Asian rapper Rich Brian’s hip-hop journey from resentment to respect, and how a name change eased his path
- The teenager, who had a viral hit four years ago with the track Dat $tick and soon afterwards moved from Indonesia to the United States, has come a long way
- After overcoming controversy over his choice of stage name and a persona that some felt mocked hip-hop culture, he’s earned the backing of his hip-hop peers
When Brian Imanuel was a budding teen rapper in Jakarta, Indonesia, he wanted a rap name that would go well with a song that he was putting out on SoundCloud.
He felt his own name, Brian Imanuel Soewarno, was too long, but a suggestion by his friend caught his eye: “Rich Chigga”.
As Rich Chigga – a portmanteau of Chinese and a racial slur – he would score a hit and become a viral sensation with the track Dat $tick, garnering millions of plays on platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube and support from rap luminaries like Ghostface Killah. But with his name, lyrics that included the N-word and an accompanying video that played on gangsta rap stereotypes, he also drew some anger.
“When you start your music video with a parody of hip-hop culture, caricaturing black people, it’s not gonna go over well,” said Salima Koroma, director of Bad Rap, a documentary about Asian-American rappers.
Imanuel says: “There were a lot of people that I feel like didn’t even want to listen to the music just because of the name.”