Rich Chigga effect puts spotlight on Indonesia’s hip hop scene: now rappers want to match his success
Indonesian artists find themselves part of a renaissance thanks to the young rapper’s international fame, after he successfully harnessed the power of the internet and used technology to achieve worldwide impact
Editor's note: After the publication of this article, Rich Chigga changed his name to Rich Brian.
Home-grown rap music from Indonesia was almost unheard of outside of the country until early 2016, when a young rapper from Jakarta called Rich Chigga released the track Dat $tick on YouTube.
The clip was viewed tens of millions of times and caught the attention of superstars of the genre, including Wu-Tang Clan’s Ghostface Killah.
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Chigga’s outlandishly dark and profanity-laced track, referencing the drill trap subgenre of rap, featured the artist wearing a pink polo shirt and a fanny pack, dousing the streets with a bottle of Martell cognac. He was only 16 at the time.
His fame quickly grew after teaming up with 88Rising, a US-based collective that promotes Asian artists to a global audience. Rich Chigga, who was born Brian Imanuel, recently changed his controversial stage name and now simply goes by the name Brian.
Back in his hometown, Jakarta, Brian’s peers are still baffled by his breakout success. He’d built a modest following on social media, mostly with comedy clips, but hadn’t had a large impact on the local hip hop scene before releasing Dat $tick.
