Wuhan (China) (AFP)

With his mop, he has everything the "Cure" of the 1980s. Just as alternative as the English group, Lu Yan sums up the fate of his hometown in the microphone: "Virus in Wuhan. We're still alive".

Pop groups, taggers or even comic book authors, the artists of rebellious Wuhan found inspiration in the 76 days that their city in central China spent in quarantine, when it was the world's first victim of the new coronavirus.

Lu Yan is the lead vocalist for Hardcore Raver in Tears, and his song "WUHAN2020" was written separately by the band members when they were confined earlier this year.

"I thought it was the end of the world," says Lu Yan through his mask, during a studio rehearsal, a year after the first contaminations detected in his city.

For most of the 11 million inhabitants of the metropolis on the banks of the Yangtze, the epidemic is already a bad memory, even if the city alone accounts for the vast majority of deaths recorded in China (4,634 deaths between January and May according to the official report).

But Huang Bowen does not hear it that way.

The 22-year-old tagger spent confinement decorating the walls of his city, using his volunteer pass to tease the spray paint.

A bit provocative, the young man even chose a delicate subject for the communist regime: the face of Li Wenliang, a doctor who died of Covid in February after being accused by the police of spreading "rumors".

He had only alerted relatives at the end of December about the emergence of a mysterious virus in the city.

Like most of Huang Bowen's works, his tributes to Li Wenliang were promptly covered by the municipality.

"I don't care: I did what I wanted and that was enough for me to say what I had to say", sums up the artist, busy painting at night the character "hope" in a building abandoned, with two other taggers.

Wuhan, cradle of the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Chinese empire, retains a reputation as a rebellious city.

But it is considered today more as the cradle of Chinese punk.

Lu Yan nevertheless assures us that the epidemic has calmed the Wuhan youth: the music of his group has in any case become much softer.

© 2020 AFP