conjunction with iterations of black identity
to craft their identities as “Chinese” rappers. By doing so, I argue that studying Sinophone rap
can de-Americanize hip hop studies, highlight the Afro-Asian connections in the genre, open up
new understandings of Chineseness and gender, and demonstrate the relevance of music in
Sinophone studies.
1

Introduction

From the streets of South Bronx to Brazil and beyond, hip hop has become a global
movement. Whether through the adaptation of rap into various music genres or the pervasiveness
of hip hop aesthetics in the fashion industry, one thing is certain: the hip hop movement has
spread far beyond the United States’ borders. Hip hop and its primary elements of DJing, MCing,
Graffiti Writing, and Breaking have influenced art, fashion, dance, politics, education, popular
culture, language, and even how we understand identity. With its roots in the Latin American,
Afro-Caribbean, and African-American communities of New York, the music genre and cultural
movement have traveled worldwide, transforming as it does so. Though hip hop comprises four
distinct elements of deejaying (beat making), graffiti writing, and breakdancing, rap music, a
derivative of MCing, has primarily been responsible for this process and the genre’s spread.
China is no exception to this process.
On June 24th, 2017, the online streaming site iQIYI began streaming the hip hop
competition reality show The Rap of China ( 中国有嘻哈).
1
Although hip hop has been alive as
an underground movement in China since the late 1990s and even earlier in Hong Kong and
Taiwan, this reality show created to find the greatest Chinese rappers has firmly pushed Chinese
hip hop out of the underground into the mainstream.
2
The show seems to be a declaration. The
original broadcasting name 中国有嘻哈 (zhong guo you xi ha) translates to “China has hip hop.”

1
Celine Sun, "iQiyi Talent Show Contributes To Hip-Hop's - Proquest", Search.Proquest.Com, Last modified 2017,
https://search.proquest.com/docview/1937325498/.
2
Ann Binlot, "How A Chinese Reality Show Made Hip Hop Mainstream In Taiwan", Document Journal, Last modified 2019,
https://www.documentjournal.com/2019/02/how-a-chinese-reality-show-made-hip-hop-mainstream-in-taiwan/.
2

Now, after finishing the third season under the new name 中国新说唱 (zhong guo xin shuo
chang) translated China’s New Rap, it has become clear that not only does China have hip hop,
but the country is in the process of determining what exactly “Chinese” hip hop is. The
popularity of The Rap of China is symbolic of this desire to define authentic Chinese rap through
selecting an ideal Chinese rapper. This desire to name and define Chinese hip hop is not
exclusive to those located in China. Sinitic language rappers around the world have also turned
their eye to The Rap of China and what it represents as a site for articulating contesting
definitions of “Chinese” rap. Just as judges select primarily male, heterosexual, Mandarin-
speaking champions to represent Chinese rap, artists such as Hong Kong rapper Al Rocco and
Taiwanese rapper Dwagie pin diss tracks to define what they believe true (Chinese) hip hop to
be. Al Rocco, who was one of the most famous rappers to appear in the first season, was
eliminated early on because he rapped mostly in English. Rocco’s diss track was appropriately
written entirely in English with Chinese subtitles. The song described Rocco’s feelings of
betrayal and otherness as he realizes he was “hated by his kind but never really thought about it.”
Dwagie’s music is banned in China because of his pro-Taiwan independence stance; as
such, his diss track criticizes The Rap of China and Chinese hip hop in general for being fake,
commercial, “party music.” He goes as far as saying that China cannot have hip hop, which is
why he thinks the show creators had to change the Chinese name of the show from China has hip
hop to The New Rap of China. Dwagie asserts that authentic hip hop demands complete freedom
of expression and open social critique, which is something, he says cannot happen in the
People’s Republic of China.
3
These artists' response to the popularity of the show demonstrates

3
Radio Free Asia, Dwagie, The Taiwanese Rap Godfather, Hip-Hop Vs. Xi-Hop, video, 2021,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZLempTimXY.
3

that the burden of defining Chinese hip hop does not belong solely to those within the national
borders of the People’s Republic of China but extends to Sinitic language communities in the
Sinophone world. More importantly, it demonstrates that these artists are aware of their peers'
work to create Chinese hip hop style, suggesting that there is a Sinophone hip hop community.
The existence of a Sinophone hip-hop community is further exhibited by the way The
Rap of China is run. The show consists of eleven rounds. The first round is open auditions, and
the last is a battle performance between finalists. A group of five artists from diverse
backgrounds serve as the panel of judges. The five consistent judges on the show are Kris Wu, a
Chinese Canadian rapper, Will Pan, a Taiwanese-American singer; G.E.M, a Hong Kong singer;
MC HotDog, a Taiwanese Rapper; and Chang Chen Yue, a Taiwanese rock musician. In addition
to a diverse panel of judges, contestants from all corners of the globe gather under the banner of
Chinese hip hop. Participants included rap in multiple languages such as English, Cantonese,
Mandarin, and various dialects. Altogether the diverse judging panel and participant pool present
Chinese rap as a multi-lingual, multicultural, and multinational genre that is more Sinophone
than Chinese. What most conceptualize as “Chinese rap” is rap music that is performed by self-
identifying Chinese or those that use Sinitic languages to rap; therefore, it is Sinophone rap.
Despite this fact, the judges actively contradicted the Sinophoning of Chinese rap by selecting
champions that conformed to the PRC’s standards. These standards included rapping in majority
Mandarin, a perceived good sense of morality, and a distinctive expressive style grounded in
traditional Han-Chinese culture. Although this paper is not about The Rap of China, the complex
responses to the show and representations of “Chinese” rap on the show are analogous to the
complex conditions and diverse communities demarcated by the seemingly self-explanatory
4

designation of Chinese rap. The history of Sinitic language rap is complex, including rappers
from different nations, ethnic identifications, and mother tongues.
4

The first rap group to come out of China was the duo D.D.Rhythm in 1992.
5
However,
hip hop arrived in Taiwan much earlier. The island was first exposed to hip hop in the 1980s
through television and radio stations that often played American artists such as MC Hammer and
Young MC.
6
Following this exposure, the Taiwanese American hip hop group L.A. Boyz formed
in 1991. The L.A. Boyz were a trio of young men born in Taiwan who moved to Irvine,
California, with their parents. Jeff Huang, Stanley Huang, and Steve Lin, the group’s members,
started rapping in majority English but they made it to the top of the charts in Taiwan.
7
Here, at
the beginning of Chinese hip hop history, a complex relationship between overseas Chinese,
those in Taiwan, and those in the People’s Republic of China has already been established. Does
it count as Chinese hip hop if the rappers proudly proclaim Irvine, California, as their
hometown? Is it still Chinese hip hop if the group raps in a combination of English and Hokkien?
These questions, though seemingly benign, do matter and continue to matter. It’s the difference
between rappers MC HotDog( 热狗) and Dwagie ( 大支). Both rappers are considered the
godfathers of Chinese rap and pioneers of the hip-hop movement in Taiwan. Nevertheless, only
MC HotDog, who raps in Mandarin and avoids addressing political issues in his rap, was
selected to be a judge on The Rap of China. On the other hand, although Dwagie is credited with

4
Jamie J. Zhao, "Queerness Within Chineseness: Nationalism And Sexual Morality On And Off The Competition Showthe Rap
Of China", Continuum 34, no. 4 (2020): 484-499, doi:10.1080/10304312.2020.1785077.
5
Shuhong Fan, "The History Of Rap In China, Part 1: Early Roots And Iron Mics (1993-2009)", RADII | Stories From The
Center Of China’S Youth Culture, Last modified 2019, https://radiichina.com/the-history-of-rap-in-china-part-1-early-roots-and-
iron-mics-1993-2009/.
6
Meredith Schweig, "HOKLO HIP-HOP: RESIGNIFYING RAP AS LOCAL NARRATIVE TRADITION IN TAIWAN",
Chinese Oral And Performing Literature 33, no. 1 (2014): 37-59, doi:10.1179/0193777414Z.00000000016.
7
Ashley Dunn, "Rapping To A Bicultural Beat : Dancing Trio From Irvine--The L.A. Boyz--Scores A Hit In Taiwan",
Latimes.Com, Last modified 1993, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-04-05-ca-19527-story.html.
5

releasing the first-ever full-length Chinese rap album because he often raps in Hokkien and is
known for his pro-Taiwan independence activism, he is banned in China.
8
Because of complex
relationships such as these, I have elected to use the term Sinophone instead of Chinese rappers.
By conceptualizing these artists as Sinophone, we can better see how national allegiance, cultural
identity, language, and gender are articulated in relation to location. Additionally,
operationalizing the descriptive category of Sinophone allows us to understand Sinitic rap as it
arises within communities in transition or at the margins of society.
As witnessed through the advent of hip hop communities throughout South America,
Australia, Asia, Europe, and the African continent, there is no denying that hip hop has gone
global. However, there is still some contestation over how and, more importantly, why hip hop
and its aesthetics resonate cross-culturally. On the one hand, scholars argue that hip hop
functions as a communicative tool for communities on the margins. That young communities
often in precarious positions gravitate towards hip hop to articulate their marginality and resist
dominant power structures. Scholars who adopt this perspective emphasize hip hop’s origins as a
black cultural product used politically and recreationally to cope with socioeconomic instability,
over-policing, and inner-city violence. As Halifu Osumare explains, the marginal experience of
blacks in America resonates with those in global communities experiencing perceived
marginalization to foster “connective marginalities” that are articulated through hip hop.
9

Specifically, rap music serves as the dominant cultural activity through which this articulation
takes place. Local communities utilize rap music embedded with representations of local culture
such as language, national symbols, and style of dress to indigenize hip hop and vocalize the

8
William Yen, "FEATURE: Rapper Dwagie Explains Role Of Activism In His Work - Taipei Times", Taipeitimes.Com, Last
modified 2019, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2019/07/02/2003717974.
9
Halifu Osumare, "Beat Streets In The Global Hood: Connective Marginalities Of The Hip Hop Globe", Journal Of American &
Comparative Cultures 24, no. 1-2 (2001): 171-181, doi:10.1111/j.1537-4726.2001.2401_171.x.
6

precariousness of their positions in society. Regarding hip hop in China, scholars such as
Anthony Fung, Sheng Zou, and Nathanel Amar have focused on rap music as a manifestation of
youth culture, often in resistance to an authoritarian state government.
10

On the other hand, some argue that hip hop itself is not a unique case; instead, it is yet
another example of how cultural products undergo transculturation in an increasingly global
world. According to this view, hip hop travels not because of its roots in marginal communities
but because of its hypervisibility as a manifestation of American popular music. In other words,
hip hop spreads as a byproduct of existing imperial legacies. This argument is particularly
relevant to hip hop in East Asia as its arrival is directly tied to the Westernization and
Americanization of the region.
11
I, however, would like to recognize that hip hop can function as
both a language for the marginalized and a tool for reinforcing existing hegemonic discourses.
Specifically, I adopt Tony Mitchell’s understanding of hip hop as a tool for “multiethnic, multi-
national” communities to express “migrant diasporic” experiences.
12
Mitchell suggests that the
multicultural origins of rap in America and its emphasis on utilizing the vernacular to express
marginal experience echo the struggles of migrant communities around the globe. Although
when analyzed on the level of systems and nations, the migrant experience is one of precarity,
there is also the opportunity for individual empowerment. Robin James notes that embedded in
hip hop is the valorization of entrepreneurship as a black masculine ideal. Rappers, such as Jay
Z, brag about the “hustle” life while comparing illicit activities and music making to a company
where they act as CEO.
13
These narratives paint a picture of resilient black masculinity that

10
Nathanel Amar, "Including Music In The Sinophone, Provincializing Chinese Music", China Perspectives 2019, no. 3 (2019):
3-8, doi:10.4000/chinaperspectives.9317.
11
Chris Berry, Eva Tsai and Koichi Iwabuchi, Routledge Handbook Of East Asian Popular Culture New York: Routledge, 2017.
12
Tony Mitchell, "Another Root-Hip-Hop Outside The USA", in Global Noise: Rap And Hip Hop Outside The USA Wesleyan
University Press, 2002, 1-38.
13
Robin James, Resilience & Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism, Neoliberalism Washington: Zero Books, 2015.
7

empowers individual rappers by allowing them to transition from hustlers to businessmen while
upholding the system of multi-racial white supremacist patriarchy (MRWaSP) that creates the
conditions that make resiliency necessary for black men. Similarly, Sinophone rappers can
perform blackness to empower themselves while simultaneously reinforcing heteropatriarchal,
imperialist agendas. Moreover, the emphasis on “migrant diasporic” culture is particularly
relevant to Sinophone rap as the history of Sinitic language rap music has been shaped by
transpacific interactions. Pioneers of the genre such as the Taiwanese-American L.A. Boyz,
Chinese-American MC Jin, Canadian-born Sbazzo ( 马克), and many others operate at the
intersections of multiple national communities. They often travel back and forth across the
Pacific, positioning those in the Sinophone rap community as perpetual migrants who use rap
music to articulate the nuances of multiple identities and positionalities. This paper will focus on
the intersections between cultural identity and gender as they appear in Sinophone rap music.
This thesis project looks specifically at how Sinophone rappers negotiate gender and
Chineseness in rap music videos. It tackles questions such as how Chinese masculinity is
constructed in rap videos, how do Sinophone women rappers challenge the male-centricity of hip
hop, and how does national positioning influence iterations of gender in rap music videos? To
answer these questions, I close read four music videos from different Sinophone rappers. The
music videos I have chosen to analyze are: “Bruce Lee ( 李小龙)” performed by Al Rocco
featuring Jackson Wang ( 王嘉尔), “Made in China” performed by the Higher Brothers ( 更高兄
弟), “Queen of Queens ( 皇后的皇后)” performed by Miss Ko, and “Queendom” performed by
Vinida ( 万妮达). There are two reasons that these artists were selected for this paper. First, each
of these artists enjoys relatively high visibility in their respective hip-hop communities. For
8

example, Miss Ko is the only female MC (master of ceremonies) in Taiwan.
14
Vinida has
participated in both The Rap of China and Sing! China ( 中国好声音), and she was also
recognized in Forbes Magazine’s China 30 under 30 in the music industry.
15
She is considered
one of the top three female rappers in China. The Higher Brothers is a group of four rappers from
Chengdu. They are heralded as the pioneers of Chinese trap music. Moreover, because their
breakout song “Made in China” received 21 million views on Youtube, the group is considered
the world's most famous Chinese hip-hop group.
16
Finally, Al Rocco was the first Chinese rapper
to perform at the South by Southwest(SXSW) International Music Festival.
17
He also
participated in both the first and second seasons of The Rap of China.
Second, each artist was chosen to be representative of different communities in the
Sinophone world. Higher Brothers and Vinida are both from the People’s Republic of China,
namely Fuzhou and Chengdu. Al Rocco was born in Hong Kong and has lived in multiple cities
such as Los Angeles, London, Taipei, and Shanghai. Finally, Miss Ko is a Taiwanese-American
born in Queens, New York that returned to Taiwan to start her hip-hop career. The selected
music videos for these artists were chosen because they all include some variance of visual
imagery that relates to violence, warfare, or weaponry. Through my analysis of these Sinophone
rap music videos, I argue that these Sinophone rappers utilize context-specific imagery of
violence and weaponry to articulate counterhegemonic iterations of gender identity. They draw
on culturally specific categories such as wushu ( 武术), jianghu ( 江湖), Confucian paradigms of

