On November 12, 2020, the broadcast of the "Rap New Generation" finals ended. The dust has settled on the top eight in the country, and this douban score of 9.0 has also let everyone see another possibility of rapping. However, at such an exciting moment, Yu Zhen, one of the only two female contestants in the show's top eight, sent a heart-warming Weibo on the afternoon of November 16.
"The moment you realize fame, maybe that's when it starts to work against you." The common perception of many is that fame is a re-perception and deconstruction of life, replaced by an increasingly pervasive entertainment industry packaging, dazzling stages, fanatical pursuits, and tens of millions of hits in the more figurative Internet age. Yu Zhenhong grew up like this.
But in fact, even if everything goes well, she can still feel this annoyance and helplessness. Just like this Weibo that was inexplicably accused of "sexual harassment", the long-awaited traffic and fans can not only let her have a bite to eat, but also can no longer make her excited, and even become a burden to her. To put it more seriously, these flows and heat actually put her in a whirlpool, shrouded in huge shadows.
Yu Zhen feels that her life after the age of 24 is like riding a speeding train. It appeared in the sky with a roar, carrying her, farther and farther away. And for this girl, it's just getting started.
In 2016, Yu Zhen also studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music. She and her classmates formed a singing and dancing group and participated in a car music festival performance.
Just after stepping down, the labels that performed at the music festival together ran over and wanted to invite Yu Zhen to cooperate with them, and Yu Zhen, who had no rap experience, agreed and signed a contract.
As she said at the beginning of the show, "It's not that I chose rap, it's rap that chose me."
For Zhen, the rebellious attitude has always existed. On November 6, 2017, her first single "Journey to the West Awards" was released. She compares herself to Goku, comparing her "good teacher" colleagues at work to the Great Luo Immortals, and admonishing herself to stick to herself and not to give up.
She didn't want to go along with the "orthodox" demands she already had, after all, "if I obeyed, I would become someone else." Just like the Qi Tian Dasheng who rebelled against the Heavenly Court, rebellion was Yu Zhen's label. Fortunately, Zhen's first attempt at music was still successful, and she also gained her first fans.
Many people compare life to a chess game, but life is not a chess game. Of course, people who play chess want to win, and all planning and operation are aimed at achieving the final victory; but the end of life is determined from the beginning, and the only thing that can be mastered is the intermediate process.
In 2018, Yu Zhen was eager to stand on a bigger stage and seek more opportunities, so she signed up for "China's New Rap". Originally, she passed the audition, but because of the temporary change of rules, she was asked to sing again, and she played abnormally nervously, and finally failed to appear on the stage of "China's New Rap". Since she couldn't fill her stomach in rapping, she simply stayed in Beijing and found a job to make a living.
Yu Zhen is not a complete idealist, she is more like a "successful person" in the secular sense that exists in reality, although she cannot move freely in the cracks of reality, but in order to achieve her ideals, she will also make moderate compromises.
Work failures, tepid short videos, failures in interviews for various programs... These experiences opened Yu Zhen's awakening in life. In "Rap New Generation", Yu Zhen shows another possibility of life.
Originally invited to a community March 8 Women's Day proposition song "She and Her and She", due to the cancellation of the event due to the epidemic, it was later performed by Yu Zhen on the stage of the new era. this
The song tells the life story of three girls: Lisa is a doctor who wants to have long hair, but is worried about having long hair and can only hide her long hair under the surgical cap; Rita is a strong translator who is urged to marry by her parents but wants to do a good job to prove to them; Lina is a lawyer who believes in justice but is examined by the interview team for gender.
Unlike most rappers who have to undergo the test of performing on stage, the stage makes Yu Zhen loose, and the tension is removed. "Super happy, I didn't have any restraints, I didn't have any worries. From the arrangement of the music to the director, it made me feel that the performance was a complete, real, pure enjoyment. ”
With its distinct female perspective, "She and Her and Her" has aroused strong empathy for the living conditions of women in the majority of listeners, and the number of plays on the B station alone is as high as 5.033 million, and the topic heat has also exceeded 10 million. As the themes of the story become more serious, from personal choices about the length of their hair, to persistence in times of dysmenorrhea, to unequal treatment in the workplace, the lyrics are like a punch in the face of those who are content to enjoy their established interests.
Yu Zhen's starting point was not an accusation, so she did not use a large paragraph to explain the reasoning. She uses a seductive lyric structure to depict women's difficulties in the world, and the brisk rhythm tone also highlights her desire to express "support and encouragement among women".
It is not easy to find a proper balance between the virtual world and the real space, and for now, it is impossible to seek a normal purity in the real world, and it seems even more impossible to seek a friendliness in the virtual world.
Yu Zhen tried to describe this distance. The use of brisk melodies and bland lyrics in the songs avoids the sharpness of simple criticism of society. From a bystander's point of view, your closest friends will understand you, and strangers don't matter. She wants to be known by the people around her, they will understand you, and those beliefs will always linger in her ears: "Why do you think so much", "There is no need", "Things are solved".
But not everything can be solved, and not all "thinking too much" can be controlled. Yu Zhen believes that her emotions are also treated as the unreasonable teasing of children, just like some unpleasant small things in life, such as: work pressure to force back the hairline, love after the heat is difficult, or, but these are not the ultimate goal, the ultimate goal is that you have to accept yourself.
