Megan Thee Stallion’s Memorable Coachella Appearance Challenged Chinese Censors

Megan Thee Stallion gave an epic performance on Saturday at the Coachella Valey Music & Arts Festival. Her set featured great dance moves and some stellar retro-sci-fi costuming. It may have been too much for certain Chinese censors, however.

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One entertaining result of the show was shared online in the form of Chinese censor bars having a hard time blocking parts of the performance of the rapper’s single with Cardi B, “WAP.” Viewers on the app WeChat watching the song’s performance streamed live saw censor bars basically twerk on their own in response to the choreography.

WeChat users also apparently flooded the live chat with the explicit lyrics in protest of the censors and twisted the song’s chorus to refer to the Puxi district in Shanghai.

Coachella is also being livestreamed via WeChat. Apparently, this performance not only made censors sweat, everyone was also joking that they’re singing a song about Shanghai Puxi District. #MeganTheeStallion #Shanghailockdown pic.twitter.com/2ltSqzFC9c

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) April 17, 2022

While anyone in America isn’t any stranger to lyrics censorship if they still listen to radio stations play bleeped-out explicit songs nowadays, the guidelines in place for WeChat are far more severe when it comes to even what’s displayed in a live stream. According to an article in South China Morning Post, elements like spanking, flirting, police uniforms, and tarot card readings trigger censors in WeChat streams.