‘I want no smoke with the Chinese’: Cardi B wins fans in China with coronavirus rants
While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced most pop stars to retreat from the public eye, rapper Cardi B, who flaunts 61 million followers on Instagram, is rapidly developing a fan base in China with her coronavirus content, which features her praising China’s response to the outbreak and calling out xenophobia against Chinese people in the U.S.
In an Instagram Live session on March 21, the chart-topping artist goes on a rant about what she admires the most about China’s approach to the virus. A day later, the hip-hop star took on the topic of xenophobia in another Instagram video, saying that everyone should feel guilty about “little white jokes” because China “is not a nation that people wanna f**k with.”
The fact that Twitter and Instagram are blocked in China didn’t stop these posts from making their way onto the Chinese internet. On Weibo, @CardiBArchive, a fan account devoted to the rapper, shared all of her coronavirus-related content with Chinese translations. The seemingly pro-China tone has delighted Chinese internet-goers, who have responded with a host of memes and hashtags in favor of the artist.
Click through to The China Project for the full story.
—Jiayun Feng
