This article investigates the spatial narratives constructed by contemporary Chinese hip-hop music through the conceptual framework of imaginative geography. Drawing on works released after 2018, it examines how Chinese rappers localize classic hip-hop storytelling to engage critically with China’s distinctive urban and regional spatial formations and the lived realities of marginalized communities. Focusing on two key spatial formations, shequ (urban residential communities) and small towns, the study explores how these artists reconfigure stigmatized and othered spaces into sites of identity and resistance. Rather than replicating American narratives, these artists distinctly situated counter-cartographies that reflect entrenched urban inequalities, rural-to-urban migration, and systemic discrimination. The analysis thus highlights how hip-hop music becomes a vehicle for reimagining social belonging and spatial justice under China’s evolving urban order. By revealing these plural and contested geographies emerging from grassroots cultural production, this study contributes to debates at the intersection of urban geography, popular culture, and media studies.
Shizheng Liang (Tue,) studied this question.