Chinese rap

[googed]

I need recommendations for the Chinese rap genre. As someone who learned English as a second language, rap played a big aspect in my ability to understand, and speak English fluently. Moreover, Chinese is a tonal language and a lot of tonal information is lost when you listen to Chinese pop music; rap doesn't have this problem (at least not in my native tonal language).

I've been listening to xihapark.com lately but a lot of their artists are Western hip-hop artists. If anyone can make a mixtape recommendation of the most influential Chinese rap artists, say, of the past decade, I'd be really grateful.

[LaoJian]

I think RAP is not very popular in China, although it has been developing for many years here.

I'm a Chinese, in my view, maybe Chinese pronunciation is not quite suitable for this music style, comparing to English word,Chinese character are almost short in pronunciation,so it is hard to lengthen one word in Chinese sentence; plus, unlike English, Chinese language contain 4 kind of tone, so it is harder to express one sentence in a musical rhythm and tune.

For your question, I would like to introduce several artists in China.

1. 潘玮柏(pan1 wei3 bo2)Wilber Pan - I think he is one of most famous XiHa artist in China, sample:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkDSElc2Zus

2. one favorite rap I collect - <北京土著>Beijinger， because I'm a Beijing local, I can say this song is shown with classical beijing dialect， specially 儿话音 er, you also can hear Peking opera background music here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVHxLA-6ACw&feature=related

3. 李小龙(li3 xiao3 long2)

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/iTeDGKFbaho/

[creamyhorror]

I think Mandarin rap often loses the tones too. (But the small amount of rap I hear is mostly from Jay Chou...)

[googed]

LaoJian, thanks, I'll check them out.

Creamyhorror, Jay Chou doesn't even need to sing to lose his tones

[feihong]

If Jay Chou were to gargle while singing, he would not be less intelligible. Also, he is mostly a crooner, not so much a rapper.

I think Mandarin language hip hop is mostly a wasteland, but I don't follow it so much so maybe it's changed recently. You could try checking out MC HotDog. There is also 铁竹堂. I only have one of their songs, but it's not bad.

[ilovelanguage]

I like Rap Music and found it quite useful to learn the language.

For mandarin, I would reckon to try the band from Taiwan called S.H.E, can start from this one:

Zhong Guo Ren

You may google search: zhong guo ren pinyin

which it will have pinyin and English translation

Hope you would like it.

[chiuyan]

Namewee (明志) is a Malaysia rapper that is pretty good. His lyrics are generally a little more "meaningful" than some rappers, but he tends to rap a lot about Malaysian topics which may not interest you. Here is a sample on youtube

Uranu$ (天王星) is a rapper (group) from Guangdong, but most of their music is in Mandarin. The quality of the music is okay, but as you can probably guess from the name the lyrics tend to be very standard/vapid money and girls type stuff. Here is an okay song

OneTwoFree (自由發揮) is not quite a rap group, but their music style is very spoken word. Here is a sample http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iggD8_iMOf4&feature=related

[xiaoxiaocao]

Check out - 中国说唱兄弟 they got some good stuff.

[chrisinewong]

Check out MC Jin. He is champion of international rap contest. His raps is very good.

[Benignant]

Hey, just checked Mc jin and it's pretty nice but he is from hong kong and sings on cantonese ) songs really weird..

[BertR]

This is a rap song that is (relatively) easy to understand and most tones seem to be respected:

[Benignant]

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzA0MzM3OTAw.html

check this out guys it's really nice one. mc jin again!

[mariafuschino]

In my opinion, Soft Lipa is really good. I really like his album called Winter Sweet, he has more of a mellow feel to his music but he is a good rapper. It's like laid back rap, I guess.

[scoff]

爽子 has a grittier style than Soft Lippa. The below isn't particularly gritty, but IMHO one of his best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTG8f1fzQo&nomobile=1 - 挂念

[LondonInvestigator]

Get yourself down to the Stadium area in Beijing,theres as much rap as you can eat if you search the clubs..the DJ`s are very friendly !! Dont hesitate to ask them for advice.....

[马M]

I've just found this thread. Namewee is one of my favourite artists! I listen to him daily.

 

I love almost all of his songs, they are so catchy, and I like how he can sing in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Malay, Thai, and Japanese!  I'm not into his early rap songs as much, though.

 

Anybody else here still listen to Namewee?