A member of the Frederick Police Department Special Response Team peers out of a minivan before the team entered Fort Detrick on April 6. Photo: VCG

 "Fort Detrick, more like a witch's cauldron. How many plots came out of your labs? How many dead bodies hanging a tag? What you're hiding, open the door to Fort Detrick. Cause transparency is your favorite. OK, great. America first. We want, want the truth." 

A rap song created by Chinese rappers went viral on Wednesday due to its sharp lyrics taking aim at the Fort Detrick lab. 

 "Open the Door to Fort Detrick" was written by Chinese rap group Tianfu Shibian, or CD REV, from Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province. In the song, the band urges the US government to open the Fort Detrick lab to an international investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

The lyrics in the rap song soon captured the attention of many netizens in China after the music video was reposted by Chinese media outlets such as the Xinhua News Agency on Sina Weibo. In comments under the video, Sina Weibo users called for an investigation into the Fort Detrick lab to be carried out as soon as possible, adding that the lab should cooperate if it is not trying to hide anything. 

"We want the truth. Open the door to Fort Detrick. Shed light on tightly held secret. When things are stalemated, let the judges in, medical pros, they are ready for this," the song's lyrics go. 

"It was just a sudden feeling. I felt so angry and thought we have to rap it out," Wang Zixin, one of the members of CD REV, told the Global Times, explaining how discussion on social media that the US was not allowing an investigation into Fort Detrick inspired the group to speak out through song. 

On August 11, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, forwarded the music video on Twitter, where the video has earned more than 18,000 views.

The band remarked that having such a high ranking official take notice of their song was a very proud moment for them. 

"I thought he was someone who never listened to rap music, I felt interdimensional."

A Twitter user commented under Zhao's tweet, saying that "For the benefit of all mankind, we strongly urge the WHO to investigate Fort Detrick in the United States and the US military biological laboratories all over the world."

Voices asking the US government to open the doors to the lab are not only coming from China.

An online petition in China demanding that the WHO investigate the lab for any connections to the origins of the novel coronavirus was launched in July. It has gained over 25 million signatures online and has inspired people in the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia and South Korea to call on the US to "open the door" for a thorough probe.

The three rappers from China's Post-1990 generation say they see themselves as ordinary people and believe that ordinary voices are sometimes more convincing and powerful when it comes to showing one's love for their country. 

"Media and our ordinary voices resonate differently to audiences. We common people see the truth, but some media think 'These Chinese rappers are being guided by the authorities.' They see our stuff as political propaganda, but choose to not to believe we are just ordinary people," Wang explained.