Rapper Yvng Huncho and the behind him Photo: Sina Weibo
Yvng Huncho, a Chinese rapper who is part of the “underground” music industry in China, has found himself at the center of a scandal after a short video of him publicly insulting a musician from China’s Tibetan ethnic minority went viral online over the weekend, sparking netizens’ anger as well as the ire of the rap community in China.
In the video, the rapper from Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, can be seen sitting at a table having a meal with other unidentified individuals, he turns and makes a threatening elbowing motion toward the musician who is performing behind him. The musician, who goes by the busking name Zhaluo, is a street performer who goes from restaurant to restaurant performing for tips.
In addition to physically threatening a performer, who appears much older than the rapper, Yvng Huncho went on to laugh at and mock Zhaluo by giving him a 0.01 yuan (about a cent) tip on WeChat in “appreciation” of his singing performance. This incident sparked the anger of netizens, many of whom condemned the rapper for humiliating the performer.
The video that was first released at the end of March quickly went viral on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo, leading many artists from the Chinese rapper community, like Young13dbaby, who is also from the Tibetan ethnic group, to weigh in.
“Learn to be a human being first,” Young13dbaby, the artist behind the popular Tibetan culture-inspired song “Girl of the Grassland,” commented on Sina Weibo.
Other rappers from different regions in China also spoke up to criticize Yvng Huncho’s behavior, emphasizing that embracing cultural diversity and promoting the unity of all the ethnic groups in China are a major focus for many rappers in the country.
“What we do is about unifying all the differences and ethnic groups,” posted well-known Chinese underground rapper JinjiBeWaterSun.
“I don’t know what your purpose is, you are in trouble anyways.”
Yvng Huncho’s behavior is the opposite of Chengdu rapper Mula Sakee, whose previous clips of him improvising with two Tibetan street performers was forwarded by netizens, many of whom called it a “textbook” example to further Yvng Huncho’s rap education.
“They are the people of [the] Xizang [Autonomous Region]. We are family! Everybody shines for real,” Mula Sakee rapped in his video.
Some other fellow Chinese rappers didn’t weigh in directly but forwarded critical comments from netizens, which many saw as a sign that they were trying to combat the negative stereotypes about rap culture in China.
“For a long time rap culture has been stereotyped as dirty and rude. Well, things are different in China as rap that delivers positive social messages can be hot here,” Zhipeng, a young rapper in Chongqing, told the Global Times.
The hashtag for the incident had earned more than 260 million views on Sina Weibo as of Tuesday afternoon. Although Yvng Huncho issued an apology on the platform on Saturday, netizens were not willing to give him a pass for his behavior, while others said he only apologized to not ruin his “marketability.”
“He wants to get popular I see, but sorry mate, you’ll get more dislikes,” posted one netizen on Sina Weibo.
This is not the first time Yvng Huncho has been called rude. He was once spotted by netizens giving a girl the middle finger during a livestream.
“He has to be stripped from the gang, maybe his own gang, because he does what we do not,” Fenggie, a Chinese rapper in Shanghai, told the Global Times.
SASIOVERLXRD, a rapper who once collaborated with Yvng Huncho, also posted about the scandal, “Hope you understand what you’ve done wrong.”
“This will ruin his career. He’ll get more disses because he has pissed off so many. He doesn’t know what’s the attitude or character for a proper rapper at all,” Fenggie noted.
