Today the internationally acclaimed film star and pop singer Kris Wu is selling futuristic sci-fi blockbuster Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, the latest by celebrated Parisian filmmaker Luc Besson. Don’t plan on seeing that myself but from what friends tell me Kris has about 10 minutes of screen time. He’s literally only in it to sell tickets in China. Straight up not on the international poster for this movie, but there he is Photoshopped just above Rihanna at the Megabox theater in Sanlitun, Beijing, as if to say, “Hi, I’m Kris Wu, and I endorse this picture.”
Also this sweet cutout in the movie theater foyer:
You wouldn’t know it from his view counts (modest but climbing quickly), but the Hong Kong producer-turned-rapper is confident.
“I started making beats in high school, but producing got played out so I started rapping instead. Poppin is my first track.”
The track and video are dope. Not in a masterful, impeccable quality kind of way — but in an effortless, “I do this for fun, yuh yuh yuh” kind of way. BIG SPOON — “All caps like MF DOOM,” he tells us, adding, “actually stylize it how you want, I like all caps ‘cause it looks bigger” — seems to be channeling the holy energy of Lil B, who he shouts out in the opening of the video. Lil B, if you’re not in the loop, paved the way for current, “homemade” sounding artists like Lil Yachty and Yung Lean. He hit a meteoric rise to fame on a strategy of inundating his audience with countless, seemingly slapped-together raps and music videos. For years, critics wrote off the Based God, on the grounds that his lyrics and rapping were subpar. But through consistent output, bravado, and the battle-tested formula of remaining true to oneself, Lil B’s sound went on to define a generation of artists.
“I want to help take Hong Kong rap to the next level… We got the food game on lock, the airsoft game on lock, the e-commerce game on lock, the banking game on lock, time to take the music game over like we did in the ’80s and ’90s” — BIG SPOON
Lil B appealed to fans and up-and-coming rappers because his self-confidence and laid back approach to the rap game spoke to a disillusionment with the status quo, and a refusal to play someone else’s game. In Poppin, BIG SPOON seems to embody the same feeling. The video is shot with basic camera quality, and seemingly zero effort on location, the shots themselves, or overall visual message. BIG SPOON raps lazily, squatting down with an A$AP Yams hundred dollar bill in his hat and dancing happily while his crew plays with Dragon Ball Z action figures. He hits such memorable lyrics as “yeah my girl a scholar, drink Evian water” and “Giordano boxers, they keep me cozy.”
But — and this bears repeating — the product is dope. On a highly bumping, dirty south style beat produced by The Beat Cartel, BIG SPOON talks the talk just for the fun of it. The thing that wins you over is his authenticity. He’s not trying to be anything else. The lyrical content matches that sound, with the lyrics largely addressing his lack of need to purchase high end brands and other rap-culture status symbols. Another key element of the song is that the hook is just an objective slapper. BIG SPOON raps about not needing to rock chains, wear Yeezys, or do drugs — and you still want to bop your head to the song. If that’s not an indicator of the track’s quality, we don’t know what is.
The video (shot by local Hong Kong team Goldfish TV, apparently their first music video) is a great complement to that. The low-effort shots are balanced with heavy effects and glitchy editing. It’s something we’ve covered before, in YoungQueenz and Fotan Laiki’s video, Fotan Laiki:
So we start to see a little bit of the difference between Hong Kong and mainland China’s rap scenes. The mainland is only now starting to find its place in the unique American subculture — lyrically powerful rappers like Higher Brothers are rising to the top, and the wildly popular reality show Rap of China pits rappers against each other, measuring their technical skill at an almost quantitative level. Meanwhile, Hong Kong has been steeping in global pop culture influence for decades. YoungQueenz (who makes a guest appearance in the video, along with fellow Hong Kong rapper Dough-Boy) and his WILD$TYLE collective are distinctly “post-rap” — and BIG SPOON seems to fall into that category too, just with an admittedly different style. His sound comes across as a product of the southern trap takeover, despite having never spent any time in a southern state.
“I just want to make fun music, because who doesn’t like to have fun?” — BIG SPOON
But BIG SPOON is eager to represent his home.
“I’m trying to put Hong Kong on the map. I want to help take Hong Kong rap to the next level. We got the food game on lock, the airsoft game on lock, the e-commerce game on lock, the banking game on lock, time to take the music game over like we did in the ’80s and ’90s. Eskeddit, shout out Lil Pump.”
(Author’s note: that’s “let’s get it”, as spoken by 17-year-old SoundCloud rapper Lil Pump.)
What’s next for the uber-relaxed BIG SPOON?
“There’s gonna be more songs and videos coming out. Might do a country song. Might get more ignorant, or might mess around and get my conscious, multisyllabic New York rap on. Too early right now for an album or a mixtape.”
The future is bright, if unclear, for BIG SPOON, and we’re psyched to see what’s next.
