Each year, as LiFTED checks out what has been happening around the Pan-Asian area, we come across newbie rappers who catch our ears and eyes. This year, we’ve got new entries from Hanumankind from India by way of Texas, Korean Übermensch G-Dragon, Korea’s Sik-K, the Young Stunners are our first entry from Pakistan, Sri Lanka makes a debut with Shan Vincent De Paul, MC Altaf is a real one from India, OG MC Jin cracks the top 50, Nene is Yurufuwa Ganging it up in here from Japan, Thailand’s Wonderframe gets some shine, Saran from Thailand keeps doing big things, Khantrast from NYC went from an anime rapper to dropping bars in Chinese restaurants, Mimi Fly proved that Malaysian Hip Hop can be male or female, Rapper Big Deal was making big moves, Reble is proving she’s India’s next up, and Moon from Vietnam is the future. Check them all out below.

Indian rapper Hanumankind’s unlikely year was eclipsed only by our number one, Awich. But boy did he have a big year. The Houston, Texas-raised rapper’s massive single ‘Big Dawgs’ dropped last summer and took off like a Tsunami, with a confident Southern drawl, slick rhyme, signature distorted bassline, production by Kalmi, and a crazy video that captured Indian carnival motorcyclists riding around in a well of death. It all added up to a perfect storm that catapulted the respected Indian rapper into the international spotlight.

Signed to Def Jam India, the track has charted in 10 countries, including going to number 23 on the US Billboard chart. With nearly half a billion Spotify plays and 240 million YouTube views, ‘Big Dawgs’ was by far the biggest international Asian Rap hit in the last year. Just when the uninitiated were wondering if he was a one-hit wonder, the follow-up single, ‘Run it Up’ dropped three months ago and pushed the aural and visual boundaries even further, with heavy tribal drums and a spectacular video - again directed by Bijoy Shetty - that gets deeper into his Keralan culture. 2021 saw Cambodia’s VannDa create a monster hit by mining Khmer culture with ‘Time to Rise.’ 2024 saw Hanumankind do the same thing and up the ante by taking it international.

On Halloween of last year, G-Dragon shook the world when he dropped back in after a seven-year hiatus with ‘Power.’ 65 million views on YouTube and a world tour with arena shows in Vegas, LA, Australia, and all over Asia later, G-Dragon has proved that he’s been missed.

In the seven years he was gone, K-pop artists like NewJeans, BTS, and BLACKPINK whom G-Dragon had influenced when he was with BigBang jumped to the forefront of music. He needed to come back on his own terms, and Übermensch, released in February of 2025, showed that he had K-pop and Hip Hop skills to fill a full album.

Winning Artist of the Year at the 2025 Korean Hip Hop Awards means a lot because that’s where a good portion of the Asian Hip Hop heat is coming from. Sik-K is a pioneer in the Rage Rap space in Korea, and he had a very fruitful 12 months with ‘MADE IN KCOREA [1TAKEBAR]’featuring Lil Moshpit and‘Trap’ with Jimmy Paige got a lot of burn.

Widely credited with bringing Urdu language Rap into the Pakistani mainstream, Karachi’s Young Stunners have been together since they were 16 years old. But it was 2024 when Nas’ Mass Appeal label, already rolling in India, made a power move into Pakistan, partnering with Talha Yunus and Talha Anjum AKA Young Stunners. Now Young Stunners are starting to collab with their better-known Indian counterparts, and cross-border features and collaborations can’t be far off. Last year’s ‘Me & You’ was credited to Young Stunners/Talha Yunis/Talha Anjum, a sign that the boys are also starting to release under their own names. With 1.4 million monthly Spotify listeners and another 1.8 Million YouTube subscribers, they have a solid fan base and are still under 30. The future looks very bright.

When you drop a bomb, you get a lot of love. Last year, Yuki Chiba put out ‘Team Tomodochi’ in February, but the full extent wasn’t felt for over a year. In 2025, Shan Vincent De Paul teamed up with Yung Raja for the over-the-top zaniness of ‘AIYO!,’ a video that is sure to come in at the top of many Best Video lists of 2025. SVDP has shown a lot of creativity in his output, and his Rap game is on point, but this video has cemented him as one of the best visual artists in the business right now.