14
Meredith Schweig, "“Young Soldiers, One Day We Will Change Taiwan”: Masculinity Politics In The Taiwan Rap Scene",
The Society Of Ethnomusicology 60, no. 3 (2016): 383-410, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/ethnomusicology.60.3.0383.
15
Shuhong Fan, "Meet The Women Of "Rap Of China" Season 2", RADII | Stories From The Center Of China’S Youth Culture,
Last modified 2018, https://radiichina.com/we-have-more-pressure-than-male-artists-meet-the-women-of-rap-of-china-season-2/.
16
Bryan Grogan, "Empire Building: How Higher Brothers Took "Made In China" Trap International", RADII | Stories From The
Center Of China’S Youth Culture, Last modified 2020, https://radiichina.com/higher-brothers/.
17
Al Rocco, "About — AL ROCCO", AL ROCCO, Last modified 2020, http://www.alrocco.com/about.
9

gender ( 内/ 外), and new generation feminism ( 新生代女权主义) to construct and challenge
Sinophone representations of masculinity. I break my analysis of these music videos into three
chapters.
The first chapter focuses on allusions to wushu and jianghu spaces in the music videos
“Made in China” and “Bruce Lee ( 李小龙).” I posit that the Sinophone rappers, Al Rocco and
the Higher Brothers, use hip hop’s status as outlaw music and performances of blackness within
hip hop to challenge various stereotypes of Chineseness and define Chinese hip hop. I argue that
rappers Al Rocco and the Higher Brothers use wushu imagery to situate themselves within
imagined jianghu spaces. Al Rocco and the Higher Brothers use jianghu and wushu to articulate
distinct Chinese masculinity by positioning themselves within these imagined spaces. However,
Rocco and the Higher Brothers use wushu and jianghu iconography to establish distinct
definitions of Chinese hip hop. As an overseas Chinese ( 华人), Rocco defines Chinese hip hop
as a multilingual, multinational, transpacific space where Chinese culture is one of the many
represented cultures. On the other hand, the Higher Brothers define hip hop as black hip hop that
is made in China. They perform blackness through hip hop to create a narrative of cool China
and position themselves as international stars “made in China.” Finally, I acknowledge that both
black rappers and Chinese rappers utilize wushu iconography in their hip hop performances and
argue that wushu and rap both function as affective performances of resistance that create a
distinctly transpacific space where alternate articulations of masculinity, national identity,
politics, and race can be performed.
In the second chapter, I use the apparent lack of wushu imagery in the Taiwanese-
American artist Miss Ko’s music video “Queen of Queens ( 皇后的皇后)” as a segue to explore
10

how masculinity in the Taiwanese rap scene is distinct from the idealized Chinese masculinity
presented by the Higher Brothers and Al Rocco. The Taiwanese rap community is a largely
male-dominated one. However, this is because hip hop in Taiwan is often articulated as a male
expressive art form. Rap in Taiwan developed as a masculine art form out of a native desire to
follow in the footsteps of American hip hop, the indigenization of rap as an expression of male
experiences such as compulsory military enlistment, and the prevalence of Confucian
understandings of gender. I argue that Miss Ko uses the aforementioned familiar iterations of
masculinity specific to Taiwanese rap to rearticulate gender expectations within the genre.
Specifically, Miss Ko utilizes symbolic representations of war and conquest to create a space for
herself in the male-dominated Taiwanese rap scene. By doing so, Miss Ko creates a “Look I’ve
Overcome” narrative that valorizes resilience and reaffirms multiracial white supremacist
patriarchy.
In the third chapter, I focus on how Vinida uses aesthetics of black femininity embedded
in hip hop and a metaphorical narrative about heterosexual romance, infidelity, and violent
revenge to establish herself as a “queen ( 女王) in the music nation ( 音乐的国度).”
18
In the
music video “Queendom,” Vinida performs black femininity to present herself as a strong
independent woman. Vinida specifically draws inspiration from Beyoncé. Beyoncé represents a
new brand of black divadom that can be articulated as the Bad Bitch Barbie. Through her bad
bitch barbie persona, Beyoncé’s gendered and racialized performance allows her to repurpose the
commodification of her body as a tool for her empowerment. These combinations of agency and
commodification, empowerment and objectification overlap with characteristics of made-in-

18
" 专访万妮达：在音乐的国度里，做自己的女王。", Sohu.Com, Last modified 2017,
https://www.sohu.com/a/158442481_623452.
11

china feminism (c-fem).
19
Vinida, through her performance of black femininity, can empower
herself and her viewers by situating herself in existing new generation feminist discourse.
Finally, I conclude the paper with suggestions for further research and a summation of
the impact this scholarship has on Sinophone studies, Chinese studies, and hip-hop studies. By
highlighting the cross-racial, transpacific connections and place-based iterations of gender
embedded in Sinophone rap, this study serves as an example of how analyzing Sinophone hip
hop can help to challenge the “Ameriocentrism”
20
common to hip hop studies, posit new
articulations of Chineseness, and advocate for the inclusion of music in Sinophone studies.

19
Angela Xiao Wu and Yige Dong, "What Is Made-In-China Feminism(S)? Gender Discontent And Class Friction In Post-
Socialist China", Critical Asian Studies 51, no. 4 (2019): 471-492, doi:10.1080/14672715.2019.1656538.
20
Ibid. Mitchell 6
12

Chapter 1: The Power of the Outlaw
Hip hop is outlaw music. That is the proclamation that Imani Perry makes in her book
Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics of Hip Hop. She states that "It [hip hop] is not simply
music in which outlawry is discussed; it is outlaw music.
21
" On the one hand, hip hop constitutes
outlaw music because of its association with lawbreaking. Sampling, a practice where DJs or
producers use slices of music from existing records, is one of the foundational practices of hip
hop and has led to much controversy surrounding copyright issues. It has also led to heated
debate over whether or not hip hop can be considered "real" music. Additionally, rap songs often
discuss illicit activities such as prostitution, gang life, and drug dealing. In this sense, hip hop
becomes outlaw music because of its complicity in showcasing or contributing to literal
lawbreaking practices.
On the other hand, hip-hop music is the personification of the outlaw because it is black
music. Outlawry can be represented as opposition to existing legal structures or symbolized in
opposition to existing hegemonic values. Tricia Rose defines rap music as "a black cultural
expression that prioritizes black voices from the margins of urban America.
22
" In this statement,
there exist already two significant assertions. One, that rap is a black cultural expression. Perry
also reiterates this sentiment when she argues that hip hop is black American music because of
its usage on African American Vernacular English (AAVE), political location as black people's
culture, and its connections to black oral traditions and culture.
23
Two, Rose is asserting that the
black subjectivity expressed in hip hop is articulated from the margins of society. In other words,
rap music, because it is black music, expresses subjectivities outside of the periphery of

21
Imani Perry, Prophets Of The Hood: Politics And Poetics Of Hip Hop Durham, N.C: Duke University Press, 2006.
22
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music And Black Culture In Contemporary America Middletown: Wesleyan
University Press, 1994.
23
Ibid 10
13

mainstream culture. Because of this positionality of the "margins of urban America," hip hop is
situated within outlaw culture as it represents an "opposition to norms that unfairly punish black
communities" and the "creation of alternative values, norms, and ideals in contrast to those
embraced in American society.
24
" In this chapter, I would like to focus on how Sinophone
rappers use hip hop, because of its status as outlaw music, as a space to create alternative norms
and values. Rappers Al Rocco and the Higher Brothers perform blackness through hip hop to
access the power of the outlaw to create alternative spaces.
Furthermore, they articulate their identity as Chinese rappers by incorporating wushu
iconography and jianghu spaces into their personification of the outlaw. Although both Al Rocco
and the Higher Brothers use hip hop and wushu/jianghu iconography to acquire the power to
articulate alternative norms, the alternative spaces they envision are not identical. For example,
Al Rocco uses the alternative space created through hip hop to articulate a definition of
"Chineseness," the decenters the nation-state of China. On the other hand, the Higher Brothers
utilize the performance of blackness in hip hop to challenge orientalist depictions of China as a
"backward," impoverished, undeveloped nation.

Untangling Wushu, Jianghu, and Chinese Masculinity
Wushu ( 武术), also referred to as kung fu, is an umbrella term to refer to various
traditional Chinese martial arts. Its origins can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty, where it was
used as a term to refer to the military tactics, hand-to-hand combat, and weapons mastery used
during the era.
25
Subsequently, wushu became a popular form of martial arts until it was

24
Ibid 103
25
Zhouxiang Lu, Zhang Qi and Hong Fan, "Projecting The ‘Chineseness’: Nationalism, Identity And Chinese Martial Arts
Films", The International Journal Of The History Of Sports 31, no. 3 (2014): 320-335, doi:10.1080/09523367.2013.866093.
14

weaponized to defend the homeland and carry on the legacy of Chinese culture at the start of the
twentieth century. From the Boxer Rebellion (1897 - 1901), which heralded martial arts as a
useful weapon against foreign invasion to the creation of the first martial arts film in 1925, which
highlighted wushu's value as a legacy of traditional culture, the Republic of China era was a time
during which the image of the wushu master became synonymous with the savior of the nation.
26

This fit within the political ideology of the era as the return to wushu aligned with nationalist
calls for militarization and recentered wushu as an indigenous Chinese cultural practice. In
particular, martial arts films became one of the most popular ways to explore the relationship
between wushu as a cultural legacy and military provision. However, with the start of the second
Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, many filmmakers fled the mainland to find safety in Hong
Kong which, along with the rise of the Chinese Communist Party who outlawed wushu as a
feudal practice, led to the establishment of Hong Kong as the hotspot for wushu films. Hong
Kong wushu filmmakers perpetuated the image of the wuxia or martial arts expert as the
defender of his nation and home, but they also distinguished themselves in two ways. First, in the
1940s, filmmakers began to incorporate authentic wushu skills by using real practitioners. Before
this, wushu films typically depicted martial arts fantastically, including superhuman abilities and
mysticism. Second, Hong Kong filmmakers changed the antagonist of martial arts films so that
instead of promoting an anti-Manchu nationalism, they emphasized an anti-colonial and anti-
imperial nationalism wherein any combination of Japanese, American, or British entity could
serve as the main antagonist. This turn to anti-colonial and anti-imperial nationalism can be
attributed to a combination of factors such as mainland Chinese concern over border security, the
advent of the Cold War, the nationalism of the Cultural Revolution, and the 1967 anti-British

26
Ibid 321
15

demonstrations in Hong Kong. These international tensions together fostered anti-US and anti-
UK sentiment in Hong Kong and China. These two changes to the constitution of wushu films as
introduced by Hong Kong filmmakers gave birth to the rise of Bruce Lee as the pinnacle of
martial arts films and an idealized form of Chinese masculinity.
In "Don't think, feel: Mediatization of Chinese masculinities through martial arts films,"
Mie Hiramoto employs the wen( 文)/wu( 武) dyad to analyze constructions of Chinese
masculinity and how they differ from western heroes in the same wushu films. Hiramoto posits
that wushu heroes in martial art films embody idealized Chinese masculinity born from the
heroes successfully balancing wen (cultural attainment) and wu (martial valor). For Hiramoto,
the balance of these two traditional concepts of Chinese masculinity as represented through
Bruce Lee and his characters are demonstrated by "both reticence and formulaic/philosophical
speech styles" in addition to martial arts prowess, an emphasis on homosocial bonds, and
avoidance of women.
27
However, these defining masculine characteristics are not exclusive to
Bruce Lee nor the wushu film genre.
Jianghu ( 江湖), literally translated as rivers and lakes, is a term that refers to an imagined
space in Chinese literature, film, and culture home to a brotherhood of individuals perceived to
be outside of the periphery of mainstream society and government authority. The brotherhood of
individuals that call these imagined spaces home is a diverse combination of thieves, craftsmen,
fortune-tellers, exiles, and knights-errant who typically utilize some style of martial arts.
28
Pre-
modern literary allusions to jianghu construct the space as one of remoteness where the elite
went for temporary respite or exile, and the lower class lived. Thus, it was synonymous with the

27
Mie Hiramoto, "Don’T Think, Feel: Mediatization Of Chinese Masculinities Through Martial Arts Films", Language And
Communication 32 (2012): 386-399, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2012.08.005.
28
Geng Song, "Masculinizing Jianghu Spaces In The Past And Present: Homosociality, Nationalism And Chineseness", Nan Nü,
no. 21 (2019): 107-129, doi:10.1163/15685268-00211P04.
16

underbelly of society. In "Masculinizing Jianghu Spaces in the Past and Present Homosociality,
Nationalism, and Chineseness," Geng Song synthesizes the historical constructions of jianghu
spaces and analyzes the 14th-century novel The Water Margins ( 水浒传) to unpack the
masculinity constructed in these jianghu spaces. According to Song, masculinity in these spaces
is first and foremost legitimized by the brotherhood. Homosocial male bonds and loyalty to those
bonds are considered the most critical measure of manhood. Loyalty to the fraternity is then
measured by upholding values such as generosity, chivalry, righteousness, self-control, and
abstinence.
29
These characteristics of masculinity directly correlate with the idealized
masculinity deployed in wushu films. This overlap is a result of the conflation between wushu
stories and jianghu spaces. Because both include allusions to traditional Chinese literature and
privilege masters of wushu as the primary heroes, unless the film's plot is a retelling of a specific
tale or fable, it is difficult to separate the aesthetics of jianghu and wushu in martial arts films.
Furthermore, because of the depiction of jianghu spaces as synonymous with outlaw
culture in Chinese literature and films, both wushu and jianghu can be conferred with outlaw
status. The music videos "Bruce Lee ( 李小龙)" performed by Al Rocco featuring Jackson Wang
and "Made in China" performed by the Higher Brothers use elements of wushu and jianghu as a
tool for expressing Chinese masculinity even as these rappers perform blackness through
adopting the culture of hip hop. Al Rocco and the Higher Brothers both utilize hip hop and
wushu iconography to obtain the power to express alternative ideals; they articulate different
definitions of hip hop and Chineseness due to their positionalities and lived experiences.

