ABSTRACT
As a Western import, hip hop culture has existed in mainland China since the 1980s but remained marginalised due to acute political and cultural sensitivities. Since 2017, a series of online TV shows around hip hop, such as Rap of China (ROC) and Street Dance of China (SDC), have emerged on the major Chinese streaming platforms and had substantial social impact among Chinese millennials. This chapter will focus on the fourth season of SDC. It aims to demonstrate the complexities and contradictions involved in the representation of a ‘cosmopolitan China' through the making of a popular cultural product. Meanwhile, it also attempts to address several questions regarding identity formation in the digital age, the fusion of cultures and the sense of community through nonverbal language, the transmission of cultural forms across national boundaries, as well as the negotiation of a national identity around ‘Chinese culture'.