The gully don’t lie. MC Altaf is as real as it gets because he comes from the streets. He’s been writing rhymes since 2018, and was called in as a coach for the Bambaiya slang in the Bollywood blockbuster Gully Boy. As he prepares for the superstardom that is just around the corner, he’s putting out a great body of work like ‘Hood Poetry’ and ‘Chooke Dekh’ with a co-sign from Gully Gang labelmate DIVINE.

MC Jin is one of the best-known pioneers in the Asian Rap game, and this year, he was everywhere. He was hosting shows in Dubai, doing live sets at ComplexCon Hong Kong, and being on the cover of LiFTED in May. That doesn’t even mention his video for On the Radar Radio, putting out the Roller Coaster album, and finding common ground with Jeremy Lin [Can we call this podcast Jinsanity?]. Asian Hip Hop is a better place with MC Jin in the picture.

As the female half of the Yurufuwa Gang, Nene was dropping some of the most psychedelic videos in Japanese Hip Hop. Over the past year, she’s ventured into solo territory and has been making a lot of waves with her style and madness. Whether it’s ‘HONEY BUNS’ with Awich or ‘KITERU’ on her own, Nene is showing out and proving that she’s got what it takes to be a baddie superstar in a male-dominated industry.

Wonderframe impressed when she was one of the first acts to play at Rolling Loud Thailand. Even though the early crowd was thin, she and her dancers gave it their all to bring the audience joy. She’s been growing rapidly since, and was even on the LiFTED cover in 2024. She definitely represents the Pop side of Asian Hip Hop, but with a fierce determination and focus, singer, actor, and rapper Wonderframe knows where she wants to go.

In 2020, at the age of 15, Saran won Thailand’s most prestigious TV show Rap competition, The Rapper, and he’s been on an upward trajectory since. He’s leading the new wave of rappers in a country with a deep history of Hip Hop by putting out a stream of amazing tracks and building a young audience with every show he does. In his latest,‘BUS STOP,’ featuring Maiyarap, Saran shows his versatility by going a bit R&B and a bit New Wave Weeknd style.

2024 and 2025 have been great years for Khantrast, a Chinese-American who got his start as an anime rapper. He’s been everywhere dropping bops including ‘Landed in Brooklyn,’ ‘Where is the Bread?’ and ‘Man of the Year.’ While Khantrast has made a bit of a mockery of Asian Hip Hop by always filming in Chinese restaurants, wearing farmer’s hats, and including goats in the videos, he’s got a crazy ear for beats and a creative lyrical flow that shows a lot of potential.

In the one zillionth case of women having it harder than men, Malaysia’s Mimi Fly released ‘Serumpun,’ and then the complaints started rolling in because it was during Ramadan, and some people said her outfit was inappropriate. To confront the criticism head first, Mimi took the video down, reedited it, and now it sits at 14 million views, which shows she knows how to do Hip Hop in a secular world. In another song, ‘ANGKAT,’ she sums it up perfectly by saying, ‘I don’t care/I smile, but it’s prickly.”

With a Japanese mother and an Indian father, Rapper Big Deal is a one-man melting pot of Asian Hip Hop. He’s from Odisha and rhymes in English, Odia, and Hindi. As the coverstar in October of 2024, he explained that since he didn’t look like anyone else wherever he went, he faced racism, but instead of letting that hold him down, it pushed him to create his own narrative for standing out. With tracks like ‘Fresh Toka’ and the ‘East Indian Cypher,’ Rapper Big Deal is living up to his name.

Reble enters our chart this year because she’s making a lot of noise in India. She hails from Shillong in the Northeast of the country, and grew up on Hip Hop giants like Eminem and Andre 3000. Naturally, she mainly rhymes in English. But man can she spit! Her turn guesting on tracks like ‘Set it Off’ by fellow Shillong native Kim the Beloved shows she can rhyme quick fast in a hurry with hard lyrics and no shortage of attitude. Last year she was added to Mumbai’s Gully Fest and she’s a name on everyone’s lips right now. Don’t sleep on Reble.

Number 50 is always a long shot, but sometimes the returns on the final LiFTED 50 gamble are great. Moon was born and raised in France by Vietnamese and Senegalese parents. The dope part is that she raps in Korean and English as well. December was mooncember as she promoted her EP, Uncharted Vol. 1, by dropping bars each Sunday leading up to her birthday. If the future of Asian Hip Hop sounds like a combo of Afrobeats, Drill, Trap, and K-pop, then moon is a combination of every corner of the globe.