29
Ibid 11
17

Becoming Bruce Lee and Tupac
The song "Bruce Lee (李小龙)" was written by Rocco and Wang but produced by Fader
One.
30
It was released on July 15th, 2018. The song represents Al Rocco's aspirations to
represent Chinese culture on the world stage. In 2017, the Chinese rapper Al Rocco auditioned
for the Chinese competition show The Rap of China ( 中国有嘻哈). Rocco was eliminated in the
second round because his rap was mainly in English. The judges stated that they were looking to
find "Chinese" rap, the assumption being that Chinese rap music needed to be rapped in
Mandarin, the national language of China. In true hip hop fashion, Al Rocco responded to his
elimination by writing a diss track--a song commonly used by rappers to disrespect or speak ill
of another artist. The diss track written entirely in English describes Rocco's disgust with the
show and many rappers on it. Stating that the rappers on The Rap of China could never represent
true hip hop and that they had "sold your [their] soul to the china devil." The track also revealed
how Al Rocco's elimination from the show caused him to question his identity as a Chinese
rapper. Rocco raps that he realized he was "hated by his kind but never really thought about it,"
suggesting that he recognized as an overseas Chinese with ties to Hong Kong and Taiwan, that
did not rap in Mandarin Chinese he was on the margins of the Chinese community and
supposedly out of touch with his "Chinese" identity. As a result, Rocco began searching for his
identity. In multiple interviews following his elimination on the first season of The Rap of China,
he states that the show gave him a new goal to represent Chinese hip hop on the world stage.
31

But what does Al Rocco mean by that declaration? The answer can be found in his use of the

30
Al Rocco X Jackson Wang 王嘉尔 - Bruce Lee 李小龙 (Official Music Video), video, 2018,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4uMzmYaksg.
31
AL Rocco 最喜欢的三位中国rapper 是谁？【秃子教授采访interviews - AL ROCCO 】, video, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kd-RvMLJp4&list=PLg7OA6aPSLtENN3H9FaVWfC9koUTrNHag.
18

icon Bruce Lee. In his diss track and many public appearances following Al Rocco's first
appearance on The Rap of China, Rocco began to compare himself to Bruce Lee as a way of
articulating his "Chineseness." He is often heard proclaiming himself the Bruce Lee of hip hop.
Rocco's identification with Bruce Lee is solidified in his song "Bruce Lee ( 李小龙)" which was
released one year after his elimination in the first season of The Rap of China and several months
after he proved himself on the second season of the show by making it into the final 15 ---
rapping mainly in Mandarin. Therefore, the song "Bruce Lee" and, more broadly, Rocco's
identification with Bruce Lee can be interpreted as a declaration of Al Rocco's new identity as a
"Chinese" rapper and representative of how Rocco defines Chinese hip hop.
The song "Bruce Lee" draws on elements of wushu and jianghu in several ways. First,
the language and tools of wushu are incorporated lyrically, sonically, and visually throughout the
song. Lyrically, Wang and Rocco utilize analogies to wushu in the verses. Jackson raps, "Team
Wang on the beat like WingChun kick/Like kung fu mix miracles what we make." WingChun is
the southern-style type of kung fu in which Bruce Lee trained. Wang also raps that he "spits
venom on the verse," which could be considered a reference to the Hong Kong martial arts film
Five Deadly Venoms (1978) produced by the Shaw Brothers. Rocco alludes to wushu in his verse
when he raps " 全世界走我的武功的flow (The whole world follows my martial arts flow)."
Wushu references are also supported with visual images, such as nunchucks, location, and
clothing style. One of the primary settings for the video is a martial arts studio. Along the walls
of the martial arts studio are wushu weapons such as spears and iconic pictures of a shirtless
Bruce Lee. As Wang raps his verse in the studio, he is surrounded by children in orange
uniforms reminiscent of those worn by Shaolin Monks. Periodically through the video, Rocco
also dawns a white top with wide cuffs and frog buttons commonly associated with WingChun
19

kung fu. Even as the aestheticization of wushu elements takes place lyrically and visually, it is
also done sonically. Layered on top of the stuttering beat and rolling hi-hat is the exclamatory
sounds, known as kiai, often associated with martial arts performance in many kung fu films,
especially films with Bruce Lee.

(Jackson Wang rapping his verse surrounded. The screenshot was taken from the official music video)
Second, the values embedded in jianghu spaces such as abstaining from romantic
relationships, valorization of brotherhood, and condemnation of materialism are also represented
in the song. In his verse, Jackson Wang raps, "Ain't bout the money we having, Ain't bout the
cars we driving/Ain't bout that Rolex shinning, Ain't bout the girl you kissing." In these lyrics, he
dismisses materialism and romantic relationships in favor of pursuing his "ambition." This
dismissal is similar to how wushu heroes often abstain from romantic relationships to avoid
distractions and pursue mastery over their fighting style. Rocco represents jianghu values by
emphasizing homosocial and familial bonds as the source of his strength when he raps, " 兄弟和
家人是我们的力量 ([my]Brothers and family members are my strength)." Third, and most
20

significantly, wushu aesthetics are most consistently invoked through the symbol of Bruce Lee.
The first voice the listeners hear and the first face they see in the music video belong to Bruce
Lee. His image is plastered all over the martial arts studio and appropriated by Rocco through
clothing attire and nunchaku. His name is repeated throughout the song. Even the scattered
narrative of the triumphal victory for the underdog depicted throughout the video hints at Lee's
status as an icon for the underdogs. Bruce Lee, as the name of the song suggests, is the lynchpin
of the entire video. He is the method by which Rocco has chosen to articulate his vision of
Chinese hip hop and his definition of Chineseness. But why Bruce Lee?
On the one hand, it is because Bruce Lee represents the triumph of the underdog. In
between the braggadocio posing, the performance of martial arts, and rap verses, the music video
"Bruce Lee" tells the story of a bullied young man that finds the strength to stand up for himself
by learning kung fu. In each of Bruce Lee's films, The Big Boss, Fists of Fury, The Way of the
Dragon, and Enter the Dragon, Bruce Lee plays an underdog who triumphs over various
villains. Depending on whether the villain is a manipulating crime boss or rival Japanese karate
master, Bruce Lee repeatedly faces seemingly larger than him challenges but always comes out
on top. The different villains simply allow for different readings of who or what Bruce Lee is
triumphing over. His victories can be read as a "triumph for Hong Kong, for diasporic Chinese in
general, for the third world, or for Asian Americans.
32
" Bruce Lee's heroic triumphs have also
inspired minorities, namely many black men in America, which I will discuss more later in the
chapter.

32
Chris Berry, "Stellar Transit: Bruce Lee’S Body Or Chinese Masculinity In A Transnational Frame", in Embodied
Modernities: Corporeality, Representation, And Chinese Cultures Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2021, 218 - 235,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wqq3d.16.
21

(Sample from The Lost Interview. The screenshot was taken from the official music video.)

On the other hand, Bruce Lee represents a specific type of transpacific transnational
Chinese identity. Bruce Lee represented idealized Chinese masculinity as represented through
the balance between wen and wu in his characters, but he also represented the fusion of Eastern
and Western masculinity by embodying both wu masculinity and American masculinity. In
"Stellar Transit: Bruce Lee's Body or Chinese Masculinity in a Transnational Frame," Chris
Berry asserts that Lee creates neo-wu masculinity by incorporating "American codes" into wu
masculinity. Lee does not only represent the reticent, self-controlled wushu master, but he also
fits within the imagined gunslinger or heroic outlaw, and he challenges the ways traditional wu
masculinity distances wushu heroes from sexual desire by eroticizing his performance and
removing his shirt.
33
It is this shirtless Bruce Lee that is plastered throughout the martial arts
studio in the music video "Bruce Lee." The description of the music video released on Rocco's
official YouTube Channel states that the goal of the song is to represent the "new Chinese hip

33
Ibid 224
22

hop wave," "bring Chinese culture back to the basics," and "bridge the gap between east and
west." It is clear the Rocco is using Bruce Lee as the symbol to bridge that gap. Bruce Lee
represents a hybridized East-West masculinity and transnational solidarity specifically facilitated
by transpacific exchanges. In "Nomad of the Transpacific: Bruce Lee as Method," Daryl Joji
Maeda asserts that Lee refused "to be captured by the East or West, but instead flowed between
and shaped both.
34
" Maeda presents Lee as a nomad and suggests the best way of engaging with
the study of his work, influence, and symbolism is to adopt "Bruce Lee as a method," in essence
to see Bruce Lee as a cite for "interweaving and unraveling nationalisms, colonialisms, and racial
and gender formations.
35
" Lee weaved multiple national and racial identities into his martial arts
performances. WingChun is the style of kung fu he was trained in, but he also incorporated the
high kicks of Japanese karate, the Filipino weapon the tabak toyok, the boxing philosophy of
African-American boxer Muhammad Ali, and many others.
By invoking the symbol of Bruce Lee, Rocco is also creating a space for what he calls in
his verse " 国际亚洲人 (international Asians)." He also emphasizes how his status as a Chinese
rapper and representative of Chinese culture is not dependent on location by mentioning several
different places in his verse. Rocco represents Chinese hip hop from " 香港到LA and LA back
again (Hong Kong to LA and LA back again)." Like Bruce Lee, Rocco refuses to be captured by
the East or West; instead, he flows freely across the Pacific. Rocco's "Bruce Lee flow" is further
emphasized by both his and Jackson Wang's backgrounds. Jackson Wang is a multilingual rapper
born in Kowloon and has always proudly identified as a native Hong Konger. For most of his
childhood, he trained as an Olympic fencer. He turned down the Olympics to become a trainee at

34
Daryl Joji Maeda, "Nomad Of The Transpacific: Bruce Lee As Method", American Quarterly 69, no. 3 (2017): 741-761,
doi:10.1353/aq.2017.0059.
35
Ibid 744
23

a South Korean entertainment company, where he eventually debuted as a member of the
recently disbanded Korean boy band, Got7. Wang used his connections as an artist to star in
reality shows in mainland China and start his clothing line and record label, Team Wang. Since
starting solo work, Jackson has judged on shows such as the Street Dance of China and worked
with the Asian-American music label 88rising. Al Rocco spent his childhood between Hong
Kong and another East Asian country --Taiwan. Rocco claims both Hong Kong and Taipei as
home. He has also lived in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, London, and currently Shanghai. Rocco
interchangeably uses the identification categories of Chinese and Asian. Additionally, throughout
Rocco's verse, he engages in codeswitching. Codeswitching is defined as "the alternation
between two or more languages in the discourse of bilingual or multilingual exchanges.
36
"
Premeditated bilingual codeswitching, as represented through codeswitching in song lyrics or
written script, can be considered a distinct language and music style intended for audiences that
are comprised of multilingual communities.
37
The assumption is that listeners can also identify
with bilingual codeswitching as an existing style because it reflects their status as multilingual
and their identification with the multilingual community. Rocco articulates his identification with
a multilingual, multinational community in his codeswitching and designates Chinese hip hop as
a multilingual style of music. By drawing on Bruce Lee's image, Rocco articulates what he
considers to be the "full realization of self," as indicated by the sample from Bruce Lee's 1971
interview with Pierre Berton, which opens the music video. Rocco's full self, like Bruce Lee, is
both a nomad and an underdog. Just as much as he is a " 龙的传人 (Descendant of the Dragon),"

36
Victor Mugari, "Code-Switching In Zimbabwean Urban Grooves Music", Language Matters 45, no. 2 (2014): 224-236,
doi:10.1080/10228195.2014.907332.
37
Ibid 11
24

he is also an "international Asian." However, Rocco does not only position himself as Bruce Lee.
He calls himself "2Pac 和李小龙 (I'm 2pac and Bruce Lee)."

(Rocco rapping in a red bandana. The screenshot was taken from the official music video)
In her book, Hanguk Hip Hop: Global Rap in South Korea, Myoung-Sun Song notes that
many Korean rappers use lyrics that refer to a "black soul" or "black heart" as a way of
articulating their identification with black culture while still rapping in Korean to center their
own stories about life in Korea.
38
By invoking the figure of 2pac, also known as Tupac Shakur,
Rocco is explicitly referencing hip hop as a black music practice and framing his performance of
blackness throughout the video. Rocco visually represents his identification with Tupac through
clothing style. Whether Rocco is rapping, posing, or engaged in kung fu practice, he wears a
bandana. Tupac is known for wearing a bandana tied around his forehead. Bandanas can be
considered paraphernalia associated with gang life that has been stylized into streetwear through
the popularity of gangsta rap and rappers such as Tupac. Rocco imitates this signature look
throughout the music video as a way of performing hip-hop culture. However, by specifically

38
MYOUNG-SUN SONG, Hanguk Hip Hop [S.l.]: Springer Nature, 2019.
25

using the bandana and its association with gang life, he draws on hip-hop music as outlaw music.
Rocco's performance of blackness through hip hop allows him access to the power to create
alternate ideals, namely his articulation of a transpacific, multinational, multilingual Chinese
identity and Chinese hip hop.
Now, Even Hip Hop Is Made in China
In contrast to Al Rocco's multinational, multilingual definition of Chinese hip hop, the
Higher Brothers define Chinese hip hop as a hip hop that is "made in China." They firmly situate
the performance of hip hop within the discourse of Chinese national identity in the music video
"Made in China (2017)." Higher Brothers is a group of four rappers MaSiWei, Melo, DZKnow,
and Psy. P, who met through the Chengdu Rap Collective in China. The rappers named their
group the Higher Brothers after the Chinese home appliance company Haier. The music video
"Made in China" is performed by the rap quartet; however, the song has featured other artists
such as black-American rapper Famous Dex and French musician DJ Snake. For this paper, I
will focus on the music video version that features Famous Dex.
39
The song was produced by
Richie Soul and released in 2017. It is a part of the group's first full-length album, Black Cab.
The album and, more specifically, the song "Made in China," along with the artists' positions as
members of the international label 88rising, have made the Higher Brothers the most famous
Chinese rap group in the world right now. They are heralded as the pioneers of Chinese trap
music, a subgenre of hip hop music developed in the southern region of the United States
characterized by "rolling kick and bass sounds alongside melodic riffs, processed vocals, and

39
Higher Brothers X Famous Dex - Made In China (Prod. Richie Souf), video, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rILKm-DC06A.
26

shuffling hi-hats.
40
" The video "Made in China" has over 21 million views. The Higher Brothers
rap the song in English and Chinese, with the chorus primarily in English and the Higher
Brothers' verses in Chinese. The boys boast that everything, from alarm clocks to yin and yang,
and even rap music, is now made in China throughout the song. Throughout the song, the Higher
Brothers use China's rise as an economic power as a metaphor for their rise as international hip-
hop icons. Ultimately the song serves as a declaration of both theirs and China's arrival as
modern, cool powerhouses. This message is conveyed through the appropriation of blackness
and a presentation of manufactured "Chineseness."
In his investigation of race and blackness in Japanese hip hop, Ian Condry argues that
Japanese rappers do not perform blackness to be black. Instead, Condry posits that "Japanese hip
hoppers" specifically use race issues embedded in hip hop as a starting point for articulating
cosmopolitan politics that he calls "a new cultural politics of affiliation.
41
" Through hip hop,
Japanese youth were able to make connections between the racial struggles of African
Americans and the political struggles of Japanese youth. Condry also notes that Japanese youth
imitate blackness on a more general level by darkening their skin and kinking their hair to be
cool, not black.
42
Likewise, I argue that the Higher Brothers perform blackness through hip hop
to perform coolness. The Higher Brothers can be considered within a "cool China" discourse
because of their connection to the international label 88rising. The music video, "Made in
China," opens with the 88rising label as an introduction to the song; therefore, positioning the

40
Hammad Rashid, "What Is A Trap Beat?", Musicgateway.Com, Last modified 2020,
https://www.musicgateway.com/blog/how-to/trap-
beats#:~:text=A%20Trap%20beat%20is%20the,vocals%20and%20shuffling%20hi%20hats.
41
Ian Condry, "Yellow B-Boys, Black Culture, And Hip-Hop In Japan: Toward A Transnational Cultural Politics Of
Race", Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 15, no. 3 (2007): 637-671, doi:10.1215/10679847-2007-008.
42
Ibid 655
27

Higher Brothers within the label's goals is a necessary precursor to understanding how their
Higher Brothers fit into a cool China discourse.

