Never would the renowned opera playwright Tang Ti-sheng (1917-1959) have imagined that his 1957 Cantonese-language work The Flower Princess would one day be sampled in a viral hit featuring a musical style from half a world away.
The track, “Blueprint Supreme,” mixes Memphis hip-hop with Cantonese opera – a mashup that has garnered 27-year-old Chinese rapper Lanlao international success. Also known as Skai IsYourGod, Lanlao is topping Spotify’s Mandarin-language charts with over five million monthly streams, surpassing Mandopop king Jay Chou.
Born Chen Xukai in 1998 in Huizhou, South China’s Guangdong Province, he eventually moved for school to Sichuan provincial capital Chengdu, a hotbed for hip-hop. Before entering the music industry in 2023, Chen worked as an actor, livestreamer and salesman at a power company. He is now coming straight out of Shenzhen, Guangdong.
Chen eventually chose the stage name “Lanlao,” a Cantonese term for a successful, savvy hustler. In 2024, he released his second album Stacks from All Sides, which included breakout hits such as the title track, “Karma Codes” and “Blueprint Supreme.” The album quickly became a cultural phenomenon. The song “Stacks from All Sides,” a commentary on wealth and social inequality, had amassed over 10 billion views across all social media platforms by July 8, according to the singer’s own Sina Weibo post.
Netizens describe Chen’s sound as “Lanlao-style Memphis rap,” which melds the dark, lo-ff production style made famous by the southern US city with Cantonese culture. His cyphers name drop everything from local delicacies to daily life scenes like “singing karaoke in a villa.” But it’s not all pleasant vibes: On track “Nin Jiom,” he prescribes the traditional Cantonese cough syrup to all his haters in the rap game, threatening to “pour it down their throat and seal it with clear tape.”
Chen is planning a world tour, with dates scheduled for Bangkok, Jakarta, Tokyo, Singapore, Aukland, Sydney, Paris, Milan and London in the coming months.
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