As a footnote, here are all the shoutouts given by BIG SPOON in the video and in our interview, in chronological order:
Lil B
A$AP Yams
MF DOOM
Spaceghostpurpp
Chief Keef
Young Thug
Migos
Gucci Mane
Frederic Chopin
Nujabes
Riff Raff
Kool G Rap
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
Lil Pump
Lex Luger
Playboi Carti
2pac
Jedi Mind Tricks
Joe Hisaishi
Buju Banton
Madlib
Linkin Park
Eminem
Dream Theater
Mew
Sigur Ros
Twins
Boys
Roman Tam
Teresa Teng
God (the deity)
Quantum Physics (the science)
Archaeology (the study)
Dragon Ball Z
Space (outer space)
The South
Pimp C
Three 6 Mafia
Cash Money
Atlanta
Rich Chigga
Higher Brothers
88rising
Cold Hart
Kid Trunks
Members Only
Goth Boy Clique
Fresh Kid Ice
Dough-Boy
Bakerie
YoungQueenz
Fotan Laiki
WILD$TYLE
Young Hysan
Low Mays
Thugger (Young Thug again)
Lewis (My guy Lewis was hating hard, he posted like four times in the comments saying I was dumb and I should be more like J Cole. Lewis, I see you, might name a song after you, make sure to show your friends.)
Be an early adopter and follow BIG SPOON on Instagram: @bigspoonbigspoon
Tea farmers have a saying: “One day leaf, the next day tea.” What they mean by this is that a leaf can be used to make perfectly good tea one day, and the next day it’s useless, just another leaf on the plant. What is the difference between these two days? The answer is the size of the leaf.
Leaf size has a huge impact on the tea we drink, and can be an easy way to judge quality. It can tell us when the leaf was picked, what kind of tea it is, and even how to brew it. Here we’ll look at two different types of tea, and talk about how understanding leaf size is important for each.
Before we start talking about specifics, I want to outline the basic growing pattern of the tea plant, Camelia sinensis. Before the plant buds, it spends the winter gaining nutrients from the soil. In Spring, it comes forward with the first bud; this marks the beginning of tea season. As the season goes on, the leaves get larger and the bud gets longer and skinnier. When people talk about a large bud, they are most often talking about the girth and not the length, as the girth of a younger bud is often larger. After the leaves get longer and the bud skinnier, the bud will open up into a new leaf. It is this leaf that gets picked as and made into oolong. Now that we understand this, let’s talk about leaf size It affects our tea.
This size difference, however small, plays a huge factor on the price and desirability
For green teas, especially those grown around Zhejiang province, there is a significant price difference and desirability between tea picked before the spring Tomb Sweeping festival, or Qingming, and tea picked after. Although many people know this, few know why. According to the Chinese farming calendar, somewhere in the span of the four days of Qingming, it rains. Afterwards, the weather warms ups a bit, and the tea plants reacts to this by growing a little faster. The reason pre-Qingming tea is more desired is not some magical esoteric reason — it’s because the leaf before Qingming is more tender and small than after it rains. This size difference, however small, plays a huge factor on the price and desirability.
It’s important to mention though not all green teas follow this rule. Some teas, like gua pian and hou kui, have no relation to Qingming, and in fact are not even close to ready by then. What is the difference? It has to do with nothing else but the desired size. While hou kui may start budding in early April, farmers wait about 20 days, until the leaf is 7 centimeters long, before picking it. Gua pian is a similar story — this tea is made up of all leaves and no buds, so the farmers wait until the leaf is fully developed before they pick it as a way to maximize flavor. In these cases, bigger is better. Both teas must reach a larger size to produce the full desired characteristic.
So what exactly is the effect of leaf size on your tea? When the leaf is picked within this season, it has an important and sometimes very clear impact on the flavor. In the beginning of the season, the bud is fat and full from a long winter of soaking up nutrients from the earth. As the season goes on, one of two things happens. If not picked, the bud becomes skinnier and the leaves become bigger; or, as is usually the case, the bud gets picked and a new bud grows in its place, but to a lesser size and strength than the first.
In both cases, the bud becomes smaller and the leaves bigger. This has a great effect on the flavor. The bud is what gives green tea its complex flavors. So as the buds get smaller, the resulting tea will become less and less complex, more basic and mediocre. The nutrients of the plant are also not so concentrated in the bud over time, so as the season goes on the flavor of the tea will start to get more bitter and rough, losing its soft, refreshing qualities. This is the basic relationship between leaf size and flavor, and will hopefully begin to help you understand what the size means for your tea.
Typically, as the buds get smaller, the resulting tea will become less and less complex, more basic and mediocre
Every tea farmer is acutely aware of leaf size. In the days before picking, they will examine the leaf size and use that to determine when to start. No good tea farmer fails to take leaf size into account, so neither should we. Understanding how the leaf grows and honing its growth is key for understanding why our tea tastes the way it does. It can even effect how we brew it. Huangshan maofeng has a naturally larger leaf than bi luo chun, and therefore can take a small increase in water temperature to bring out the full flavor. The leaf size should be just as important to us, the buyers, because of how important it is to the maker.