(88rising logo from the intro of “Made in China.” The screenshot was taken from the official music video)
The company 88rising was founded by Sean Miyashiro, an Asian-American entrepreneur
born in San Jose, California, to a Japanese father and a Korean mother. Miyashiro spent much of
his college experience bouncing between Black Fraternities and Asian Christian groups while
working several different marketing jobs. He eventually helped start the electronic-music website
Thump, a subsidiary of the art and lifestyle magazine Vice. Miyashiro started the global
company 88rising after a Korean-American rapper Dumbfoundead introduced him to the Korean
rapper Keith Ape. The company functions as a talent management service, record label, and
video production company that acts as a "portal for Asian culture" by connecting Asian talent,
stories, and global audiences.
43
The company has connected several Asian artists, such as the
Chinese Canadian rapper Kris Wu and Chinese rap quartet Higher Brothers, with American

43
Hua Hsu, "How 88Rising Is Making A Place For Asians In Hip-Hop", The New Yorker, Last modified 2018,
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/26/how-88rising-is-making-a-place-for-asians-in-hip-hop.
28

artists such as Travis Scott and Famous Dexter. These collaborations are one of the many ways
that Miyashiro attempts to connect Asian culture to global audiences. The company creates
opportunities for collaboration between the East and the West and supports artists from all over
Asia, including Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, and China.
44
Essentially the label seeks to
represent Asian culture in a "cool" way to non-Asian audiences. As artists within this network,
Higher Brothers also present themselves as artists who portray China and Chinese culture in a
cool way. However, the way that they do this is through the performance of blackness.
The Higher Brothers visually perform blackness via hip-hop iconography throughout the
music video. They often wear gold chains, matching jackets, and dreaded hair reminiscent of
other hip-hop boy groups like The Fat Boys and the Migos. They also, throughout the video,
showcase their status as hip hop icons by imitating concert performances in front of fans. We can
infer that the Higher Brothers use this imagery and the song's lyrics to challenge the assumption
that they cannot be cool because of their identity as Chinese. This assumption is represented in
the song through a vocal sample of what sounds like a valley girl condemning Chinese rap. In
the sample, the American woman incredulously says: "Rap Music? China? What are they even
saying? Is this Chinese rap music? Sounds like they're just saying 'ching chang chong'…." If the
88rising logo at the beginning of the video signifies the Higher Brother's goal to present Chinese
culture in a cool way, this sample demonstrates why they feel compelled to do so. They are
challenging existing stereotypes about China and Chinese culture. The valley girl's comments are
representative of some of the racially charged stereotypes that the rappers aim to combat. The

44
Harrison Jacobs, "A 3-Year-Old Shape-Shifting Startup Founded By A Vice Alum Is Betting On Viral Asian Hip-Hop Stars To
Be The Future Of The Entertainment Industry", Business Insider, Last modified 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/88rising-
sean-miyashiro-rich-brian-joji-2018-11.
29

Higher Brothers are intentionally challenging the assumption that China cannot have rap music.
This assumption comes from two strands of thought.

(The Higher Brothers posing at the start of the song. The screenshot was taken from the official music video)
On the one hand, it comes from the assumption that China is a traditional, "backward"
nation, and rap music is a trendy music genre that serves as a forerunner for culture. Because hip
hop is considered trendy, it is considered the opposite of China, and therefore China cannot have
rap. On the other hand, there is the understanding that rap music is black music. The girl who is
speaking is identified with an American California girl accent. Therefore, she stereotypes
according to perceived American racial hierarchies. In that case, rap music is black music, and
Chinese men are Asian men. black-Americans and Asian-Americans are often racialized as
opposites within America's ethnic minorities as Asian-Americans are stereotyped as the hard-
working, successful, model minority, and black-Americans are the criminals or problem child.
Within this strand of thought, rap music in China is inconceivable because of the racialization of
China as Asian and rap music as black music. The Higher Brothers challenge this assumption by
30

performing blackness and stardom. They imitate blackness through hip-hop styles such as gold
chains and dreadlocks. They also imitate the hip-hop star's lifestyle in several different ways.
First, the Higher Brothers repeatedly include scenes of themselves performing at concert
venues on stage in the music video. Second, they appropriate the perceived lavish lifestyle of rap
stars through the MaSiWei's repetitive hook "my [higher brothers'] new chains, new gold watch"
and " 给bitch买点儿奢侈品 (bought luxury products to give [a] bitch]." Third, they articulate
their star status through their misogynistic and materialistic relations with women. For example,
in the hook, MaSiWei raps, "she said she didn't love me," but "she lied." Also, they buy luxury
products for a woman, and in his verse Psy. P questions why women are unfaithful with the line
" 女孩女孩女孩为什么要离开 (girl, girl, girl, why do you want to leave)?" All of these
represent common stereotypes of the rap star's lifestyle. By performing the rap star's lifestyle in
the song, the Higher Brothers appropriate blackness and reinforce stereotypes of hip hop as
outlaw music for thugs and "bad niggas." However, doing so allows them to present themselves
as cool and edgy.
Even as they use these familiar images to create their persona as cool and successful hip
hop icons, they also infuse them with manufactured Chineseness. The Higher Brothers
manufacture or reify Chineseness by showcasing Chinese cultural products in the music video's
lyrics, images, and sounds. One example of this reification is the allusion to wushu and jianghu
iconography. The Higher Brothers acknowledge components of wushu as some of the products
"made in China." These products include taichi and the Eight Trigrams ( 八卦). Additionally, one
can see rows of traditional spears( 矛) surrounding the rappers as they deliver their verses. The
"brothers" utilize the imagery of spears to situate themselves in a jianghu space. More
importantly, these spears line what appears to be the kind of traditional Chinese courtyard you
31

would see at Hengdian ( 横店), a famous area used for filming historical dramas. Although the
Higher Brothers conjure these images to articulate their Chineseness, they rely on manufactured
replications of Chinese culture to do so. This theme is repeated by mentioning products such as
The Great Wall of China, The Forbidden City, yin and yang, and Fengshui. These items connect
to Chinese culture, but they also serve as tourist attractions or elements of Chinese culture that
foreigners would gravitate to as representations of Chineseness. Therefore, the Higher Brothers
mention them to manufacture their Chineseness and proclaim their identity as specifically
Chinese rap stars. By invoking both reified Chineseness and stereotypical representations of
rappers' "outlaw" lifestyles, the Higher Brothers present themselves as Chinese and cool. They
also articulate Chinese hip hop not as a fusion of East and West, like Al Rocco in Bruce Lee, but
as black hip hop music with manufactured Chineseness.

(Higher Brothers rapping in the Hengdian location. The screenshot was taken from the official music video)

32

Towards a Transpacific Alternative
In this chapter, I have discussed how hip hop music as a form of outlaw music is utilized
by the Chinese rappers Al Rocco and the Higher Brothers to articulate their respective definitions
of Chinese hip hop. I have argued that both Al Rocco and the Higher Brothers perform blackness
through hip hop to access the power of outlawry to create alternative values and ideals.
Furthermore, these artists embedded a perceived Chineseness into their performance of blackness
to establish themselves as Chinese rappers. I have argued that they create this perceived
Chineseness through wushu and jianghu iconography. However, Chinese rappers are not the only
rappers that draw on wushu iconography in their hip hop performances-- black American rappers
also use wushu images in their rap performances. By analyzing how wushu images are
incorporated into hip hop aesthetics, it becomes apparent that when paired together, wushu and
rap serve as tools to create a distinctly transpacific space where alternate articulations of
masculinity, national identity, politics, and race can be performed.
In 1992 a nine-person hip-hop group from Staten Island named the Wu-Tang Clan was
formed. They called themselves the Wu-Tang Clan after the 1983 martial arts film Shaolin and
the Wu-Tang. The group released their first album in 1993, and it quickly reached number 41 on
the US Billboard 200 chart.
45
The members' passion for martial arts aesthetics was explicit
throughout the album, just as the album name, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), hints. The
group members RZA, GZA, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Method Man, U-
God, Masta Killa, and Inspectah Deck, used a combination of martial arts imagery, fast raps, and
innovative sampling techniques that brought a new sound to hip hop that was replicated by many

45
"Wu-Tang Clan: What To Know About The Legendary Hip-Hop Group", Highsnobiety, Last modified 2021,
https://www.highsnobiety.com/tag/wu-tang-
clan/#:~:text=As%20avid%20martial%20arts%20fans,and%20their%20sound%20was%20revolutionary.&text=It%20sounded%
20like%20nothing%20ever,was%20largely%20populating%20the%20radio.
33

artists later. The group marked a resurgence in East Coast hip hop when radio stations were
primarily dominated by West Coast gangsta rap. Although many would argue that the Wu-Tang
Clan is one of the most influential hip-hop groups of all time, I would like to highlight not their
innovative business approach, style, or musical productions but their identification with wushu
films. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Wu-Tang leader and producer RZA identifies ten wushu
films that he sampled to create some of the group's iconic songs. RZA names films such as Enter
the Dragon, Five Deadly Venoms, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Ten Tigers of Kwangtung, and
many more. RZA utilized voice samples and scenes as inspiration for Wu-Tang's tracks, but he
also took the time to learn about the cast and crew of the film, the martial art techniques that
inspired the film, and the Chinese folklore that informed the film.
46
For RZA, wushu films were
not just a hobby or side interest but a significant influence on his identity. This influence carried
over into the group Wu-Tang, and as the Wu-Tang Clan became one of the most influential hip
hop groups of all time, their legacy of incorporating kung fu aesthetics through film references
continues to new generations of rappers such as Kendrick Lamar, who adopted the persona of
"Kung-fu Kenny" for his 2017 album DAMN.
Additionally, Bruce Lee has been an icon in hip-hop aesthetics since the 1990s. However,
Lee and martial arts films more widely were integrated into black popular culture much earlier in
the 1970s through the advent of the Kung Fu Theatre. In "'He wanted to be just like Bruce Lee':
African Americans, Kung Fu Theater and Cultural Exchange at the Margins," Amy Abugo
Ongiri argues that African Americans gravitated towards kung fu films and culture because it
offered an alternative, non-Western, non-white, set of cultural values and it presented visual

46
Vanity Fair, Wu-Tang’S RZA Breaks Down 10 Kung Fu Films He’S Sampled | Vanity Fair, video, 2019,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ67KyHX-cY.
34

narratives of "the body as an instrument of social justice.
47
" Just as Chinese rappers Al Rocco
and the Higher Brothers turn to hip hop as a tool for articulating alternative cultural values and
affective resistance, black rappers too turn to wushu culture as an alternative space.
In the book From Kung Fu to Hip Hop: Globalization, Revolution, and Popular Culture,
Kato posits that Bruce Lee became the embodiment of Chinese and Pan-Asian identity through a
combination of authentic film narrative and kinesiology. Kato states that Lee's insistence on
using authentic martial arts instead of tricks, the overlap between Lee's personal life and his
films, and the anti-Japanese imperialist message of Lee's films contributed to creating a common
affect that resonated with communities across Asia. This affect caused viewers in Asia to
identify with Lee as a colonized subject and desire to defeat the colonizer, often depicted as the
Japanese or occasionally the white man. Kato argues that Lee's representations of the "real"
contributed to a process of decolonizing the subconscious by encouraging viewers to identify
with the colonized instead of the colonizer.
48
Thus, Bruce Lee and his films are not just a
commercial tale of the underdog, but through the act of decolonization become a form of popular
culture revolution. Kato then connects Bruce Lee, his films, and the hip-hop movement by
highlighting how gangsta rap was a tool of resistance against the invasion of militarized law
enforcement in Los Angeles communities of color. Through songs such as NWA's "F*** Tha
Police," rappers drew on realistic depictions of life in low-income urban areas to convey an anti-
militarized law enforcement sentiment as the anti-imperialist sentiment invoked through Bruce
Lee's films.
49

47
Amy Abugo Ongiri, "&Quot;He Wanted To Be Just Like Bruce Lee&Quot;: African Americans, Kung Fu Theater And
Cultural Exchange At The Margins", Journal Of Asian American Studies 5, no. 1 (2002): 31-40, doi:10.1353/jaas.2002.0009.
48
Ibid 17
49
Ibid 189
35

I do not bring up Bruce Lee's relevance as a symbol of decolonization to suggest that hip
hop is inherently decolonial but to emphasize the overlap between hip hop and wushu films as
sites for the affective and visual performance of resistance. This performance of resistance
allows for the formulation of alternative values and ideals. Moreover, as sites for transpacific
interactions, hip hop and wushu facilitate cross-racial investigations of gender, nationality,
politics, and race.

