The success of the reality show The Rap of China relies on a certain balance between the“ real” and the“ show”. The key to achieving this balance is hip-hop’s claim to“ keep it real”

which catered to the public’s appeal for“ personality”. Hip-hop culture has a long tradition of political resistance

and the“ noise” it creates can also be regarded as a subculture’s resistance to mainstream culture. However

The Rap of China carried out a subtle depoliticization of hip-hop

making the show without resistance

and everything was presented as entertainment. Firstly

it passed a rigorous political review of the participants and performance; secondly

it especially emphasized the“ technical” dimension of Rap and weakened its “expressive” dimension. After excluding the dimension of resistance

the rappers from The Rap of China even find it hard to resist the“ pan-moralism” in online public opinion. This kind of compromise is the only way for China’s hiphop to move from “underground” to “mainstream”. However

it is unfair to criticize it only from a dualism of politics-capital

entertainment- personality.There is no fundamental conflict between the materialism of hip-hop and its commercialization. Commercialization is also the important pusher for the politicization of hip-hop

and hiphop itself has revolutionized the entertainment industry. Hip-hop itself contains plenty of paradoxes

so we need to jump out of the framework of dualism to analyze it. For today’s China

the greatest significance of hip-hop shows is to provide young people in an age of lack of experience with the means and enthusiasm to express their experience

which is itself a kind of cultural politics.