This one’s a spinoff from our Kris Wu selling shit photo series, which has unexpectedly yielded many rich avenues for journalistic exploration. We might just as easily cover the parallel and related “Luhan selling shit” beat — Luhan being a fellow ex-member of K-pop band EXO and a super-regular in Chinese advertising circa 2017.
Which brings us to this specimen: an ad for KFC’s China-exclusive fried chicken pizza, Chizza.
It’s a pretty bold exercise in culture jamming. Our beloved Colonel Sanders returns to his office only to find that his role has been usurped by the 27-year-old Luhan, who proudly proclaims himself “KFC’s new colonel.”
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Kevin Cook, a China-based travel vlogger and YouTuber. Videos from his Monkey Abroad channel focusing on street foods and cultures across Asia regularly rack up views in the tens of thousands. If you want to break into travel vlogging, we suggest you pay attention to what he has to say. If you just wanna see some street-level videos from different corners of China, scroll down for some highlights from Kevin’s reel.
Travel vlogging seems like the ultimate dream job for the uninitiated, but it’s insanely competitive for those who’ve just entered the game. With so many vloggers clamoring for the spotlight, you’ve not only got to consistently produce top-notch content, but you also have to truly distinguish yourself from the masses.
Planning to start your own travel vlog? Here are five reasons why you’ll probably fail:
1. You’re shy
You not only need to be comfortable talking in front of a camera, you also need to be comfortable with other people watching you talk in front of a camera.
What I notice all too often is that fledgling video bloggers will record themselves in the comfort of their own home. When you’re talking about your topic, keep in mind that the setting of your video is as important as your message.
If you’re talking about life in Bali, then show Bali; don’t record the video in your hotel room. If you have no choice but to record your video at home, then at least overlay a ton of voiceover images or video to show the audience what you’re talking about. A stranger can only stare at your face for so long before they become bored.
2. You don’t enjoy editing
If you loathe the editing process, then vlogging is going to be a nightmare. It’s tedious, it’s not glorious, and if you do it right, no one will even notice that you did it. But if you take the time to practice and improve this indispensable skill, you’ll learn to love editing.
You could have the most intelligent and original message to convey, but unless your video is properly edited, a chunk of your initial audience is going to be turned off. Think of editing like painting. Gathering the paint, brushes and easel is akin to going out and gathering some footage. Once you’ve got the footage, it’s entirely up to you how you arrange it on the canvas.
3. You’re making content for your friends
Don’t make videos for your friends and family; these people already know and trust you. Instead, make your videos assuming that it will be the first content of yours that a stranger will watch. Based on this one video, would they subscribe? Keep this question in mind when making every single video.
Every time you upload a video, ask yourself: What’s in it for the audience? If you expect your loyal following to grow beyond your mom and best friends, you need to curate your videos to attract a broader audience. Cut out the personal jokes, intimate behind-the-scenes footage, and anything that doesn’t benefit Joe Viewer. You’re not a celebrity, and no one cares about your personal life. Yet.
4. You’re impatient
You’ve spent countless hours filming, editing, and uploading your video content, but your audience isn’t growing. Now’s the time the throw in the towel, right? Wrong.
There are thousands of other talented video creators just like you, and they’re all struggling with the same hurdles. YouTube and other video platforms are already saturated enough with travel vlogs, vacation video compilations, and the same “Top 10” content you’ve seen a hundred times.
If you truly believe that your ideas are original and compelling, then you won’t give up, and your presence will grow. Success will come to those who stay focused and patient.
5. You aren’t leveraging social media
Your videos aren’t going to share themselves, so you need to build your presence on other platforms to cross-promote your content.
You’ve likely already got a following on your personal social media accounts, so use this to your advantage.Create a Facebook page and encourage your friends to follow it and share your content with their friends. If it’s quality content, they will be happy to share it.
But it’s important not to wear yourself out. Having two strong social media platforms is better than having five weak ones, so I suggest focusing on building two or three platforms to maximize your potential reach.
If you’ve read this entire list and you’re still chomping at the bit to get your travel vlog up and running, then there’s hope for you. It’s an absurd amount of work, and at times you’ll doubt whether it’s worth it, but if you’re one of the few who can handle the awkward moments, the criticism, the countless hours of editing, and all of the ups and downs of vlogging, then you might just be dedicated enough to succeed.
Not much to add to the headline honestly. This is international sensation and Rap of China host Kris Wu selling Dell computers — both laptops and desktop towers — via China e-commerce giant JD.com. Spotted in Radii editor Adan Kohnhorst‘s apartment building elevator, directly adjacent to another Kris Wu ad, probably that Xiaomi one.
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