36

Chapter 2: Return to the Throne
Hip hop first arrived in Taiwan through television shows and radio stations in the 1980s.
Media outlets would play American artists such as MC Hammer and Young MC. The music
genre spread throughout the island as many folk musicians noticed some of the similarities
between rap's emphasis on storytelling through rhymes and Taiwanese shuochang 说唱(speaking
singing) Arts--- specifically liamkua 唸歌(song reading/songs with narration).
50
Prior to hip
hop's arrival on the island, movements to stop the encroachment of American influence on the
island, such as The Modern Folksong Movement of the 1970s, caused many Hoklo-language
musicians to turn towards seeking out native music traditions as opposed to being influenced by
Western, Chinese, or other foreign influences. Rap music offered an opportunity for Hoklo-
language musicians to incorporate traditional culture into what was considered popular music. At
the same time, mandarin speaking pop artists also began to incorporate rap verses into their
songs. The first rap song, "Yes Sir," was released in Mandarin by mandopop artist Harlem Yu in
1987. Two years later, the Hoklo-language group Blacklist Studio released their full-length
album Sound of Madness which included multiple songs that utilized rap lyrics.
51
In 1993, the
first official rap group, The L.A. Boyz, arrived in Taiwan. The group was formed in California
and rapped primarily in English but is still considered one of the island's first official hip-hop
acts. Following their appearance in the 1990s, hip hop continued to grow in underground music

50
Meredith Schweig, "HOKLO HIP-HOP: RESIGNIFYING RAP AS LOCAL NARRATIVE TRADITION IN TAIWAN",
Chinese Oral And Performing Literature 33, no. 1 (2014): 37-59, doi:10.1179/0193777414Z.00000000016.
51
ILL MO and Hao-Li Lin, "Why Taiwanese Rap May Be The Most Linguistically And Culturally Diverse Hip-Hop Music That
You Never Heard", Taiwan Beats, accessed 17 June 2021, https://taiwanbeats.tw/genres/hiphop.
37

circles as young people formed student clubs and put on live music sessions to perform and
discuss hip hop elements such as breakdancing, rapping, graffiti writing, and djing.
52

By the turn of the millennium, there were three significant pioneers of hip hop in Taiwan MC
Hot Dog( 热狗), Dwagie ( 大支), and the TriPoets. MC Hot Dog rapped in Mandarin and gained
popularity for using hardcore rap to share his worries about military enlistment and his
frustration with cram school. Dwagie gained a reputation for his conscious rap and proclaiming
an unashamedly Taiwanese identity by rapping primarily in Hokkien. The TriPoets became
famous for what was termed academic rap because they focused on experimenting with rhyme
patterns, lyrics, and they all were highly educated. In addition to the diversity of topics and
languages, MC HotDog, Dwagie and TriPoets have continued to influence future generations and
facilitate open crossover between underground and mainstream hip hop acts that have resulted in
a diversity of rap styles in Taiwan. Artists experiment with everything from jazz rap, a more
melodic style of rap music, to East coast inspired hardcore rap. These artists serve as the most
prominent pioneers in the Taiwan hip hop scene and represent Taiwanese hip hop as a diverse,
multilingual community. However, what is pointedly absent from this diverse community is the
representation of women. The first female rapper, Miss Ko, did not step on the Taiwan rap scene
until 2012. In this chapter, I analyze the title track of Miss Ko's 2016 album Queen of Queens to
explore how she has built her persona as the Queen of Chinese hip hop. I argue that Miss Ko
challenges Confucian gender ideology and rearticulates gender expectations in Taiwanese hip
hop by critically imitating masculine gender expectations of the genre and emphasizing her
authority on hip hop as a Taiwanese-American artist.

52
John Morrison, "A Brief History Of Taiwan’S Vibrant, Diverse Underground Hip-Hop Scene", Bandcamp Daily, Last
modified 2019, https://daily.bandcamp.com/scene-report/taiwanese-hip-hop-feature?utm_source=footer.
38

Constructing Rap as a Masculine Art Form
Hip hop in Taiwan is predominantly male-dominated. As of 2010, there was only one
female MC on the island: Taiwanese-American rapper Miss Ko whose work was analyzed for
this project. Since then, the hip-hop scene in Taiwan has grown, and artists such as Hsien Ching
utilize hip hop and R&B elements, but still, Miss Ko is the only one that fits the description of a
rapper. Meredith Schweig cites three reasons for the overabundance of male rappers in
Taiwanese hip hop. First, Taiwanese rappers see American hip hop as a male-dominated industry
and view themselves as authentically representing the genre by upholding that standard. Both
rappers and audience members identify hip hop as a space for males to express the full range of
their emotions. They see the male-centricity of the genre on the island as a way to "keep it real."
Put another way, the Taiwanese rap community privileges male voices to present themselves as
practitioners of authentic hip hop. Second, Taiwanese rappers refer to the Confucian paradigm of
nei/wai ( 内/ 外). According to this paradigm, men are inherently wai (outside), and women are
nei (inside). The designation wai means that men are expected to take center stage in the public
sphere and that their personalities should be outspoken and expressive. Women, on the other
hand, are expected to be more introverted, delicate, and reserved. They are also expected to
remain in private quarters such as the home. These assumed gender predispositions are
considered justification for why females are not interested in rap music. Rappers are expected to
be aggressive, outspoken, and confident with powerful ( 有力), textured ( 质感的), and gravelly
( 沙哑)voices.
53
Many Taiwanese hip-hop practitioners assume that females are incapable of
generating the voice needed to succeed in hip-hop. Rappers are expected to have masculine

53
Meredith Schweig, "“Young Soldiers, One Day We Will Change Taiwan”: Masculinity Politics In The Taiwan Rap Scene",
The Society Of Ethnomusicology 60, no. 3 (2016): 383-410, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/ethnomusicology.60.3.0383.
39

voices that are deep and gravelly, but it is common to assume that women in Taiwan have gentle,
melodic, and higher-pitched voices -- more suitable for ballads than rap.
Third, the first rap song recorded in Taiwan highlighted the art form's similarities to
military drill commands. The island of Taiwan and its inhabitants first encountered hip hop with
the end of martial law in 1987.
54
Television and radio stations would often play music from
upbeat MCs (master of ceremonies or mic controllers) like Young MC and MC Hammer. The
first commercially successful rap song in Taiwan was "Yes, Sir!" by Harlem Yu. As Schweig
notes, the song "exploits similarities between the speech-song qualities of American rap music
and the characteristic sounds of military drill commands."
55
The song also served as the theme
song for a film about draftees serving in the Republic of China's army. This song formally tied
Taiwanese rap to military service as a distinctly male experience. The association between
military services such as training, drill commands, and other iconography is a specific iteration
of Taiwanese masculinity that Miss Ko adopts in her song "Queen of Queens ( 皇后的皇后),"
which we will analyze later in this chapter. Other artists such as the Taiwanese American hip hop
group, the L.A. Boyz, and underground folk artists such as Blacklist Workshop and Joutoupi also
used rap in their songs. As these were all male artists, they furthered the identification of rap as a
male musical genre.
Furthermore, the audience picked up on the centrality of male voices, as evidenced in
these iterations of rap as a site to form homosocial bonds and enable expressions of alternative
masculinity. Male fans of hip hop gathered online and at university club meetings to form
friendships with their love of rap music as the primary connector.
56
This camaraderie is

54
Meredith Schweig, "HOKLO HIP-HOP: RESIGNIFYING RAP AS LOCAL NARRATIVE TRADITION IN TAIWAN",
Chinese Oral And Performing Literature 33, no. 1 (2014): 37-59, doi:10.1179/0193777414Z.00000000016.
55
Ibid 393
56
Ibid 394
40

enhanced by artists relatable artists such as Dwagie and MC Hot Dog, who use their rap as a
space to address local concerns over both social and political issues. Together, these three
factors, the desire to adhere to American hip hop standards, the acceptance of Confucian gender
paradigms, and the association of rap with military service and homosocial bonds, have led to the
construction of Taiwanese rap as a masculine art form.

Rearticulating Gender for Women's Empowerment
Christine Ko moved to Taipei in 2010 to learn Mandarin. Two years later, she released
her first rap album under the alias, Miss Ko. The album was written and performed entirely in
Mandarin. The same year, she won the Best New Artists Award at the Golden Melody Awards,
making her the first female rapper to release a full-length album and the first rapper ever to win
the award for Best New Artist.
57
Originally, Ko had no intention of starting a rap career. Before
moving to Taiwan, the Taiwanese-American rapper lived in Queens, New York, where she was
born and raised. She may have grown up listening to hip-hop artists such as Lauryn Hill and
Tupac and scribbling rhymes in high school, but she did not go to Taiwan to become a rapper.
She went to learn Mandarin. However, writing her lyrics became a tool for her to learn the
language. She quickly mastered the language and earned a reputation as a talented MC who
speaks her mind. She has rapped about everything from domestic violence and racial
discrimination to pizza. She has performed at several different festivals over the years, including
Huayi - Chinese Arts Festival in Singapore, CMJ Music Marathon in New York, and

57
Nidhi Singh, "This Taiwanese-American Rapper Is Kicking Stereotype Butt", Entrepreneur, Last modified 2019,
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/330301.
41

Glastonbury Festival. She has collaborated with MC Hot Dog, Khalil Fong, Crowd Lu, and A-
Mei.
In "Eminem's "My Name Is": Signifying Whiteness, Rearticulating Race," Loren
Kajikawa uses Micheal Omi and Howard Winant's concept of re-articulation to analyze the
success of white rapper Eminem. Rearticulation, as Kajikawa uses it, is a process of
reconfiguration where political interests or identities of a group change to maintain some
elements of the familiar and create new ways of identifying. Kajikawa explains that Eminem, as
demonstrated through the success of his album Slim Shady LP, preemptively addressed and even
embraced the critiques for being a white rapper. He did this by articulating his whiteness through
stereotypes about white folks being corny, psycho, nerdy, and having no rhythm.
58
Eminem
juxtaposed these images of stereotypical whiteness with himself to demonstrate that he, despite
his whiteness, was not like other white people. Through this juxtaposition, Eminem used familiar
imagery to (re)articulate new definitions of what it means to be white and what it means to be a
rapper. Similarly, I posit that Miss Ko utilizes familiar representations of Taiwanese masculinity
in her rap as a tool to rearticulate gender, creating new understandings of what it means to be
female and a Taiwanese rapper.
The song "Queen of Queens ( 皇后区的皇后)" is the title track for Miss Ko's 2016 album
Queen of Queens.
59
The album earned her a nomination for Best Female Mandarin Vocalist at
the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan. In the song, Ko proclaims her position as queen of the
Chinese-speaking ( 华语) hip-hop community. She declares her words to be a weapon that no one

58
Loren Kajikawa, "Eminem’S “My Name Is”: Signifying Whiteness, Rearticulating Race", The Society For American Music 3,
no. 3 (2009): 341-363, doi:10.1017/S1752196309990459.
59
Miss Ko 葛仲珊【皇后區的皇后 Queen Of Queens 】導演版 MV, video, 2017,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN47JCXWrUs.
42

can stand against and equates lyrical skill to armed force that she uses to expand her territory as
represented by the men who carry flags embroidered with her initials CK. The music video
"Queen of Queens" opens with an image of the Brooklyn Bridge, the New York subway, graffiti-
covered walls, and a sign that says "Welcome to Queens." These images serve to establish that
the video was filmed in America. This setting is visually emphasized repeatedly throughout the
video with visual imagery. In addition to overt signage and landmarks, the representation of
diverse bodies such as Black and Hispanic men appears throughout the video to reinforce that the
video is set in America, not Taiwan. The music video's setting of Queens, New York, is
significant because it demarcates Taiwan as within the hip-hop nation's borders and reaffirms
Miss Ko's identity as a Taiwanese-American rapper. Hip-hop as a movement consists of rapping,
deejaying, breakdancing, and graffiti writing. Starting in the 1970s, graffiti artists used aerosol
spray paint leftover from the industrial movement to paint their names and aliases on public
property in urban spaces. Kato posits that this action was a way for urban youth to reestablish
their identity by inscribing it on the physical cityscape.
60
However, because graffiti was a
cultural product of the hip-hop movement and representative of the spirit of the movement, it
also served to mark the boundaries of the hip-hop community. By including graffiti-covered
images in this music video, Miss Ko establishes herself as a member of the hip-hop community.

60
M. T Kato, From Kung Fu To Hip Hop Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007.
43

(Screenshot taken from Queen of Queens ( 皇后的皇后) music video)
Additionally, the hip-hop movement began in New York, so by positioning herself in
Queens, New York, she connects herself with the origins of hip-hop and establishes her
authenticity as a rapper.
61
Ko positions herself in Queens, New York, for the entirety of the
video to remind listeners that her lyrical skills and flow are not the only things that make her a
queen. The fact that she was born in Queens solidifies her connection to the motherland of hip
hop and legitimizes her "hip hop flavor.” I argue that through asserting herself as a Queen and
calling specifically male-identifying individuals to "return to my [Miss Ko] throne ( 回到我的寶
座)," she is subverting gender expectations for Taiwanese rappers. Miss Ko challenges the
assumption that women adhere to conceptualizations of nei by situating herself as the queen
through an appropriation of stereotypically wai representations.
Miss Ko directly challenges Confucian-inspired gender expectations in three ways. First,
the entire video is filmed outside. Ko raps outside in the streets, on top of a roof and a throne.

61
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music And Black Culture In Contemporary America Middletown: Wesleyan University Press,
1994.
44

Even the throne that she sits on appears to be located outside as there are no walls, windows,
ceilings, or doors. Through her place outdoors, Ko directly challenges the expectation of women
to stay inside the home. Second, Ko's voice is a woman's, but she still manages to achieve a
robust, gravelly, and charismatic tone, therefore, challenging the idea that women's voices are
not compatible with rap music. Thirdly, Ko uses the male body to reinforce her power as a
woman by asserting dominance over them throughout the video. Ko refers to herself throughout
the song as the "queen of queens." She uses the song to articulate her skill and authenticity as a
Mandarin-speaking rapper. She does this through directly challenging critiques of her language
skills, bragging about her financial independence, and proclaiming herself the "first female
rapper in Chinese history ( 對女力嘻哈華語歷史上第一位 )." She reinforces her statements
through visual images of males bowing to her as she sits on her throne and males waving the flag
of her queendom. When not overtly kneeling before Ko, the male bodies are seen in action,
specifically violent physical activity such as punching and fighting. However, this hand-to-hand
combat is not kungfu like we see in "Bruce Lee ( 李小龙)"; it is more like boxing or street
fighting. By depicting male bodies in motion, it demonstrates that even though these men are
capable individuals, Ko can still command their respect. Based on these video elements, we can
see how Ko asserts her position as the queen of Chinese hip-hop in direct opposition to gender
stereotypes about Chinese women.
45

(Miss Ko raps outdoors in Queens, New York)
Furthermore, as Miss Ko challenges the Confucian gender paradigm of nei/wai, she
utilizes familiar representations of Taiwanese masculinity to do so. As previously mentioned, the
desire to be authentic to representations of American hip hop (and its apparent lack of female
representation), the distinction between men and women in Confucianism and the centrality of
male bonds expressed through club activities and shared military experiences led to raps
hypermasculine articulations in Taiwan. First, Miss Ko raps from the streets of Queens to
challenge expectations to remain in the home and situate herself within the borders of American
hip hop. This desire to keep it real by accurately representing and adhering to representations of
hip hop in America directly correlates with male artists' justification for the lack of female
representation in Taiwanese rap. Second, Miss Ko utilizes the gravelly, powerful tonality
familiar to those in Taiwan's rap scene. However, it is not just the tone that she adopts but also
the language she communicates in that is familiar. Ko ends her first verse by stating that she is
46

"not your idol," but "your idol's idol ( 我不是你偶像我是你偶像的偶像)." It is common
practice for Taiwanese rappers to compare themselves to pop idols characterized as more gentle
or tender to articulate their masculinity.
62
Using this language, Miss Ko is relaying her top-tier
status through a familiar comparison; however, the iteration is also unfamiliar because it is
uttered through the lips of a female rapper. In other words, Ko uses the conventions of
Taiwanese rap to challenge Confucian gender norms. Finally, Miss Ko utilizes visual imagery
commonly associated with the military to situate herself within the discourse surrounding
Taiwanese raps relations to military training. The men who bow to her throne do not only wield
weapons such as guns and crossbows, but they also serve as flagbearers for Miss Ko's queendom.
Military flags are often used to designate conquests of territory, surrender, and national
allegiance. All of which can be applied here. Ko uses the song to establish her position as the
queen, and the flags are a visual representation of the space she is creating for herself in the
male-dominated sphere of Taiwanese hip hop. However, the flags carried by male bodies also
represent the males' surrender and allegiance to Miss Ko. Aside from flag-waving, many of the
men in the video wear camouflage attire, which further adds to the military imagery. Ultimately,
Miss Ko juxtaposes familiar Taiwanese hip-hop elements with her seemingly oppositional

62
Meredith Schweig, "“Young Soldiers, One Day We Will Change Taiwan”: Masculinity Politics In The Taiwan Rap Scene",
The Society Of Ethnomusicology 60, no. 3 (2016): 383-410, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/ethnomusicology.60.3.0383.
47

identity as a woman to rearticulate gender expectations for Taiwanese rappers.

