Words by James Lee
Hong Kong’s local rap scene has been going through a dry spell lately. Shows, as with other independent music scenes, have shrunken in size and dropped in frequency since the days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when local subcultures rallied around homegrown talent.
Cheeseekit at a rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. A rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. A rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.Whereas promoters could once fill venues such as the now-demolished Star Hall with a capacity of 3,600, it’s now smaller club gigs that are keeping performers’ heads above water — buoyed, in no small part, by bar sales.
Cheeseekit, Le Shing, and DRG are part of a slate of young rappers that have cropped up in recent years.
From promoting their music and dodging toxic online backlash to navigating political sensitivities, visibility and vulnerability are intrinsic parts of an online ecosystem in which these young artists are navigating their careers.
Mr. Enjoy Da MoneyThe three rappers are acutely aware that relying on their art alone is unsustainable. Tedious day jobs — making deliveries and selling pastries — are necessary if they want to keep making music in this economy, especially in the early stage of their careers.
Left to right: Le Shing, Cheeseekit, and DRG, on September 7, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.“I’ll hold off getting a job until I can’t afford not to,” says Cheeseekit with a chuckle, only to draw a swift retort from Le Shing: “We have rent!”
For his age, Cheeseekit has achieved an uncanny degree of commercial success, having booked shows where he gets paid about as much as a waiter’s monthly salary for just a 15-minute set.
His nonchalance belies mercantile instinct necessitated by the challenges of working as a musician in Hong Kong, but also offset by a healthy suspicion of materialism.
“Traditionally, in the world of hip hop, you’d be considered cool if you have lots of money, girls, and chains. But to the rest of the world, that’d be considered crass. You need to repackage that as something like the notion of winning big,” he said. “This is the brand of money-worship that mainstream society easily accepts.”
Cheeseekit, on September 7, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.He says this while wearing a long-sleeved baby-blue baseball tee with the words “Mr. Enjoy Da Money” printed on the front – an item of merchandise from Chengdu rap group Higher Brothers.
Taking control of the entire production process can also cut down on costs when cash is tight, with the added benefit of enjoying greater creative control.
Whereas strict division of labour is more common among mainstream artists backed by major labels, the three artists are directly involved in the processes of beat selection, recording, mixing and mastering, and promotion, making for a highly individualistic do-it-yourself ethic.
A rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.“When I hear the track, I might decide that I don’t want piano in that part. But by then, the beat might have already been finished for more than a month,” said Cheeseekit, describing the rare occasion that he has participated in a mainstream production.
“The overheads are also lower when you do it yourself,” added Le Shing, a member of independent label Yack Studio. This degree of creative control also means it is up to the artists themselves to market their music.
Taming the algorithm“Impressions are easy – it’s the conversion rate that’s tricky,” Cheeseekit said, referring to the challenge of directing social media users from an Instagram Reel of himself lip-syncing over a lo-fi beat to his artist page on music streaming sites like Spotify.
Each song that they drop calls for more than a dozen short-form vertical clips that they film and edit themselves, with meticulous attention to Gen Z-style algorithmic appeal. But almost 70 per cent of their time is sunk into marketing and promotion, with the remaining time dedicated to actually making music and performing.
Compared with the promotional ecosystem in mainland China, Hong Kong’s has some way to go, Cheeseekit said.
DRG, on September 7, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. DRG at a rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.He has played shows in Guangzhou in the past, where the local scene has built up a reliable, albeit strictly monitored, marketing pipeline. It starts from tracking impressions on Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok — to picking the cream of the crop for distribution on streaming sites like QQ Music.
“The problem is just that Hong Kong’s market is too small,” he said. Indeed, what could a marketing machine do when there are no acts for them to manage?
It follows that self-promotion in an increasingly algorithm-mediated social media environment can, at times, discourage the young musicians.
Taking responsibility“Hong Kong’s internet culture is just too toxic,” said Le Shing, recalling how another rapper in the scene was relentlessly berated for performing in Mandarin at a festival a few years ago, instead of in Hong Kong’s local language, Cantonese.
“Perhaps it’s gotten better since then,” he added.
Le Shing, on September 7, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.Mandarin has long been perceived by Hongkongers as emblematic of broader, at times controversial demographic and socio-political changes in the city. “But language has never been a limitation” in hip-hop, Cheeseekit said. “Within the scene, we don’t have any biases against any particular language, though I can’t speak for the listeners.”
The three musicians, all at 23 years of age, spent their teenage years amid some of Hong Kong’s most turbulent ones, witnessing the city’s 2019 protests and unrest as well as the Covid-19 pandemic.
The rappers are no strangers to political polarisation and petty squabbles on social media, but they know better than to get stuck in debates about language politics with anonymous Threads users.
Le Shing at a rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.Instead, they view cultural and linguistic diversity as a driver for creative possibilities, and they have already begun looking beyond their mother tongues.
Recalling a freestyle rap battle in Guangzhou well over a decade ago, Cheeseekit said that code-mixing in Cantonese and Mandarin has always been common in cyphers — a form of performance where a group of rappers “battle” with their skills, competing for the approval of the surrounding audience.
As if to carry on the tradition of hip-hop as a vehicle for criticism and social commentary, the artists — to varying degrees — insert their own beliefs into their music. But like the rest of the city’s creatives, they know there are risks.
DRG, on September 7, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.Caution is non-negotiable, even if the three performers believe mass influence is out of the question, given the genre’s limited reach.
“Far be it for me to have that effect,” said DRG, who raps over a boom-bap sound reminiscent of ’90s East Coast hip-hop. His latest releases are named after Cantonese slang terms that have been part of the Hong Kong vernacular for generations such as “澩嫪” (laau2gaau6), meaning messy or chaotic.
“But we’re aware that whatever we release onto the internet can be seen by the entire world, and you have to take responsibility for whatever happens,” he added.
A rap concert on July 26, 2026. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.