A year ago, Kris Wu was pretty much unknown to the Hip-Hop community despite securing worldwide fame. The Vancouver-bred Chinese artist’s accolade include a pretty strong acting catalog, with roles opposite the likes of Vin Diesel and Rihanna in xXx: Return of Xander Cage, and Valerian: City of A Thousand Planets, respectively, and a modeling portfolio that includes spots with Burberry.
Fast forward to today, and he’s shifted his focus onto the genre, a point of interest since he was a teenager on the verge of becoming a professional basketball player in China, and what better way to make an entrance into the realm than with a certifiable banger on your hands, anchored by an assist from none other than Travis Scott.
“It was super organic, Travis was out of town but we had this idea for a collaboration, you know, East and West,” Wu told PAPER Magazine of the duo’s ”Deserve” collaboration. “Travis was immediately interested in the idea and we were in the studio just talking and vibing out a little bit. We just got the hook down and we'd made this record.”
“I think. Like emailing the track back and forth, it's just not the way I like to do things when it comes to music. I mean sometimes it's the only way you can, but it's just so much better when everyone's together. I really appreciate him coming through,” he went on to add.
Now he and La Flame have something to celebrate as they achieved the week’s highest debut, entering the R&B/Hip Hop Single Sales Charts at No. 12. For the week ending October 12th after pushing the equivalent of 8,771 digital sales. Earlier this week, they also delivered on the striking visuals to accompany the track, padding onto the official introduction to the multi-hyphenate often referred to as the Chinese equivalent to Justin Bieber.
“I feel like hip hop really captures the moment,” Wu says of the crossover the genre has experienced in one of the world’s more isolated nations. “Nowadays with all the social media, hip hop has the chance to blow up. No one expected hip hop to blow up in China but it happened, and it happened for a reason. They wanted to be able to express themselves. Everyone wants to make hip hop music first.”
Elsewhere on the chart, you can find G-Eazy’s “No Limit,” featuring Cardi B and A$AP Rocky seated at No. 9 while Post Malone’s 21 Savage-assisted “Rockstar” finds its place at No. 1, dethroning Cardi B’s now- No. 2 “Bodak Yellow.”
