Next time you're thinking of complaining about how difficult it is to keep up with all the music that's being released, or how you don't have time to listen to that new album, think about Higher Brothers. The four person rap group lives in mainland China, and, as they explained to us over email (with the help of Bohan Phoenix, who translated) web censorship makes it difficult for them to dig into music online.
"Listening to rap music, or music from outside of China is a bit difficult in China, we have less resources due to the Chinese firewall. The real famous artists you definitely hear about, but the less known but still dope rappers are harder to hear about. You have to download a VPN app which allows you to breach the firewall, then we can look for stuff on YouTube or SoundCloud. Sometimes certain Weibo accounts will also repost dope shit. But the main problem is still with the firewall and VPN, right now only a small portion of people are actively looking for new music, others are still waiting on peoplesreposts, so our reach to the outside world is definitely limited."
Higher Brothers also broke down their track "Bitch Don't Kill My Dab," which we're premiering above via 88 Rising.
"We made "BDKMD" on our first tour after we came together as Higher Brothers," they explain. "We had released a mixtape at that time too and we really made the tape sound however we liked and wanted it—compared to the other rap music our sound was definitely a bit different. Because of this we got criticized by fans saying we're not the same anymore, we're only following trends now, and saying the lyrics have no content or the flow is wack. So we made "BDKMD" as a response to these people. Using Kendrick's line "bitch dont kill my vibe," we wanted to tell them "bitch dont kill my dab," don't kill our fun. But we've had a feeling about what's happening and about to happen now for a long time."
Higher Brothers are 马思唯 MaSiWei(second from left), 丁震 DZ(far right), 杨俊逸 Psy.P (far left), and 谢宇杰 Melo (second from right).
