Text | Garlic jelly corner
The abstraction of 2024 has arrived, and this time it is rap that takes over.
Because of the sentence "Xie Di, Xie Di, I want to diss you", Rapper Nomimo not only gained more than 1.8 million fans on Douyin, but also gave China a third "Disney". During the Qingming holiday, the fitness equipment area in the MV of the Nomi song ushered in a large number of young people to check in, and the Chengdu Bureau of Culture and Tourism took advantage of the situation to catch the traffic, and the "Chengdu Disney Service Center" was established in the community streets overnight to facilitate tourists to check in at peak hours.
This is indeed an abstract spectacle, from the original online Diss song to drive offline travel check-in, the strong enthusiasm of contemporary young people to participate in rap once again has a huge traffic, but after the popularity has passed, returning to the regular is the right path for a music genre to continue to develop in the mainstream market.
The boy chosen by the abstraction
Before the traffic came, Nomi was just Nobody in the rap circle, and he was eliminated by the idol Xie Di in the audition of "China's New Rap", so he used Diss idols to express his dissatisfaction. This was originally a very regular story, but perhaps it was because Nomi didn't have much rap talent that the straightforward lyrics of "I want to diss you" formed just the right "Disney" homonym, which made the song "Thank God Thank You" gain traffic.
To put it simply, it was the well-known IP of "Disney" that made "Thank God Thank Di" and Nomime gain attention, and then under the repeated spread of this homophonic stalk by young people, a cultural spectacle was created. However, unlike the previous abstract idols, Nomimo is not popular because of "ugliness", which also paves the way for the subsequent direction of the phenomenon.
Let's start with what this abstraction brings. First, the song "Apu's Missing" written by Nomimo to his grandfather was released as a video BGM by CCTV Network Cultural Tourism, and Nomimo's hometown of Daliangshan was promoted by cultural tourism;
Among them, the most prominent is the recognition of CCTV media, which is obviously different from the carnival of abstract culture in the past, and the core reason is that the boy Nomimo is a kind and simple person in the moral context.
After the traffic hit, netizens took a round of Nomi, and found that when someone was willing to lend him money to buy a plane ticket, he would persuade others to be careful of being deceived, and found that he also maintained his love for rap when he was working and practiced seriously, and found that his songs were all about his grandfather and hometown, no grandstanding exaggeration, no moral flaws, a poor boy with dreams posted a Diss song after being eliminated, but left an innocent and lovely image in the hearts of netizens.
This image can not only support the public's love, but also coincide with the dream chasing story of grassroots rappers, so in the end, after this abstract carnival, Nomimo caught the traffic and got positive results, with more performance opportunities and more opportunities to cooperate with rappers.
Including Disney, it also actively invited Rapper to cooperate - KnowKnow launched the single "I Want to Take You to Disney", and really walked into Disney to shoot the MV with Nomime, staging a traffic picture of Chengdu Rapper's family.
Traffic is just the means
In this explosion of popularity, the meme is the trigger, but it is not the Rapper himself who makes the meme, but the audience, so whether it is Nomi or other Rappers, at best, it can only be regarded as a free ride.
In March this year, Kendrick Lamar aimed at Drake and J. Cole in the song "Like That", because the two sides borrowed the top fame, which triggered a century war in the rap circle, and friends from all sides stood up to speak out, and finally "Like That" was released less than half a month ago, and the number of Spotify views exceeded 100 million, ranking among the top five in the global weekly chart.
Diss is a means of earning traffic in the rap field, you scold me, I will shoot you back, the war of words not only satisfies the viewers' melon-eating emotions, but also shows their respective rap strength. From having the motivation to create expression, to gaining growth and attention in the process, a diss is almost always a beneficiary, which is also the reason why rappers dissing each other more and more often.
Diss bring traffic, but it's just traffic. The Diss of those who don't have strength often can't set off the storm, or to put it bluntly, if "Thank God Xie Di" has no homophonic stalks, it is impossible to become popular to this extent.
If you want to talk about this diss song alone, the conclusion that can be reached is probably not much different from Xie Di, Nomimo's current level of "being a lover" is indeed more appropriate, but the sudden traffic has changed this, allowing him to appear on more stages and get more exposure, and whether this is a good thing for the continued development of rap culture needs to be reconsidered.
As we said, the source of this popularity lies not in rap, but in abstract culture, in the enthusiasm of young people for memes. Just like the "Brother GIAO" in the past, being on a rap show will not have much to do with rap, just like "Temporary Buddha Foot" has become popular, but it is just a joke of "secondary school rap", even if the rap field can continue to produce brainwashing songs, in addition to letting more young people know "I can too", it has not made a particularly big contribution to the development of rap.
Now that rap has become a mainstream music genre, the "Chinese Rap Music Report 2022" shows that the proportion of post-00 rap music creators exceeds 3/4, while young people's strong desire to express themselves is released in rap, we must not forget that rap itself is an art, it is not only about language expression, but also about rhythm, rhyme, thought, etc.
In other words, if a young man sees a brainwashing rap and has the opportunity to become popular, and then follows suit, then even if he gets more traffic, the development of local rap can hardly be said to be moving forward.
Return to expression
We are not saying that it is incorrect to do brainwashing rap, it is feasible, appropriate and correct to incorporate brainwashing hooks into songs, the key is whether there are other expressions in rap songs besides brainwashing.
In the past two years, Chinese rap has indeed had some "green and yellow" meaning, in the past few years, rap variety shows and drafts have tapped potential rappers, the strength of newcomers is still insufficient, and the star-making ability of the show has declined. Almost all the rap songs flowing at the market level have one thing in common, that is, brainwashing, or another dimension, rap has become the backbone of short video BGM, and has become one of the tools for young people to deconstruct the era.
Looking at the rap works that have become popular in the past few years, they are either integrated into the localized Jianghu atmosphere, or they tell personal views, thoughts and emotions, and it can be said that impressing talents is the fundamental reason why rap has moved from the "underground" to the "mainstream". Including this time, Nomimo was able to catch the traffic, but also because he himself had a side that could impress thousands of ordinary people.
In other words, after being gradually entertained by the market, Chinese rap needs to rediscover its own core of expression.
After Nomi was "became" a grassroots star this time, in fact, we are looking forward to Nomi himself improving and refining in rap, and being said to "just treat rap as a hobby", so we worked hard to reverse this cognition, not by relying on one-handed Diss to win favor, but by relying on more works that have been improved step by step to verify.
Participating in the deconstruction carnival of the times may be the fate of rap at present, but the fate of "resistance" is more in line with rap culture itself.
*Original article, reprint must indicate the source