China Bans Hip Hop Culture & Tattoos

China has announced that Hip Hop culture along with anyone who has tattoos or has “no class” is banned from its media outlets. This crackdown comes after the media had a huge falling out with rapper #PGOne. He was engulfed in a scandal involving a married celebrity and, through his music, the rapper was labeled as misogynistic and sexist. PG One was also accused of and heavily criticized for promoting drugs with lyrics such as “white powder walking on the board.”

The State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China (SAPPRFT) is China’s largest media regulator and controls almost all of what citizens can and cannot see. Since they do not wish to associate the country with sexism or drug use, they have implemented rules which “specifically requires that programs should not feature actors with tattoos [or depict] hip hop culture, sub-culture (non-mainstream culture) and dispirited culture (decadent culture),” , a Chinese news outlet, reports.

GAO Changli is the director of SAPPRFT’s publicity department and outlined the following four rules for all media outlets:
•Absolutely do not use actors whose heart and morality are not aligned with the party and whose morality is not noble
•Absolutely do not use actors who are tasteless, vulgar and obscene
•Absolutely do not use actors whose ideological level is low and have no class
•Absolutely do not use actors with stains, scandals and problematic moral integrity

This is reminiscent of the late 80’s and early 90’s when NWA was criticized for their gangsta rap which ultimately gave birth to a new era of hip hop.

Source: theshaderoom.com