No place at Hong Kong hip-hop festival Rolling Loud for Vava after Chinese rapper backed police amid protests in city
- In July, China’s top female hip-hop star posted Instagram video captioned ‘Rolling Loud in Hong Kong … see ya’. But Vava’s not in just-issued festival line-up
- In August she shared People’s Daily meme saying ‘I support Hong Kong police, you can hit me now’. Was she dropped from Rolling Loud? Organisers won’t say
China’s biggest female rapper will not be appearing at a large-scale hip-hop music festival in Hong Kong, despite having earlier suggested she would be on the line-up. Vava’s absence from the bill for the debut Rolling Loud event in the city comes after she expressed support for the city’s embattled police force amid the ongoing anti-government protests.
Then, on August 14, Vava shared a pro-police meme created by Chinese Communist Party media outlet People’s Daily. It reads, “I support Hong Kong police, you can hit me now” in Chinese characters, with the English phrase, “What a shame for Hong Kong” written below it.
“Hong Kong is part of China forever,” Vava wrote in her post.
On Wednesday Vava’s name was nowhere to be seen when event organisers released the long-awaited line-up for the Rolling Loud festival. It is headed by A-list American hip-hop artists, including Migos, Wiz Khalifa, Playboi Carti, Ski Mask the Slump God, and Smokepurpp. China’s burgeoning hip-hop scene is represented by rappers Young13DBaby, Xigga and Jinx, among others.
A spokeswoman for Live Nation Electronic Asia, the organiser of Rolling Loud Hong Kong, would not comment on whether Vava had been removed from the line-up, telling the Post only: “We never announced that Vava is coming on our [Rolling Loud Hong Kong] official [media] platforms.”
Vava rose to fame as a contestant on the hugely popular Chinese hip-hop reality TV show The Rap of China. She secured high-profile advertising deals and became a fashion icon, as well as the face of Chinese hip hop across the country.
“Chinese hip hop comes from rebellion in young people’s lives,” Vava said during an interview with Esquire Singapore. “I realised all my rapper friends went through a period of insurgency and that’s when they started rapping. The generation before us were rockers, but today we use rap to express ourselves.”
Apart from Vava, several other influential Chinese hip-hop artists have spoken out against the Hong Kong protests, including Higher Brothers – arguably China’s biggest international hip-hop exports to date – PG One and CD Rev.
Rolling Loud launched in Miami, Florida, in 2014 and is now regarded as the largest hip-hop festival in the world. The October event will mark the first time the festival is being staged in Hong Kong.
