Chinese drill artist Four4444 has one message for anyone reading this: “I’m not AI.” It is a strange thing to have to clarify, but also a very real concern in the comment sections of her now-viral videos – and I would be lying if I said it had not crossed my mind at one point, too. At first glance, Four4444 looks like your average cosplay girl: beauty filters blow her eyes up to kawaii proportions, and she frequently appears in maid costumes, bunny ears and Hello Kitty onesies. But then she opens her mouth. Four4444 sounds like she might rob you at gunpoint, rattling off raspy Mandarin lyrics and “grah grah” ad libs with the cadence of drill music’s pioneers in downtown Chicago. It is a shocking, almost unbelievable contrast.

In conversation, however, I soon begin to doubt whether AI could generate someone as singular as Four4444. “Of all the genres out there, drill music is the only one that resonates with me,” the 22-year-old tells me without blinking her doe-like eyes, speaking via a translator over video call from her home in Chengdu. She is wearing an American flag long-sleeve, with a Hatsune Miku anime poster hanging in the background. “I started rapping about a year ago. I’d graduated from university and didn’t want to go straight into an office job, so I thought I’d just post a couple of videos on TikTok and Douyin.” 

Four4444 did not think much of the uploads, but soon found herself going viral on the western internet, where commenters nicknamed her “Queen Von” after the late Chicago drill legend King Von. She quickly realised that her unlikely appearance was an asset and doubled down. In November 2025, she released a video that would change her life: in it, King Von is resurrected in AI form to cradle the baby-faced rapper in his arms, pointing a gun directly down the barrel of the camera as she raps. The video has since been viewed tens of millions of times online, later leading Four4444 to collaborate with Brit Award-winning streamer and producer PlaqueBoyMax.

“When I first started, King Von appeared to me in a dream and taught me how to rap,” Four4444 tells me, again maintaining that same deadpan, wide-eyed expression. Right..., I thought to myself, maybe it’s not the AI accusations we should be worrying about. Still, while the King Von video drew its fair share of detractors, Four4444’s intentions, at least, seemed to be genuine. She cites King Von as a key influence behind her sound and is surprisingly clued in on the regional nuances of drill music. “It’s just my personal take, but I think the biggest difference is that UK drill is more low-key and mature, whereas American drill has a more youthful, upbeat vibe. I prefer the American style.”

This may seem surprising for a Hatsune Miku stan, but it’s exactly the kind of cross-pollinating cultural chaos that accompanies China’s rapid rise onto the global stage in the 21st century. Unlike hip hop’s more than 50-year history in the West, the genre only reached mainstream Chinese society in 2018, popularised by the spectacularly successful rap competition show The Rap of China, which was viewed by over one billion people during its first month of airing – including a 15-year-old Four4444. A year later, she was introduced to drill through a Bilibili upload of the Cardi B-hosted Netflix series Rhythm + Flow.

One result of this recent explosion is both a flattening and a decontextualisation of cultural references for a Gen Z Chinese audience. Four4444, for example, was introduced to boom bap at virtually the same time as the much more recent drill subgenre, despite the decades of history separating them in the West. Similarly, she saw no issue blending these aggressive sonics with her existing love of manga drawing and cosplay. In fact, she believes it informs her artistry.

“When I record a song, I like to imagine myself as an anime character and write lyrics in that style,” Four4444 tells me. “I treat it like a painting in my head. For example, recording the first demo is like sketching a rough draft. I think about how to use the logic and mindset of painting to enrich the tone of that track and its sense of rhythm.” Her name, meanwhile, is taken from her favourite Hunter x Hunter character: Hisoka, whose number is four in the series’ Phantom Troupe assassin group. 

But Four4444’s rap talents haven’t arrived entirely out of nowhere. Her hometown of Chengdu is something of the rap capital of China, home to some of the country’s first hip-hop stars, including Xie Di and viral trap trio Higher Brothers. Meanwhile, the season one winner of The Rap of China hails from neighbouring Chongqing. “Chengdu actually has the biggest rap scene in China,” she explains. “[Chinese hip-hop] started in Beijing, but the local Chengdu dialect is actually better suited for rap than Mandarin or dialects from other regions, so the Chengdu scene developed rapidly. Now, rappers actually come here to build their careers.”

By now, I’m firmly convinced that Four4444 is not, in fact, AI, but the accusations nonetheless speak to her greatest strength: her ability to catch listeners by surprise. I close the interview by asking who her dream collab would be. Her response needs no translation: “Skrilla”, she says, referencing the Detroit rapper credited with popularising the viral “67” meme last year. We lock eyes through the camera, and Four4444 makes the viral hand gesture in total silence. There is some madness that even AI cannot generate.