(One of the male actors in Queen of Queen music video. He is in the middle of a battle cry as he beats his chest)

Return to The Throne
Miss Ko, kings on, that is performs masculine characteristics akin to how drag queens
perform femininity to create space for herself in the male-dominated Taiwanese hip hop scene.
Miss Ko adopts masculine traits common to male rappers in Taiwan --- including allusions to
military service and physical violence. However, the military iconography and violence Miss Ko
invokes are distinctly different from the wushu and jianghu imagery of Al Rocco and the Higher
Brothers. The men in action that feature as side characters and loyal flag bearers in the music
video do not appear to engage in any specific fighting tradition. Their movements are individual
and could be a representation of boxing or streetfighting. The weaponry they use is also a diverse
representation of crossbows and guns. What is consistent is that their physicality and subsequent
48

submission to Miss Ko are representative of Ko's dominion and authority. If Rocco and the
Higher Brothers used wushu and jianghu to invoke an abstract "Chineseness," then the represents
of military iconography and violence that Miss Ko deploys invoke the notion of imperialism.
This imperialism is heightened by the language of conquest and kingdom that Ko uses. For
example, the flagbearers carry flags with her initials, CK, and then kneel before her throne. Ko
commands "the city gates to let her in ( 城門打開讓我進)" and for her listeners to "return to the
mother's kingdom ( 回到老娘的帝國)." When these mentions of empire are read alongside Miss
Ko's re-articulation of gender and the depictions of America in the music video, we can read
Miss Ko's performance of Look I've Overcome (LIO) narrative that reinforces American
imperialism multiracial white supremacist patriarchy (MRWaSP).
63

In Resilience & Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism. Neoliberalism, Robin James argues
that resilience is a political and ethical ideal that servers to uphold MRWaSP. James defines
resilience as a "neoliberal ethical and aesthetic ideal" that's core logic centers around recycling
damage into more resources, namely human capital.
64
James situates resilience within the
framework of biopolitics and suggests that it serves as an ideology for managing the population
and upholding the institutions and systems that make up a traditional white supremacist
patriarchy. Individuals marginal identity groups are essentially considered to have "damage" and
thus are inherently at a disadvantage in the system, but resilience incentives them to "improve"
themselves and overcome their damage. Those who successfully overcome their damage are then
incorporated into traditional white supremacist patriarchy, allowing it to change to multiracial
white supremacist patriarchy. Throughout this process, the individuals assumed damage that

63
Robin James, Resilience & Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism, Neoliberalism Washington: Zero Books, 2015.
64
Ibid 6
49

becomes an opportunity to create more status, wealth, and capital. However, this overcoming
process does not occur in a vacuum. It requires visibility because it is the hypervisibility of the
resilience narrative that inspires others to pursue resilience and validates existing MRWaSP
institutions. Hence, James refers to the resilience narrative in pop music as the "Look, I've
Overcome!" narrative.
There are several reasons we can read Miss Ko's performance as an LIO narrative. First,
Miss Ko began writing rhymes as an escape from the hard times in her life. It gave her strength
and confidence.
65
This suggests that Miss Ko intentionally performs hip hop to overcome the
struggles she faces in her life. She has mentioned that she hopes her music will inspire others to
find strength and confidence. Therefore, Ko uses her music as a platform to display resilience.
Second, Miss Ko left America for Taiwan in order to learn Mandarin. As James notes, marginal
groups or othered populations in America are perceived to have damage. They are already at a
disadvantage within the framework of white supremacist patriarchal institutions. Miss Ko is both
a woman and an ethnic minority in the US. However, in Taiwan, she could capitalize on these
"damages" and use them as an opportunity to create capital for herself. Ko's journey to Taiwan
and acquisition of capital despite these damages is what Ko boasts about in the song "Queen of
Queens." She boasts about her language skills by parodying critiques that she has received about
the quality of her Mandarin Chinese. For example, she raps, "you say my Chinese isn't strong, in
what way ( 想說我中文不強又怎樣 )?" This line proves she is aware that her lack of Chinese
language skills was a weakness, but she is confident that she has turned it into a strength. Hence,
she can proudly proclaim herself the "queen of Chinese rap." Similarly, her identity as a woman

65
BENSON ANG, "Rapper Miss Ko Sings About Her Experiences", The Straits Times, Last modified 2018,
https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/making-a-difference-with-rap.
50

is also seen as "damage" that she can recycle into capital by parodying performances of her male
counterparts. Much of Miss Ko's fame comes from the fact that she is a female bilingual rapper
in Taiwan. The fact that she is a woman and able to perform as the men do makes her a novelty
act that increases her marketability. Finally, Miss Ko takes her skills and ability to make capital
back to the United States. Miss Ko performs her proclamation of queen status not in Taiwan but
America. As she raps "return to the throne," she not only commands others to recognize her
authority as a rapper but also invites the audience to see how she has overcome. The video
suggests that Taiwan was simply a recycling center where Ko could turn her damage into
resources. Now she can use her abilities to benefit MRWaSP institutions in America, which is
precisely what Ko does as she objectifies the black, old, and primarily marginalized male bodies
she presents as flagbearers throughout the video. Ko's success and valorization of resilience
support the hegemonic institutions that make up MRWaSP and suggest that American hip hop is
the only genuine hip hop.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that Miss Ko uses articulations of masculinity specific to
Taiwanese rap culture to (re)articulate gender and challenge existing Confucian gender
ideologies. Miss Ko "kings" on or parodies performances of masculinity to articulate her
position as Queen of Chinese rap. However, she performs according to an LIO narrative that
upholds American imperialism and multiracial white supremacist patriarchy. Miss Ko's
performance demonstrates how hip hop, when articulated as American culture instead of black
culture, can serve as a tool for individual empowerment and collective subjugation. Ko uses hip
51

hop to perform strength and confidence for herself, but that confidence is derived from
successfully assimilating to hegemonic institutions.

52

Chapter 3: Welcome to the "Queendom"
As hip hop in China rises from the underground to the commercial, many female rappers
have risen along with it. Like its American counterpart, Chinese hip hop has primarily been
performed as a male expressive form, but there have still been several female MCs who have left
their mark on the hip hop scene in China. Hip hop first arrived in China during the late 1990s.
Foreign music was tightly regulated, but Chinese fans could get their hands on cassettes,
including rock and hip hop music, by collecting them out of plastic trash set aside for
recycling.
66
The first generation of female rappers in China can be categorized as those debuting
from 2000 to 2010. The first female rapper in China was Zeero, Zhang Zhuyin, from the
Shanghai group Bamboo. She was followed by several other pioneering female rappers such as
Double J (Jiang Jing), Lacedoll (Angel Mo), CK (Chen Ke), and K-Bo (Cui Feifei). The current
era of hip hop in China has been shaped by hip hop's ascent to the mainstream and as such has
been defined by television programs such as The Rap of China ( 中国新说唱), Sing! China ( 中国
好声音), and Listen Up ( 说唱听我的). Many of China's rising rappers are females who worked
underground for years and made their break on these shows. Examples include Vava, NINE
ONE, and the artist who is the focus of this chapter, Vinida.
Ying Weng ( 颖翁), also known by her alias Vinida ( 万妮达), was born in Fuzhou, China
in June 1994. Vinida began rapping at the age of thirteen. She continued rapping for most of her
adolescent years and eventually joined the underground rap group Freedom Plant Music. She
also pursued a college degree at Chongqing Normal University. Vinida continued rapping,

66
Shuhong Fan, "WATCH: Stories Behind Dakou, China's Semi-Illegal '90S Music Imports", RADII | Stories From The Center
Of China’S Youth Culture, Last modified 2017, https://radiichina.com/watch-stories-behind-dakou-chinas-semi-illegal-90s-
music-imports/.
53

writing lyrics, and composing songs as an underground artist until she signed with one of China's
most prominent independent record labels, Modern Sky Records, in 2016. The label noticed her
after she participated in the first season of Sing! China. Since then, Vinida has become one of the
top female rappers in China. She was recognized in Forbes China's 30 under 30 list for music
industry professionals and has over 1.4 million followers on Weibo. To date, Vinida has released
three albums Vinida (2017), Solo (2018), and 云泥之别Truth of the Clay (2021). She has earned
a reputation for being a strong, independent woman whose songs empower other women.
Specifically, her songs "Lead Role ( 主角)," "Run This ( 场上称霸)," and "Queendom" have
helped to build this reputation. All three songs embody what many listeners call a "confident
hostility.
67
" But, what exactly is it about Vinida's performance that empowers her female
listeners? How does she construct her image as a "beautiful and tough" woman?
68
This chapter
will situate Vinida's performance of the song "Queendom" within the context of made-in-China
feminisms and black diva studies to answer these questions. I argue that Vinida draws inspiration
from the black diva, Beyoncé, and appropriates blackness as expressed through Beyoncé's "bad
bitch barbie" aesthetics to affectively perform strength, sexuality, and self-worth. Additionally, I
argue that Vinida specifically references Beyoncé as a critical source of inspiration because the
diva and bad bitch barbie personas that Beyoncé embodies overlap with core characteristics of
entrepreneurial made-in-china feminism.

67
Johanna Costigan, "Friday Song: Vinida Takes The Lead Among China’S Underground Rappers – Supchina", Supchina, Last
modified 2019, https://supchina.com/2019/06/15/friday-song-vinida-takes-the-lead-among-chinas-underground-rappers/.
68
Shuhong Fan, "How Female Rappers Became The Most Exciting Voices In Chinese Music", RADII | Stories From The Center
Of China’S Youth Culture, Last modified 2021, https://radiichina.com/women-chinese-rap/.
54

The Rise of New Generation Feminism and Made-in-China
Feminisms
Occupying men's public restrooms, installing anti-marriage bombardment advertisements
in subway stations, using the theatre as a space to promote action through performances of the
Vagina Monologues --- these are the tactics of what many are calling the new generation ( 新一
代/ 新生代) of feminists in China.
69
Scholars, media, and citizens have noticed that these tactics
are different from previous generations of feminist activists in China who used state and
institutional channels to advocate for women-specific needs. What is it about this wave of
feminist activities that warrant the designation "new generation?" Moreover, how do we
characterize the so-called young feminist action ( 青年女权行动派) of the new generation?
In "Young Feminist Activists in Present-Day China: A New Feminist Generation?," Qi
Wang uses three different conceptualizations of generation to better define new feminist
activism. First, Wang determines that new feminist action is different from previous generations
of activism because it primarily occurs outside of state structures, is based on individual action,
and is typically performed in overtly confrontational ways. Second, Wang defines a generation in
terms of age, shared historical experience, and political ideology. Finally, she uses these different
generations to explain the differences between present-day feminism and feminism in China
before the 2000s. In terms of age, new feminist activists are members of the millennial
generation born between the 1980s-1990s; therefore, they tend to value personal happiness and
the individual over the collective.
70
Additionally, they are still relatively young in terms of

69
Qi Wang, "Young Feminist Activists In Present-Day China: A New Feminist Generation?", China Perspectives 2018, no. 3
(2018): 59-68, doi:10.4000/chinaperspectives.8165.
70
Ibid 60
55

accumulation of wealth, status, and education, meaning that they do not have solid networks or
organizations to leverage to do their activist work. These two traits, individualism and a lack of
social capital within existing institutions, lead to a preference for spontaneous individual action.
Whether it is one woman and her friends occupying a men's bathroom to raise awareness about
insufficient bathroom infrastructure for women or a woman who uses her blog to advocate for
financial independence, young feminists tend to use personal platforms and networks to perform
their activism.
Moreover, as a historical cohort, new feminist activism is informed by three historical
conditions: China's transition to a market economy, the single-child policy, and a resurgence of
Confucian values in state and non-state institutions.
71
The transition to a market economy led to
"rapid sexualization, characterized by the essentialization and naturalization of gender
differences."
72
This sexualization accompanied the end of many state-sponsored welfare and
employment programs that supported women, as well as the re-segregation of the "public and
domestic spheres." Therefore, market economy reforms contributed to deepening gender
discrimination and a resurgence in traditional heteropatriarchal gender ideology.
73
This
resurgence means that most feminist activists in the new generation were radicalized through
experiencing discrimination in their personal lives, often in the form of intimate partner violence
(IPV) or men's unreasonable preoccupation with virginity.
74
One of the impacts of the one-child
policy is that girls born into families living in urban areas were given more access to resources.
Often called "little empresses," these women had the opportunity to go further in their education

