Chinese Hip-hop and Youth Identity. An exploratory study of how Chinese youth construct cultual identity through Chinese hip-hop music

In recent years, hip-hop has become a prevalent cultural form in China due to the success of the hip-hop reality show- The Rap of China. Coming from underground to the mainstream stage, hip-hop is considered a counter-cultural movement and a morally corrupted art form by the public. Its sudden popularity and controversy have attracted the attention of academics and the Chinese public. Hip-hop music is characterized by direct expression and resistance, which raised concerns about its implications in Chinese society. Youth, as the driving force of the popularity of Chinese hip-hop, ought to be paid close attention to. In existing research, even though the implications of hip-hop have been explored from the production aspect, very few touched upon the consumption of hip-hop. Music consumption is a process for self-interpretation and identity-articulation. Therefore, it is to study how Chinese hip-hop music shapes youth's cultural identities. The research question guiding this study is: How do Chinese youth construct their cultural identity through Chinese hip-hop music? This research focuses on Chinese youth's consumption, perception, and reflection of hip-hop music. Given the characteristics of Chinese hip-hop, how it contributes to youth identity construction needs to be explored regarding their comprehension of social reality and the hip-hop scene in China. From ten in-depth interviews with hip-hop fans and rappers, valuable insights into the impact of Chinese hip-hop music on youth identity were generated. Thematic analysis was used in the research to capture the complexity of the data and discover significant patterns. The research findings revealed several aspects of Chinese youth's cultural identity construction. First, they make evaluations of their own positions in society through their understanding of the social environment for hip-hop and its development. Second, localized features of hip-hop provoked and enhanced the identity construction in relation to specific places. Third, hip-hop provides social and emotional values to the audiences. Although the specific values that hip-hop can contribute differ from rappers to fans, both types of audiences build their identity on the internalization of their interpretation of the music. This study examined the audiences' perspectives and perceptions of hip-hop, offering researchers a three-dimensional understanding of youth culture in China.