BEIJING — He's a high-school dropout who wears a bandana pulled tight across his skull. His hutong, or 'hood, is one of the city's poorest precincts where visitors dodge vegetable vendors on bikes and residents must share the public squat toilets.
But when Wang "MC Webber" Bo opens his mouth to rap, what comes out from one of China's hottest young artists would make an original gangsta' cry.
"In Beijing, walk along Chang'An Avenue. In Beijing, there are many exotic, beautiful women. In Beijing, you can burn incense at the Lama Temple. In Beijing "
China has accomplished what millions of disapproving American parents could not: tamed hip-hop music.
Instead of often obscene and violent tales from the inner city, Wang and other leading rappers here are taking to the stage with lyrics that glorify national pride, celebrate tourist attractions and preach against the dangers of adolescent impulsiveness.
One group is so proud of its songs that it has affixed a sticker to its debut album asking fans to share it with their parents.
State-controlled television features public service announcements in rap about caring for the environment and respecting elders, leading one local academic to suggest that hip-hop has become the unofficial music of the Communist government.
Such rah-rah rap is far removed from the screeds made in the U.S. by some artists whose art reflects their criminal records.
Shanghai rapper Blakk Bubble, who cut his teeth on the likes of Naughty by Nature, said he regards American lyrics as "research" into the "low life of some poor black men."
"I never promote new people to rap such things because, in China, there are actually no gangsters," said Bubble, a.k.a. Wang Fan, 25, an assistant communications manager for Ubisoft computers. "In America, you can get a gun license and you can purchase guns and kill people. But in China, such things would not happen."
Rap was born on the sidewalks of New York in the 1970s as a melding of braggadocio and beat-driven music. It found a home on the blocks where incomes were limited -- all that was needed to go pro was a microphone and a turntable.
The genre soon became an outlet for the disaffected. During the 1980s, bands such as Public Enemy and NWA trained their angry cadences on police brutality and the establishment.
By the 1990s, the street-crime imagery and sexually explicit lyrics of "gangsta" rap had hit pay dirt in the U.S. market. It now is ubiquitous in popular American culture.
