Recently, the results of the NetEase Cloud Music 2025 Chinese Rap Music Awards were officially announced. Musicians such as Ai Zhiheng Asen, Chen Wenjing, Chen Yihao Clear, Geomagnetic Card, GAI Zhou Yan, Ma Siwei, Mah Mood, Shi Xinyue, Vansdaddy, Wang Yitai, Xie Di, Xia Zhiyu, Zhang Fangzhao and other musicians won the award; Huayunlong KLE won the annual attention-grabbing star; Yang Hesu KeyNG, JinJiBeWater_falcon, Rapeter, Wang Qiming WatchMe and others won the People's Choice Award. Music fans can search for "Chinese rap" on the NetEase Cloud Music APP to view the complete award results.
As a high-profile and recognized annual award in China, this year's Chinese Rap Music Awards has established four major categories of honors: annual honors, category awards, jury honors, and people's choice awards. It presents the full picture of Chinese rap creation in the past year through 17 awards.
In the "Annual Honors" section, Ai Zhiheng Asen's "Wake Up After the Rain", Xia Zhiyu/Gemagica's "Everybody Loves Hip-Hop" and Huayunlong KLE's "Year of the Dragon" won the Album of the Year at the 2025 Chinese Rap Music Awards. Ai Zhiheng Asen deeply analyzed himself in the album and delivered masterpieces with both sincerity and texture; Xia Zhiyu and Geomagic Ka embedded dialect and hip-hop into life scenes, converging into a wonderful "life road movie"; Hua Yunlong KLE combined bottom life with street spirit, using Shandong dialect to create a vivid picture of Shandong's urban scene.
Hua Yunlong KLE's "Shandong King FREESTYLE", GAI Zhou Yan/Kung Fu Fat KungFuPen/KEY.L Liu Cong/Shengyu D-SHINE's "Renyi Tea House" and Chen Yihao Clear's "Song of the Year" won the 2025 Chinese Rap Music Awards Single of the Year. "Shandong King FREESTYLE", as this year's hit single, tells the story of his hometown in a vivid way, opening up a new territory for dialect rap; the prelude of "Renyi Tea House" uses electric guitar to take the audience into the world of rivers and lakes, and the declaration of "My songs are not played in bars, I give them to the people" in the lyrics arouses widespread resonance; "Stuffy" uses snorts, drum beats and melody to create layers of progressive emotions, successfully materializing the suffocation caused by a relationship.
Ai Zhiheng Asen's "Wake Up After the Rain", Shi Xinwenyue's "Grey Sun" and Mah Mood's "This Is Not My Sunset" won the 2025 Chinese Rap Music Award for Production of the Year. The rhythm of "Wake Up After the Rain" slowly unfolds, and the gospel harmonies cleverly set off the quiet atmosphere of the morning after the rain; "Gray Sun" uses rich jazz chords and playful flutes to bring all the melodies and rhythms into the listener's mind; the arrangement, mixing and lyrics of "This Is Not My Sunset" complement each other, creating a movie-like depth of time and space, which is highly infectious.
Vansdaddy/Wang Yitai's "Nowhere", Xie Di/GAI Zhou Yan's "Bell Tower" and Ma Siwei/Ai Zhiheng Asen's "Hotel Lobby" won the 2025 Chinese Rap Music Award for annual collaboration. "Nowhere" uses a bitter yet warm melody to interpret the pull between dreams and reality; Xie Di and GAI Zhou Yan collaborated on "Bell Tower", using fierce and powerful beats and relaxed accents to deliver the strongest sound of Chinese rap; Ma Siwei and Ai Zhiheng Asen once again joined forces to create a unique elegant and lazy atmosphere in "Hotel Lobby".
The second-rate "Looking for 2003" won the EP of the Year. On the soothing melody, the musician uses sticky and lazy articulation to narrate the common and precious daily things in the southwestern land.
There are a total of 6 awards in the "Category Awards" unit, aiming to recognize full-length albums with outstanding performance in different genres. Xia Zhiyu/Geocard's "Everybody Loves Hip Hop" won the Best Traditional Rap Album; Li Jialong's "2025 Dreams Come True Mixtape" won the Best Pop Rap Album; Wang Qiming's WatchMe "Life Malatang" won the Best Trap Rap Album; Zhang Fangzhao's "Qian Zhuan" won the Best Melodic Rap Album; Chen Wenjing's "If you could be happy every day, who wants to be sad:)) – "Let's Go on Vacation Together" won the Best Alternative Rap Album; Shi Xinwenyue's "Grey Sun" won the Best Rap Fusion Album.
The "Jury Honors" section focuses on commending musicians and works with outstanding performance in market influence, industry reputation and development. Huayunlong KLE won the annual Producer of the Year award for his album "Year of the Dragon", which gained both popularity and popularity; LusciousBB won the Producer of the Year award for his unconstrained arrangement and production inspiration in works such as "Meet the Size", "Urban Drunkard" and "Money Special"; africakid, Adam Ocean, Li Xinying, Erliu, ProN4c won the Annual Potential New Voice; Wang Qiming's WatchMe "Life Malatang pt.1" won the Annual MV.
In addition, this year’s Chinese Rap Music Awards also has a People’s Choice Award voted for by music fans. Yang Hesu KeyNG/JinJiBeWater_ Falcon's "Dye Vat", ljz329 "3977", and Rapeter's "NO HOOK FREESTYLE Pt.4" won the People's Choice Singles; Ai Zhiheng Asen's "Wake Up After the Rain", Rapeter's "IMGOOD Don't Worry About Me", and Wang Qiming WatchMe's "Life Malatang" won the People's Choice Album.
NetEase Cloud Music 2025 Chinese Rap Music Awards conducts a comprehensive review of the annual works from multiple perspectives. The shortlisted works are all works released on the NetEase Cloud Music platform from January 1 to December 31, 2025. Except for the People's Choice Award, which is voted by music fans, the other awards are all selected by a jury composed of Complex Chinese, STD Sonic Communication and other media, professional producers such as Kass, Major Yao, and well-known self-media people such as Swag Simon and Xiaoqiang Shushu. In addition, this year’s Rap Awards will introduce A4 Art Museum, City Pictorial CITYZINE, HiShorts! Four major partners, including Youth Short Film Week and NOWRE, carry out cross-border cooperation and participate in the award selection from the perspectives of special observation agencies and cooperative media.
As China's leading original music platform, NetEase Cloud Music continues to delve into the field of rap. It has successively launched a series of authoritative awards and lists such as the Chinese Rap Music Awards and semi-annual lists, monthly reviews, and weekly rap lists to select high-quality works from multiple dimensions. In addition, the platform systematically supports the development of Chinese rap through a series of measures such as the one-stop Beat trading platform BeatSoul, income support plan, and rap planning.
