By: Laurel White
When Shuang Hu discovered her love of American hip hop as a nine-year-old in China, she felt very alone.
“I was really misunderstood by a lot of people in China,” Hu, a student in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s First Wave Hip Hop and Urban Arts Learning Community, said.
“Hip hop is regarded as really masculine in China,” Hu said. “So people would be like, ‘You’re a girl, why would you like hip hop?’ I was really frustrated. It was basically me doing hip hop by myself all the time.”