71
Ibid 61
72
Angela Xiao Wu and Yige Dong, "What Is Made-In-China Feminism(S)? Gender Discontent And Class Friction In Post-
Socialist China", Critical Asian Studies 51, no. 4 (2019): 471-492, doi:10.1080/14672715.2019.1656538.
73
Ibid 477
74
Qi Wang, "Young Feminist Activists In Present-Day China: A New Feminist Generation?", China Perspectives 2018, no. 3
(2018): 59-68, doi:10.4000/chinaperspectives.8165.
56

and pursue successful careers.
75
Despite being highly educated, these women still encountered
discrimination. However, they utilized the confidence, credentials, knowledge, and abilities
earned to justify quick retaliation against gender discrimination in their daily lives.
In 2007, the All-China Women's Federation called for all unmarried women age 27 and
older to marry.
76
They called these unmarried women sheng nu ( 剩女), often translated as
leftover women. This blatant return to conservative gender expectations in the Women's
Federation correlated with the government's turn away from state-led feminism evidenced
through government policies that discriminate against women and other marginalized groups.
These value changes have been justified by state campaigns to uphold Confucian values.
77
In
response to government agencies and non-state institutions re-aligning themselves with
Confucian values, new feminist activists have turned away from traditional channels of
organizing such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and state-led programming in favor
of digital media and performative action. Ultimately, through her analysis, Wang characterizes
new feminist activism as a movement to further women's empowerment ( 女权) through
individual action that is most often performative and confrontational.
Because of new feminist activism's emphasis on rights-based action, individualism and
performance, some scholars have criticized it as an "uncritical embrace of Euro-American white,
middle-class feminism."
78
However, Angela Xiao Wu and Yige Dong analyze notions of
feminism in Chinese history and current political shifts such as those discussed in Wang's work

75
Ibid 62
76
Leta Hong Fincher, "Opinion | China’S ‘Leftover’ Women", Nytimes.Com, Last modified 2012,
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/12/opinion/global/chinas-leftover-women.html.
77
Qi Wang, "Young Feminist Activists In Present-Day China: A New Feminist Generation?", China Perspectives 2018, no. 3
(2018): 59-68, doi:10.4000/chinaperspectives.8165.
78
Angela Xiao Wu and Yige Dong, "What Is Made-In-China Feminism(S)? Gender Discontent And Class Friction In Post-
Socialist China", Critical Asian Studies 51, no. 4 (2019): 471-492, doi:10.1080/14672715.2019.1656538.
57

to argue that new feminist activism was actually "made in China." Wu and Dong suggest that the
combination of a shift towards a market-based economy and the one-child policy created new
conditions of subjugation for Chinese women. These shifts in the political economy created
conditions where women's value is tied to finding a marriage partner. Therefore, the new
conditions of subjugation are based on the intertwining of public and private spaces, as well as
gender and class best characterized as a "gendered marriage market."
79
What Wang calls new
feminist activism is a response to the intertwining of these separate spheres. That is why new
feminist activism typically manifests as high-achieving individual actors inspired by
discrimination in private spaces who utilize grassroots mobilization in public spaces. Wu and
Dong further elaborate on the strategies of new feminist activism by identifying two strands of
made-in-China feminism (c-fem). These two strands of c-fem, though very different, are often
interpreted as the same and labeled as new feminist activism. The first strand of made-in-China
feminism is entrepreneurial c-fem. Feminists in this category utilize traditional notions of
femininity and sexuality to advocate for their right to choose a romantic partner for themselves.
Entrepreneurial c-fems assert their agency by cultivating their attractiveness as a means to
procure economic security.
80
The second strand of made-in-China feminism is non-cooperative
c-fem. Feminists in this strand utilize material success and financial independence to liberate
themselves from the gendered marriage market. They advocate for alternate sources of life
fulfillment such as career success, education, and the accumulation of wealth.
Both new feminist activism and made-in-China feminisms emphasize individual action,
choice, education, and economic mobility. When examined contemporaneously, they identify
heterosexual romantic relationships as the site best suited to challenging and enforcing the

79
Ibid 478
80
Ibid 480
58

subjugation of women in China. They also demonstrate the ways that women navigate between
objectification and empowerment through exercising agency over their bodies. It is this
capitalization on the objectification of the female body as an opportunity for empowerment that
we see at work in the music video "Queendom."
Performing Blackness and Feminism through Beyoncé
In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Tricia Rose
defines rap music as "a black cultural expression that prioritizes black voices from the margins of
urban America.
81
" In this definition, it is made explicit that rap music is a black art form made
for black voices in America. What then do we make of a Han Chinese woman from Fuzhou
rapping? Many people look at global hip hop as either an imitation of black culture or an
appropriation of it. Meaning that artists such as Vinida imitate what they see as trendy and,
through performing rap music imitate blackness uncritically. There is the possibility of looking at
this as theft or appropriation of culture. However, there is a middle ground between these two
approaches, space where non-black rappers perform blackness but not to steal culture or be
black; instead, they gravitate towards performances of blackness to better articulate their own
identities --- who they are and whom they desire to be. To provide a solution to the moral
dilemma associated with performing the culture of the "other," Dwight Conquergood presents
the concept of dialogic performance. The dialogic position is one where the performer is
perpetually negotiating the perception of the other's difference with the desire to see
commonalities. Throughout the performance, the performer can bring both their identity and the
other to "question, debate, and challenge one another.
82
" E. Patrick Johnson uses this framework

81
Tricia Rose, Black Noise: Rap Music And Black Culture In Contemporary America Middletown: Wesleyan
University Press, 1994.
82
Dwight Conquergood, "Performing As A Moral Act:1Ethical Dimensions Of The Ethnography Of Performance", Literature In
Performance 5, no. 2 (1985): 1-13, doi:10.1080/10462938509391578.
59

of dialogical performance to explain how white atheist Australians learn to express themselves
through gospel music. He notes that dialogic performances allow the performer to perform the
other's culture and gain insight into what it means to be the "other" while reflecting on how they
define their own identity.
83
In other words, through the performance, the performer is forced to
reconcile with the two cultures' existences, differences, and similarities which ultimately allows
for new understandings of the self and the other. Performers articulate the dialogue between the
self and blackness in hip hop in a variety of ways. For example, Myoung-Sun Song notes that
many Korean rappers will use lyrics that refer to a "black soul" or "black heart" as a way of
articulating their identification with black culture while still using hip hop to tell their own
stories, in their language, about life in Korea.
84
Or, as I mentioned in chapter one, artists like Al
Rocco will explicitly identify with black rappers such as Tupac Shakur. Ian Condry also notes
that Japanese hip hop artists do their "homework" to learn about hip hop's relationship to black
culture and the music's emphasis on race issues while still addressing political issues relevant to
those living in Japan.
85
In both these examples, it is apparent that hip-hop artists in East Asia
creatively and intentionally position themselves in relation to black culture as a way of
acknowledging hip hop's connections to blackness. Although Vinida does not write about "black
sensibilities" or demonstrates a depth of knowledge about black popular music, she associates
herself with black-American female performer Beyoncé.
While discussing the release of the song "Queendom" in an interview with Billboard
China, Vinida stated that the Western artist that inspires her most is Beyoncé. That interview was
not the only time that Vinida stated that she draws inspiration from Beyoncé. She has mentioned

83
Patrick Johnson, "Performing Blackness Down Under: The Café Of The Gate Of Salvation", Text And Performance
Quarterly 22, no. 2 (2002): 99-119, doi:10.1080/10462930216606.
84
MYOUNG-SUN SONG, Hanguk Hip Hop [S.l.]: Springer Nature, 2019.
85
Ian Condry, "Yellow B-Boys, Black Culture, And Hip-Hop In Japan: Toward A Transnational Cultural Politics Of
Race", Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 15, no. 3 (2007): 637-671, doi:10.1215/10679847-2007-008.
60

it in several other interviews as well. On the surface, this declaration may seem like nothing
more than Vinida admiring a fellow artist, but it is much more than that. By designating the
black-American queen Beyoncé as her source of inspiration, Vinida connects her hip hop
performance back to blackness and, more specifically, a legacy of black diva stardom. However,
she is not doing so to be black but to present herself as a strong woman --- in other words, a
queen.
Many scholars who have focused on Beyoncé as a global icon have analyzed Beyoncé's
music, performance, television appearances, activism, and writing in conversation with black
feminisms. For example, in "Class Formation: Beyoncé in Music Video Production," Aisha
Durham focuses on the evolution of Beyoncé as a metaphor for the development of hip-hop
feminism. Durham analyzes Beyoncé's performance in music videos, and she identifies three
distinct identities, the singular self, the hybrid self, and the integrated self. Through her analysis
of these distinct identities, Durham notes that Beyoncé's racialized and gendered body signals
different meanings over time, evolving from the respectable suburban lady of Destiny's Child to
Fierce- Beyoncé, who embodied the lady-freak dichotomy and finally to the unapologetic
celebration of black womanhood present in Beyoncé's visual album Lemonade. Durham's key
point is that Beyoncé embodied a shift in representation of black women from an either/or
representation as either respectable ladies or hoes to a both/and where a black woman could be
represented as both lady and freak. Durham cites Beyoncé's class positioning as the primary
reason Beyoncé could blur the boundaries of lady-freak representations. Scholars such as Crystal
LaVoulle, Tisha Lewis Ellis, and Jaap Kooijman also address the ways Beyoncé's stardom
showcases identities that allow for both/and understandings instead of either/or ones. For
LaVoulle and Lewis Ellis, Beyoncé is the paragon of what they call the "Bad Bitch Barbie." The
61

designation bad bitch barbie serves as a framework for re-theorizing how black women are
represented in present-day hip hop. The term refers to a "woman who celebrates and embraces
her body while simultaneously using it as a commodity.
86
" LaVoulle and Ellis situate their
theorization within historical representations of black women's sexuality, such as the
objectification of Saartjie "Sara" Baartman and the practice of plaçage in New World colonies of
the French and the Spanish. The Bad Bitch Barbie repurposes stereotypical representations of
black women's sexuality for personal gain, resulting in a performance that is both overtly
sexualized and empowering.
87
As LaVoulle and Ellis point out, Beyoncé fits within the
framework of the bad bitch barbie because she uses her body as a commodity while participating
in performances of feminism.
Similarly, Jaap Kooijman also concludes that Beyoncé demonstrates how black female
performers can control the representations of their commodified bodies for empowerment and
critique by positioning Beyoncé within a larger tradition of black female divas.
88
Kooijman
argues that by paying tribute to past divas such as Tina Turner, Diana Ross, and even Barbara
Streisand in both her musical and theatrical performances, Beyoncé positions herself within the
larger tradition of divadom in popular music. Kooijman reinforces this assertion by pointing out
Beyoncé's status as the latest gay icon in a long history of gay diva worship. However, like
Durham, Kooijman also posits that Beyoncé's Sasha Fierce alter-ego serves a turning point--or in
this case, a redefining moment for the term diva. In her performance of the song "Diva" off of
the I am….Sasha Fierce (2009) album, Beyoncé, redefines "diva" in a way that emphasizes the

86
Crystal LaVoulle and Tisha Lewis Ellison, "The Bad Bitch Barbie Craze And Beyoncé African American Women’S Bodies
As Commodities In Hip-Hop Culture, Images, And Media", Taboo: The Journal Of Culture And Education 16, no. 2 (2017): 65-
84, doi:10.31390/taboo.16.2.07.
87
Ibid 77
88
Jaap Kooijman, "Fierce, Fabulous, And In/Famous: Beyoncé As Black Diva", Popular Music And Society 42, no. 1 (2019): 6-
21, doi:10.1080/03007766.2019.1555888.
62

manufactured nature of the diva, challenges the perceived respectability of the diva persona, and
subverts masculine expressions of hip hop. She does so through her provocative dance staged in
an abandoned industrial warehouse, the use of hip hop beats, rap-like verses, and robotic vocals.
What is consistent in all three analyses of Beyoncé as a star figure is how she uses her gendered
and racialized body to reinforce and challenge dominant ideology. Whether she is the diva, the
bad bitch barbie, the singular, hybrid, or integrated self – Beyoncé's performance of black
womanhood is intricately tied to how she manipulates her persona in relation to expectations of
the black female body. The emphasis on autonomy over the female (commodified) body as a tool
for success and "survival" can also be found in the entrepreneurial strand of made-in-china
feminism. Wu and Dong state that the most common example of entrepreneurial c-fem is internet
celebrities who have successfully married, in other words, found a partner of their desired
economic status, and then use their success as a platform to teach other women how to take
control of their appearance to find a suitable partner. In this example, the internet celebrity serves
as evidence of how women in the oppressive marriage market in China can use the
commodification of their bodies as a tool for economic advancement. Similarly, the diva, whom
Beyoncé represents in the hip hop context, can use her body within existing ideologies of beauty,
sexuality, gender, and race to achieve material success and invoke an affect of self-love and
empowerment. I argue that it is this affect of empowerment based on sexuality and gender that
Vinida draws inspiration from when she states that she is inspired by the "inner strength" that
Beyoncé embodies --- the same inner strength that Vinida wishes to invoke with her song
"Queendom."

63

The Queendom
The song "Queendom (2017)" was released in November of 2017. The track was
produced by Yogurt but written and composed by Vinida.
89
The song was released as a part of
Vinida's self-titled debut album. The album includes songs that address topics such as self-worth,
romantic relationships, and overcoming insecurities. The music video for "Queendom" addresses
all three of these overarching themes. TomXia directed the video, but Vinida participated in the
creative development of the video as well. Because Vinida wrote the song and participated in the
video production, both works can reflect Vinida's agency and artistry. I want to emphasize
Vinida's agency in this process because both entrepreneurial c-fem and the diva exercise agency
by managing the images of their bodies. To consider that Vinida draws influence from or at the
very least positions herself alongside these representations of womanhood, we must also
establish her agency.
The song "Queendom" discusses Vinida's fear of failing and her desire to be a successful
woman rapper. Lyrically speaking, the song uses poetic language and even literary allusion to
the short story "The Governor of Nanke ( 南柯梦)" to express Vinida's insecurity, cynicism, and
ultimately her decision to take agency over her own life. Vinida's lyrics emphasize her
interiority. She mentions that she "wants to flourish" but is afraid of falling and repeatedly
expresses the precarity of her position as an artist. Both the comparison to "The Governor of
Nanke," which tells the tale of a man who dreamt he was governor only to awake to the fact that
nothing in his life had changed, and her vacillation between describing her rising status through

89
Vinida 万妮达 - Queendom. June 16, 2017. Accessed June 17, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnw2cIwRaHo.
64

the "gold wallpaper" covering her walls and her proclaiming that she is changing history
demonstrate that Vinida feels as though she is on uncertain ground.
Additionally, the pre-chorus and chorus, where she finally finds the strength to articulate
her position as queen and to claim her "path," "city," and "turn" are rapped in English as opposed
to Mandarin Chinese that she uses to express her insecurities. This switch to English to convey
confidence or strength is significant because it reinforces the fact that Vinida is not performing
black culture to be black but to obtain the empowerment she perceives as accompanying the
performance of black hip hop artists such as Beyoncé. This fact is further emphasized by the fact
that Vinida does not only rap in English but in what resembles the structure of African American
Vernacular English (AAVE) -- the language of hip hop. In the pre-chorus, Vinida raps, "I don't
care who you are, I don't care who you be/You wanna follow my path better not mess with me." I
want to draw attention to the shift from "who you are" to "who you be." It may be that Vinida
made this adjustment to better suit the structure of the ABAB rhyme pattern of the verse, but in
doing so, she also invokes a performance of blackness through her vernacular, demonstrating the
ways that strength and empowerment are connected to performances of blackness. In an
interview with Billboard China, the staff asked Vinida what a "queendom" is.
90
Vinida
responded with the following:

你知道有个词是Kingdom ，由男人来统治的一个国度。我觉得女人也可以。女性的力量也
很强大。至少我可以强大到统治自己的精神国度。

90
" 专访万妮达：在音乐的国度里，做自己的女王。", Sohu.Com, Last modified 2017,
https://www.sohu.com/a/158442481_623452.
65

You know there is the word "Kingdom," it is the country that men rule. I think women can [rule]
too. Women's strength is also very formidable. At the very least, I can use this strength to rule
my own inner beliefs.
91

In her response, Vinida equates queendom to an imagined space where she uses her
strength and power as a woman to achieve mastery over her inner beliefs. However, the way she
performs her strength as a woman is directly tied to her performance of blackness, as evidenced
by the way she switches between Mandarin and English, uncertainty and strength. This theme of
drawing empowerment from performances of blackness is also reinforced visually throughout
the video.

