WATCH: Rapper GAI drops first music video since ban on ‘hip-hop culture’ from Chinese TV

‘Endless Flow’ is a nod to the popular rapper’s Chongqing roots

GAI, one of China’s preeminent rappers, dropped a new music video this week titled “Endless Flow,” featuring his brother Bridge, a top-ten finisher on last summer’s season of Rap of China, and DamnShine, head of the Changsha-based crew C-BLOCK.

GAI had kept a low profile after his enigmatic withdrawal from the hit reality show The Singer in January, amid an intensifying crackdown by state media regulators on hip-hop culture.

“Endless Flow” — first introduced to Chinese audiences through performances by rap collectives GO$H and C-BLOCK during last fall’s nationwide YOLO hip-hop tour — is a nod to GAI and Bridge’s Chongqing roots.

The song’s Chinese name (长河) is a portmanteau of the Yangtze (长江) and Yellow (黄河) rivers. It opens with the refrain: “The long river of life / I sing my life as I drink / What’s in my blood? / Yangtze and Yellow River.”

Sponsored by the Chongqing liquor brand Jiang Xiao Bai, which also supported the YOLO tour, the video features the brothers dropping bars against iconic Chongqing backdrops.

Bridge’s verse is in part an ode to his hometown: “I put my culture on my back / What I drink is water from Jialin River / What I smoke is the smog from my hometown Wudu.”

Official music video, subtitled in English, here: