This story is taken from the spring 2026 issue of Dazed, which is on sale internationally now. Order a copy of the magazine here.

Billionhappy joins our call from a golden throne in his Shanghai home, a velvet hoodie half-pulled over his pink braids. “I bought this chair to remind myself that I am king,” he says. In terms of China’s musical underground, at least, he’s not wrong: the rapper is the figurehead of a radical new movement which international record label Eastern Margins dubs ‘Nu China’ – a rallying cry for China’s global-facing, tech-savvy young people.

The story of this subculture is one of Chinese society itself. While relative economic stability and sizable middle classes in the US and Europe gave rise to numerous youth cultures rebelling against the status quo in the latter half of the 20th century – from hippies ‘tuning in’ and ‘dropping out’ of mainstream society in 60s America, to ravers inaugurating the advent of electronic dance music in 80s and 90s Britain – China was quite literally late to the party. For much of the 20th century, it was culturally isolated, with imports of foreign music being outright banned. Early iterations of Chinese pop music in the 2000s, meanwhile, were largely imitations of scenes taking place in neighbouring countries. “China lagged behind Taiwan, but Taiwan lagged behind Japan, and Japan lagged behind America, you feel me?” 26-year-old Billionhappy tells Dazed. “China was very, very behind.”

But everything changed with the arrival of the internet. Early internauts like Chinese cloud rap godfather Bloodzboi began using VPNs to bypass the country’s web restrictions and opened the floodgates to a deluge of international music influences into the country. Music’s past and present were flattened into an infinite scroll of references, from foundational rap artists like 50 Cent and Lil Wayne to EDM revolutionaries like Skrillex and 2hollis. Gradually, Chinese youth began infusing these sounds with their own experiences.

“In Western countries like the UK, you have subculture and history but, in China, it’s all new,” Billionhappy explains. “Originally, we were a kingdom, and then the communists controlled the country and cut all of our history. Even my parents didn’t have pop music, that didn’t come around ‘til I was like 19. But now, because of the internet, Chinese kids can look through all this new information and, after four or five years, create something new. They looked at Korean, Japanese, American, European subcultures, but this culture is totally Chinese.” 

A breakthrough moment for the Nu China scene arrived with Billionhappy’s 2024 single “Chinese in Europe”, a glitchy, EDM-rap track that has since become an anthem for the millions of Chinese students and workers living overseas. “Even the most popular Chinese rappers [at the time] were pretending that they were American,” says Billionhappy, who himself studied menswear design at the London College of Fashion during the pandemic. “I would even search on [Chinese social media platform] RedNote and people would say, ‘I’m a Korean-type or Japanese-type Chinese.’ That song says, ‘Whatever style I dress in, I’m still Chinese.’”

It was a simple yet revolutionary thought, and formed a coming-of-age moment for Chinese youth culture as a whole. In its wake surfaced the likes of Taiwanese pluggnb princess R!R!Riot, Surf Gang’s first Asian signee Jackzebra, and Billionhappy’s own Shabby Club collective, each articulating Gen Z Chinese experiences through a pastiche of global and local influences. 

Below, Nu China pioneer Billionhappy further unpacks the origins and sounds of this radical new movement.

How would you describe this moment in Chinese youth culture right now?

Billionhappy: It’s a revolution. It’s based on the internet, but it’s also super local. The Chinese youth don’t know what real Western subcultures are; they just know them from the internet. They don’t know the history or what the original versions are; they don’t give a fuck! They just do it in their Chinese way. 

I grew up in a small city, and I got a lot of inspiration when I was based in the UK. I started to have a more Western view, but then I went back to China, and I thought, ‘Damn, China is so sick!’ I got even more inspiration. I grew up in China but listened to a lot of Western music, and tried to find myself in that mix. I think that’s what gave me something new. 

Would you describe this scene as underground or mainstream?

Billionhappy: Underground, but now the underground is getting more popular in the mainstream, because mainstream people think it’s funny. Chinese people really like jokes and memes. I think China is the most ‘meme’ country. Memes are everywhere. Mainstream is memes, underground is memes. So, if you do stupid stuff, it becomes a meme and, in mainstream clubs, they’ll copy it. 

I remember reading about a trend of Chinese young people refusing to go to work, and declaring ‘bai lan’ (let it rot) a couple of years ago. How does that connect to the Nu China scene?

Billionhappy: It’s because, now, a lot of kids have graduated [university], but they don’t have a job. Either they don’t want to work, or they can’t find work. Now, Chinese finances are getting worse, so a lot of teenagers are hopeless. They just choose to do weird stuff and have fun.

How do you think this connects to your music? 

Billionhappy: I’m doing real local, Chinese stuff. Deconstructing those experiences. A lot of Chinese people were doing this mix of hip-hop and electronic music, but they wanted to do it in a Western way. I said, ‘What’s real to you?’ I let people feel confident about their own culture and share my spirit with them. I say, ‘We are Chinese, there’s no need to hide’. Now, loads of underground artists are finding their own way and being themselves. 

Where did your EDM influences come from?

Billionhappy: When I was in the UK, I really liked going to raves. In 2020, Chinese people didn’t understand what I was doing with electronic music; they thought it was kind of weird. Now, because of 2hollis, Chinese people think electronic music is cool. It’s a new era. Thank you 2hollis!

You’ve also worked with artists across East Asia, like South Korean rapper Effie and Japan’s Kegøn on “TESLA”. How do these scenes relate?

Billionhappy: It’s very natural because we all know each other through the internet. Kegon is a really good guy who wants to connect the Asian nations, because, be it Japan, Korea, or China, we all actually look kind of similar and have a similar culture. We’re all yellow people who are doing cool stuff and have the same goal. I think our future is together, which will help more people [find us]. Asian power.

You have a strong presence on Chinese social media. For readers in the West who can’t access these platforms, what is Billionhappy’s online persona like?

Billionhappy: There are a lot of jokes that only Chinese people know. I really love talking bullshit, but I don’t know how to talk bullshit in English. That’s actually the reason why I called my family ‘Shabby Club’ [a play on the English word ‘shabby’ and ‘sha-bi’ meaning stupid in Chinese]. My family are stupid, but in a good way. We’re stupid together, and we just have fun. This year, I want the world to know my stupid, that’s my goal. I want to be high-level stupid.