Almost at the same time as the program was broadcast, the discussion of "feminism" on Weibo exploded, questioning Yu Zhen's popularity by harvesting female dividends, and the opposite of the dividend was the anti-feminist banner. As soon as it is exported, it can be associated with half of the netizens, and how to export feminism that has traffic is profoundly affecting the creation of cultural and entertainment content
。 And what makes the audience can't help but question is: is there any hot behavior production in this wave of "true dividends"? In the midst of confrontation, what "outcomes of the struggle" will be preserved?
When netizens think that Yu Zhen's ranking is not convincing enough, or that Yu Zhen's shots are too much compared to others, the ridicule of "royalty" naturally arises.
The audience complained that she said that the show arranged a single-person script, edited a complete story line, and provided a five-star one-stop service that sucked powder and even had a powder-fixing gift package. The editing gives more shots than 100 million points, the characters are more storytelling, and the preferential treatment is simply not too much.
To some extent, Yu Zhen's "affirmative declaration" is another form of "harmonic terrier". Not only does the creation save effort, but also caters to the current feminist dividend. Compared with the generalized male and female estrangement, Yu Zhen chose Siwen's immersive workplace independent woman as the protagonist. So it also makes her song, and even rise to her whole person, more likely to be criticized as "speculative".
Rapper, who has become popular in the Internet age, cannot express it as unscrupulously as before, and it means giving up more personal freedom than in previous eras. Yu Zhen knows the world, but she does not know the world enough, and her self-confidence often produces a strange immunity in this era when expectations are more frank than mysterious.
The audience seems to see a star who has completed his self-construction. The audience acquiesced to her big grin, neuroticism, dead bar, and then turned red. But what she wants to say is, "Imperfect is beautiful, I want others to see me."
On the other hand, the success of a song is more due to the intention and ambition of the creative team. It's easy to show, and the motivation behind the explanation, especially the use of audiovisual art to peel away the psychology layer by layer, is very tricky, and this alone is enough to make "She and Her and Her" leave a place on the show.
Like "She and Her and Her", "Unrestrained Love" has mixed reviews and polarizations, and Yu Zhen wants to encourage girls to bravely pursue love, without having to suppress their emotions because of "conventional reticence". Although the 1V1 battle lost to Rosedoggy, she still triggered a hot discussion about the topic of female love, "Why should Yu Zhen girls be quiet" was also on the hot search.
Almost at the same time as the program was broadcast, the discussion of "discrimination against women" in the comment area became more and more intense, and many viewers believed that the song involved "sexism, body discrimination and single discrimination", and rudely put women in the extreme of "casual" and "frivolous". Yu Zhen has gone from an inspirational woman who has gained a firm foothold in the field of male strength, and almost suddenly has become a low-level player who laughs at women with contempt.
There are also many rap lovers who believe that Yu Zhen's song, the cavity tone and flow can not suppress the arrangement, the choreography sound and light voltage chorus, when the choreography is full of flying silver dust fragments, unilaterally stunned by the dance style, compared to the musical atmosphere in the headphones at this time, it is really unsatisfactory.
Admittedly, her songs have their own ideas and choreography ideas, but she needs time to get away from the mature rapper's stage control.
Unlike the public opinion reaction, from the new generation of officials to the directors and arrangers of "Wanton Love", they do not think it has contradictory tendencies, from a female perspective, which is even one of the several novel and safe themes designated by the show.
Some female listeners also said bluntly: "At least I feel that it should not be disrespectful to women." From childhood to adulthood, subtle things have always told us that girls should be reserved and self-loving and not take the initiative to be too cheap, but we also have the right to pursue the people we like, like you can take the initiative, do not need to worry too much."
Yu Zhen's response to this is very simple, she believes that this song only shows a cute woman who takes the initiative for love, regardless of age identity, breaking the stereotype of male initiative in inherent love.
"I didn't discriminate, I even turned girls into "scumbags", I was originally a woman, I thought it was appropriate to write." 」 She said meaningfully, "I think this will block the way of love for Chinese women."
On October 10, the "Rap New Generation" special breakout competition was broadcast. After defeating his self-selected opponent Wan Saiwen, Yu Zhen lost 38:76 to Nachiwolf, the tester selected by his mentor, and the breakthrough failed. This is the third time she has been eliminated on the show. As with her experience, Yu Zhen's "Rap New Generation" journey was not smooth. He was eliminated three times, revived again and again, and finally entered the national top eight.
After the program was broadcast, Yu Zhen was completely on fire. Joining the W8VES label, various tours, endorsements, and various cooperation opportunities that she could not have imagined before have also found the door, which also makes her busy every day. Yu Zhen is lucky, but occasionally feels as if something is missing in life.
Now, Yu Zhen's Weibo followers are 560,000. Before that, even if she had a fan, she would be as happy as a child for a long time, and now she is no longer overly excited, because she no longer wants to dwell on the past and drown in the future. She also didn't feel like a star, she was just a songwriter for Chastity.
She wants to keep working hard for rap music. As she gave herself a little essay on Weibo: "In the lyrics, I write that the sky before dawn is actually darker than darkness." I was short-sighted and couldn't see after dawn." And now, the piece of heaven that belonged to Yu Zhen has brightened...