I HOPE YOU LIKE IT

Chinese pop star’s freestyle becomes instant buzzword

"Can you freestyle?" has become an immensely popular phrase on China’s social network thanks to Chinese pop singer and actor Kris Wu.

由于吴亦凡的“功劳”，“你有freestyle吗”成为了中国社交媒体上的又一新梗。

Wu, 27, recently appeared on reality TV show The Rap of China as a judge.

27岁的吴亦凡最近成为了真人秀节目《中国有嘻哈》的评委。

Each time Wu had to choose the winner, he had just one question for the contestants: "Can you freestyle?"

每次吴亦凡选出胜者的时候，他都只有一个问题“你有freestyle吗？”

The pop star’s humorous catchphrase was quickly adopted by Chinese netizens. Many began to follow him and use "freestyle" wildly on social media platforms like WeChat and Sina Weibo.

这句幽默的话很快就被中国网民们学了去。许多人都开始学他，在微信、微博上广泛使用“freestyle”这个梗。

According to the Oxford Dictionary and Wikipedia, "freestyle" refers to a style of improvisation with or without instrumental beats, where lyrics are recited with no particular subject or structure. It is similar to other improvisational music, such as jazz, where there is a lead instrumentalist acting as the improviser and the rest of the band providing the beat.

据《牛津词典》和维基百科显示，“freestyle”指的是一种没有节拍的即兴表演，歌词没有特定的主题或结构。Freestyle和诸如爵士等即兴音乐很像，后者常常有一种主要的表演乐器，乐队其余人伴奏。

Since the early 1990s, "freestyle" has come to be the widely used term for rap lyrics which are improvised on the spot.

自上世纪90年代初以来，“freestyle”已经成为了现场即兴说唱表演歌词所广泛使用的一个词汇。

The method of improvised rap was made popular by groups and artists such as Freestyle Fellowship and Eminem.

在Freestyle Fellowship乐队和埃米纳姆等艺人的带动下，即兴说唱变得很受欢迎。

Now, "Do you have freestyle?" has morphed into other memes. Some internet users even adapt the buzzword into a variety of emojis, further promoting the use of "freestyle".

而现在，“你有freestyle吗”已经成为了一种戏谑的话语。一些网民甚至为其配上各种表情包，进一步推广“freestyle”的使用。

For instance, one of Chinese ancient philosopher Confucius’s well-known sayings about self-introspection is: "Every day I do self-inspection on three aspects: Were my suggestions to others betraying his own perspective? Was my conversation with classmates and co-believers not congruent with the facts? Or did I spread any idea without practicing it?"

比如说，孔子有句关于自我反省的名言：“吾日三省吾身：为人谋而不忠乎？与朋友交而不信乎？传不习乎？”

Now, it has been reinterpreted as "Can you freestyle? Can you freestyle again? And can you be freestyled?" and has been mockingly knowns as the modern principles for daily self-inspection.

而现在，网民们已经将其改为：“吾日三省吾身：有freestyle吗？还有freestyle吗？有没有freestyle？”