Last week, some of China’s most prominent rappers took to social media to post a meme supporting Hong Kong police following clashes at the city’s airport where protestors were staging a sit-in. Now, widely-ridiculed internationally, heavily-promoted domestically Party rap group CD Rev have one-upped them in the nationalism stakes by putting out a new track entitled “Hong Kong’s Fall” — a song they’re pushing as “featuring Donald Trump”.
CD Rev, for those unfamiliar with their oeuvre, are known for making liberal use of a thesaurus and pushing the Party narrative. Their back catalogue includes a diss track against the entire nation of Sweden, an anti-THAAD song, and a number that examines their homeland’s position on the South China Sea. The situation in Hong Kong and the 45th President of the United States are not new subjects for them either.
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This latest release opens with the lines “Hey democracy, why you always hiding somewhere so hard to seek? / So many counterfeits copying, so I guess you must be some kind of luxury”, and — true to form — gets more outlandish from there.
Using State media footage and talking points, the track also contains a surprising “feature” — Donald Trump. After weaving in accusations that “foreign armies” are operating in Hong Kong and spitting attacks on “American hypocrisy”, CD Rev look to Trump for “advice”. Cue clips of the US President’s recent comments that, “Something is probably happening with Hong Kong […] But that’s between Hong Kong and that’s between China, because Hong Kong is a part of China. They’ll have to deal with that themselves. They don’t need advice.”
Here’s the video if you want to watch; note that it comes from CD Rev’s official YouTube channel:
CD Rev’s new video is essentially State-controlled media platforms’ coverage distilled into a rap song, referencing key points from the official narrative such as “foreign interference” and “riots”. It’s also a striking change of tone from the group’s previous song on the situation in Hong Kong — where this weekend tens of thousands took to the streets in protest — with lines about “keeping your head up” now replaced with talk of “tanks gathering in Shenzhen” to “wipe out terrorists”. State media outlet People’s Daily returned the favor by posting the track on their Twitter feed and claiming that it had “busted open how Chinese millennials look at the so-called democracy behind riots in Hong Kong.”
Fans of the group on Chinese social media platform Weibo have left suggestions in the comments including playing the video on loop in New York’s Times Square for three days and blasting it out of loudspeakers in Sydney. We’re not sure listeners in those cities will be as receptive as People’s Daily to the track however.
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