(Queendom cake. Screenshot captured from the official music video)

The music video "Queendom" performed by Vinida opens with several close-up shots of
the interior of an upper-middle-class home before zeroing in on a white birthday cake (candles

91
All translations provided by me
66

and all) with the word "queendom" written in red icing. After the close-up on the queendom
cake, the camera again cuts to various rooms in the house. These images of the home's interior
that accompany the designation "queendom" serve as clues that help us understand what the
queendom is and how Vinida uses the queendom as a tool to articulate female empowerment.
The visual narrative within the music video depicts the story of a woman that catches her male
lover cheating on her and brings her girlfriends together to punish him. Throughout the video,
Vinida uses the threat of violence to exert power over her unfaithful lover. She brings the
"queendom" cake to him while he is blindfolded and tied up in a chair at the dining room table.
She stalks him down the hallway with a golf club, destroying decorations as she walks, and he
crawls away from her. She oversees as her girlfriends beat him with baseball bats and destroy the
decorations. I want to emphasize that Vinida relies on the threat of violence, not the act of
violence itself, which suggests that it is not the satisfaction of revenge that she seeks through the
interactions with her lover but recognition of her strength and dignity. A common assumption
about infidelity is that it is the faithful partner's fault because they could not satisfy the unfaithful
lover. It is implied that it is the faithful lover's lack that provided the incentive to cheat.
Therefore, the conflict of the video is not so much about catching the cheating lover but
overcoming the attack against her self-worth that the partner's infidelity initiated. In every
instance that Vinida threatens the unfaithful lover with violence, there is an emphasis on her
attire through slow takes. As she stalks her partner down the hall, the viewers' eyes are directed
to the shoes she wears, the designs on her nails, and the accessories she wears. While she stands
over watching her partner being assaulted by her friends, we do not see the attack; the camera
focuses on Vinida confidently drinking her wine and the gold jewelry draped on her neck and
waist. The threat of violence and the emphasis on her appearance and material wealth as
67

evidenced through the jewelry and wine reinforce her worth as a beautiful, financially
independent, capable woman.
( Vinida raps her verse from the bedroom as her friends beat her unfaithful lover)

When discussing why she admires Beyoncé, Vinida stated that it is because Beyoncé
represents the type of mental fortitude ( 一种精神) and strength( 一种力量) that Vinida is
attempting to achieve through establishing her queendom. That is to say that it is no coincidence
that the scene where Vinida stalks her unfaithful lover resembles a scene in the music video for
Beyoncé's song "Hold Up." Vinida imitates Beyoncé, and more generally, blackness in hip hop
culture, to obtain the empowerment and strength she seeks. The final scene of the music video
"Queendom" further demonstrates how Vinida performs blackness to articulate strength. Vinida
sits at the head of a long dining table in all-black attire, braids, and a gold chain, calmly eating a
steak. The camera slowly pans away from her moving along to the opposite end of the table,
68

revealing broken dishes and knocked-over candles along the way --- representations of the
assumed violence that has taken place. Finally, the camera settles on an empty chair in front of
the "queendom" cake. Vinida's partner once occupied the chair, but he has disappeared, and the
cake is damaged so that you can no longer see the word "queendom." Instead, there is a plate
with remnants of the cake covered in red icing that resembles blood. What is significant about
this scene is that it makes it plain how Vinida uses the performance of blackness to find
empowerment. Vinida is finally able to sit confidently at the head of the table in her queendom.
As she does so, she not only sports braids and a gold chain which is typical attire in black hip
hop, but she also wears all black, solidifying the fact that it is the performance of blackness that
has given her the strength to proclaim herself queen confidently.

(Vinida sits at the head of the table)
69

Conclusion
When asked what drew her to hip hop, Vinida stated that she was attracted to the fact that
she could create rap music herself.
92
Moreover, after her first time listening to a woman rapper,
she realized that one of the genre's strengths was that it was "not just for men( 不只是一个男人
的游戏)."
93
Vinida declares rap music to be a space where she can use her creative ability to
exercise her agency as a woman. The song "Queendom" is an example of her doing just that.
Vinida wrote, composed, and even participated in the production of the music video. She used
her role as a musician to exercise her agency -- but more importantly, she exercised her agency
as a woman. For Vinida, hip hop and, more specifically, blackness in hip hop is imitated to
achieve empowerment. She draws on the aesthetics of black divas, bad bitch barbies, and their
performances of black femininity in hip hop to perform strength. However, it is not just Vinida
who is empowered by her performance of blackness. Vinida's fans also consider Vinida's
performance of a "tough" and "beautiful" woman to be empowering. I argue that this is because
the bad bitch barbie/diva aesthetic that Vinida represents overlaps with the entrepreneurial strand
of made-in-china feminism. Both frameworks recognize how women of color take agency over
their bodies as commodities for empowerment.

92
" 专访万妮达：在音乐的国度里，做自己的女王。", Sohu.Com, Last modified 2017,
https://www.sohu.com/a/158442481_623452.
93
Ibid
70

Conclusion
In this paper, I have analyzed four music videos from Sinophone rappers. The music
videos analyzed were “Made in China” performed by the Higher Brothers, “Bruce Lee ( 李小龙)”
performed by Al Rocco featuring Jackson Wang, “Queen of Queens ( 皇后的皇后)” performed
by Miss Ko, and “Queendom” performed by Vinida. I investigated allusions to violence in the
forms of martial art aesthetics, military iconography, and intimate partner violence in these
music videos to understand how Sinophone rappers of different genders and nationalities
construct gender in their rap videos. I have demonstrated that each rapper uses characteristics
specific to their region in conjunction with iterations of black identity to craft their identities as
“Chinese” rappers. Al Rocco and Higher Brothers use wushu imagery and the jianghu spaces
accompanying these images to display idealized Chinese masculinity. They use hip hop, because
of its status as outlaw music, to create alternative definitions of Chineseness, challenge existing
stereotypes about China, and define Chinese hip hop. Because of his experience as an overseas
Chinese, Rocco defines Chinese hip hop as a multi-lingual, multi-national, transpacific space
where East and West meet. The Higher Brothers, on the other, define Chinese hip hop as hip
hop music that is made in China. They perform blackness to present themselves and China as
cool, international powerhouses. Miss Ko uses masculine characteristics specific to the
Taiwanese rap community to rearticulate gender. The masculinity performed in the Taiwan hip
hop community was born from a desire to be authentic to American hip hop, a set of specific
Confucian nei/wai gender ideologies, and an association with Taiwanese men’s experiences in
military enlistment. Vinida performs black femininity by imitating Beyoncé’s performance of
divadom and bad bitch barbie aesthetics to articulate strength. The bad bitch barbie allows
women to be both sexualized and feminist, commodified and empowered; therefore, it overlaps
71

with characteristics of the entrepreneurial strand of made-in-China feminism. Because of this
overlap, Vinida’s performance of blackness not only empowers herself but her fans as well.
The arguments that I have put forward in this thesis seek to answer how Sinophone
rappers negotiate gender and Chineseness in their music. In doing so, I have engaged with fields
of study such as Sinophone studies, hip hop studies, Chinese studies, and Transpacific studies.
My research has demonstrated how investigating Sinophone hip hop can contribute in new ways
to these existing fields of study in several ways. First, my research has revealed the need for a
definition of hip hop that accommodates international communities and centers blackness. For
example, through analyzing the music video Bruce Lee performed by Al Rocco and Jackson
Wang, it is evident that Rocco perceives the hip hop nation to be a multicultural community of
which the foundation is black culture. Rocco suggests one can be Tupac and Bruce Lee and
strives to bring Chinese culture to rap music --- meaning that he recognizes hip hop as a black
performative space and a malleable space where other cultural identities can be expressed. In line
with this vein of thinking, it may be fruitful to understand hip hop as a particular mode of music
where artists use citational practices to sample or mix elements of black popular culture and
expressions of other cultures. Crystal S Anderson adopts a similar approach to Korean popular
music (K-pop) when she defines it as “a mode of Korean popular music that emerged in the
1990s with global aspirations and combines musical elements from Korean and foreign cultures,
particularly black American popular music culture.
94
” This definition allows us to think of global
hip hop as a citational practice where international artists, such as the Sinophone rappers in this
paper, cite performances of blackness or black popular music and combine them with
representations of their own cultural identities. Even hip hop in America, when performed by

94
Crystal S. Anderson, Soul In Seoul: African American Popular Music And K-Pop Jackson: The University Press of
Mississippi, 2020.
72

black Americans, still relies heavily on sampling and interpolation practices that allow musicians
to cite previous generations of black popular music such as soul, funk, and disco; therefore, it is
not inconceivable to suggest that international artists operate similarly. This definition of hip hop
would also allow us to focus on hip hop as black culture instead of an American art form.
Second, my analysis of female rappers Miss Ko and Vinida engages closely with hip-hop
feminist media studies. Hip hop feminists in media studies analyze hip hop content about and
made by women as a methodology for understanding how race, gender, and sexuality are
assigned meaning in hip hop.
95
I have demonstrated how black feminisms in hip hop and made-
in-China feminisms overlap in Vinida’s performance of “Queendom.” My analysis of Miss Ko’s
performance in the music video “Queen of Queens” also demonstrates how female rappers can
resist the commodification of their bodies by “kinging” or performing specific iterations of hip
hop masculinity.
96
Although Miss Ko and Vinida’s performances do not explicitly critique
gender issues, they provide insight into how female Sinophone rappers navigate gender identity
politics in hip hop.
Finally, my research has demonstrated that Chinese hip hop is, in fact, Sinophone hip
hop. Whether it is the originators of “Chinese” hip hop who traveled across the pacific or current
hip hop stars such as Al Rocco, Higher Brothers, Vinida, Dwagie, and many others, these artists
approach hip hop differently based on their (inter)national subjectivities. Moreover, there seems
to be a clear consensus that to engage with “Chinese” hip hop is to use Sinitic languages in hip
hop. Because song lyrics are considered a premeditated form of communication, the choice to
rap in Sinitic languages demonstrates a desire to connect with others who belong to the
Sinophone community. This is evidenced by the fact that both Al Rocco and Miss Ko used the

95
Aisha Durham, "Hip Hop Feminist Media Studies", The International Journal Of Africana Studies 16, no. 1 (2010): 117-140.
96
Robin James, Resilience & Melancholy: Pop Music, Feminism, Neoliberalism Washington: Zero Books, 2015.
73

acquisition of Chinese language skills as evidence of their status as “Chinese” rappers. However,
these artists do not speak Chinese at the exclusion of other languages. Both artists and even
Vinida and the Higher Brothers rap in English, suggesting that the Chinese hip hop community is
not bound by language or nation. Additionally, Miss Ko and Al Rocco use their positions as
“overseas” Chinese to challenge traditional definitions of “Chineseness” while still arguing for
recognition of a worldwide Chinese community.
Despite these findings, there is still further research that needs to be done. Although my
analysis does present some ways to answer this question, it is not conclusive. In my
investigation, I found that these Sinophone rappers use location-specific iterations of gender,
elements of traditional Chinese culture, and the aesthetics of black expressive culture to
challenge traditional heteropatriarchal gender ideology, counter white hegemonic masculinity,
and articulate their identity as Sinophone rappers. However, there is still more to explore.
Specifically, there are two areas I propose investigating further. First is the relationship between
Chineseness, gender, wushu, and jianghu spaces. In order to flesh out the relationship between
these elements, a wider variety of artists is needed. That includes those artists who identify as
Taiwanese but still align themselves with wushu culture. For example, Dwagie started a hip-hop
record label in Taiwan. He named the label Kung fu Entertainment. In this context, is “kung fu”
used to articulate the same values associated with “Bruce Lee” and “Made in China?” What
about Chongqing rapper GAI, one of the co-champions of the first season of The Rap of China,
praised for his jianghu flow?
97
Or Asian-American artists such as Bohan Phoneix, who admitted
live on social media that he was ashamed to tell people he knew kung fu because he did not want
to be a stereotype?

97
Yupei Zhao and Zhongxuan Lin, "‘Jianghu Flow’: Examining Cultural Resonance In The Rap Of China", Continuum 34, no. 4
(2020): 601-614, doi:10.1080/10304312.2020.1757039.
74

By looking closely at the diversity of references to wushu and jianghu spaces in
Sinophone hip hop, we can better understand why, when, and how it is deployed to represent
Chineseness. Second is the relationship between location, language, and identity in Sinophone
rap. For this project, I focused on artists representing Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, but these
three nations do not make up the entirety of the Sinophone community. Nor are Mandarin and
Hokkien the only Sinitic languages used in the Sinophone community. Future research should
expand this project’s scope by analyzing artists like Singaporean rapper Shigga Shay, Asian-
American rapper MC Jin, and Malaysian rapper Dato’ Maw. In what ways do these artists
negotiate gender and Chineseness?

75

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85

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Asset Metadata

Creator Wilson, Tiara Monae (author)

Core Title Between wushu warriors and queens: articulating gender and identity in Sinophone rap music videos

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Area Studies

Degree Conferral Date 2021-12

Publication Date 09/29/2021

Defense Date 09/28/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag china,gender,hip hop,identity,OAI-PMH Harvest,rap,Sinophone studies,Taiwan

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bernards, Brian (committee chair), Chio, Jenny (committee member), Frazier, Taj (committee member)

Creator Email tiarawil@usc.edu,twilson@dfscholars.org

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC15965161

Unique identifier UC15965161

Legacy Identifier etd-WilsonTiar-10111

Document Type Thesis

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Wilson, Tiara Monae

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu