China: Communist Rappers Pen Ode to Coronavirus Fight

Gabrielle ReyesApril 1, 2022

A group of students from state-run universities in southwestern China’s Chongqing municipality recently created a rap to promote the Communist Party’s failed efforts to control the Chinese coronavirus, the Global Times reported on Tuesday.

“As a socially responsible young person who is cool, rap is my choice to speak up and encourage social change when things go wrong,” one of the participating rappers told the government outlet.

Student Wang Ziyu told the Global Times, a Chinese state-run newspaper, on March 29 about “a project he recently took part in that saw rappers from more than 20 local universities in the Chongqing Municipality perform a song supporting the city’s efforts to fight against COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus].”

The Global Times relayed Wang’s account of the musical endeavor, writing:

More than 40 rappers from over 20 local institutions of higher learning such as Chongqing University, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and the Chongqing City Management College gathered in a university town in Chongqing to perform the 15-minute cypher.

Led by … a short intro of news reports about the surging cases of COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] in the city and three confirmed cases in Chongqing City Management College on March 12, the song was launched into a rap showing support for local efforts to combat COVID-19.

The Global Times further published an excerpt of some of the rap’s lyrics, particularly a verse referring to healthcare staff working overnight to deliver Chinese coronavirus tests to students. The verse read:

We can always face/ we can always take/ despite endless rain/ we don’t care about pain/ under the devil changing different ways we will win/ thanks to those angels in white in the wind who saved us from the bad thing.

The Chinese Communist Party has previously created several rap songs to promote the Party’s policies. Typically stilted and of dubious impact, the raps have addressed various topics including the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Some have included samples of Xi Jinping speeches to promote communism to young people.

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One such rap surfaced in August 2021 and demanded the U.S. “allow investigators into a U.S. Army facility the Communist Party has claimed for months, without evidence, may be the true origin of the Chinese coronavirus,” Breitbart News reported at the time.

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The government’s achievements in hip-hop artistry went largely unembraced by the general population, though rap music itself has grown extremely popular in the country. In response, the Communist Party has attempted to crack down on rap songs that do not promote communism or rap not created by the government. In 2018, Beijing banned rap music from state television after a reality competition show called The Rap of China grew more popular than anticipated. The Rap of China, airing on the Chinese streamer iQiyi, featured authentic Chinese rappers instead of Chinese Communist Party products and thus threatened to potentially pierce Beijing’s official narratives. In addition to banning rap music from broadcast television, Chinese pressure forced one of the winners of the first season of the show, rapper PG One, to apologize for allowing “black music,” meaning music by black Americans, to influence his style. One of the original judges on the show, producer Kris Wu, was arrested on charges of rape in August 2021.

China has experienced a nationwide resurgence of its Chinese coronavirus caseload in recent months, with Chongqing’s current outbreak of the disease serving as just one example. Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of Shanghai recently ordered one half of the metropolis to lock down from March 28 to April 1 and the second half to lock down from April 1 to April 5 in an effort to contain the city’s latest Chinese coronavirus epidemic.

The Chinese Communist Party’s decision last week to essentially shut down Shanghai was significant, as the city serves as China’s financial mecca and houses the world’s busiest shipping container port. Shanghai is additionally the most densely populated city in China with a population of nearly 26 million.

The Chinese Communist Party forbade all 24 million residents of China’s northeastern province of Jilin, which borders both North Korea and Russia, from traveling outside of the province in early March amid a spike in Jilin’s caseload of the Chinese coronavirus. Most of the province has likewise been forced to observe strict local lockdowns, which prohibit residents from leaving their homes, since at least March 11.

Transit officers, wearing protective gear, control access to a tunnel in the direction of Pudong district in lockdown as a measure against the coronavirus, in Shanghai on March 28, 2022. (AFP/Getty)

Jilin City, the second-largest city in Jilin province, will begin lifting its three-week-plus lockdown order on April 1. Residents of Jilin city will still be required to wear sanitary masks indoors and socially distance after April 1, according to the state-run China Central Television (CCTV).

Local Chinese Communist Party officials in charge of Changchun, Jilin’s capital city, issued a public apology on March 29 after news leaked online that municipal authorities had failed to provide Changchun residents with sufficient food during the city’s ongoing lockdown.

“Authorities in Changchun … apologized to local residents for the short supply of vegetables as the city’s two major vegetable wholesale markets were temporarily closed due to the sudden epidemic flare-up of COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus],” the Global Times reported.

“Due to COVID-19, two major wholesale food markets in Changchun have shuttered, leading to a shortfall in food supply,” Changchun Deputy Communist Party Secretary Liu Renyuan told reporters on Tuesday.

“We are particularly anxious and angry about this, and we express our deep apologies to the public for the impact and inconvenience caused,” Liu said.