‘China’s Netflix’ scores massive hip-hop talent show blockbuster thanks to AI

From choosing the cast for TV shows to deciding which movies to buy for its viewers, Baidu-backed iQiyi is using artificial intelligence to inform its decisions

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Chinese rapper Zhou Yan, better known by his stage name GAI, performs during a New Year concert in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:00am, 31 Jan 2018Updated: 2:44pm, 2 Feb 2018

iQiyi, which has been likened to China’s Netflix, was casting around for a hit series last year when the idea for a hip-hop talent show bubbled up.

The executives at the Baidu unit were not sure. Rap is a niche genre in Chinese music and far from the mainstream, which is dominated over the years by crooners like Faye Wong to pop princesses like Jolin Tsai. Would hip-hop culture find broad appeal in China?

To get the answer, the Beijing-based company consulted its in-house artificial intelligence (AI) system, iQiyi Brain, and the bot said yes. Not just that, it recommended that producers invite Kris Wu Yifan, a Chinese-Canadian actor-singer to be a celebrity judge on the show, in which selected contestants battled each other in freestyle rap.

The Brain turned out to be right. Since its debut in July 2017, the 12-episode Rap of China has racked up 2.68 billion views on its website when the show ended on September 10. The two winners of the show, Wang Hao, known as “PG One” and Zhou Yan, known as “GAI”, became overnight sensations.

“Many doubted that it could be a success because hip hop seemed quite niche,” Tang Xing, chief technology officer of iQiyi, said in an interview in Beijing. “Machines can make much better predictions on audience responses or casting decisions than humans because they keep track of what happens in the entire entertainment industry.”

Kris Wu on The Rap of China. Photo: Handout