“I’m not afraid to speak from the heart in my mother tongue/Don’t call me a Tai Ke/I’m a bona fide Taiwanese,” Aquaman raps on the title track of his debut album 心 [Sim], which means “heart”. Having wowed audiences with intricate Hokkien wordplay on his road to victory on reality show The Rappers 2 in 2023, the artist—also known as Wang Jingyi—captures his emotional state during that whirlwind experience, using the heart as a thematic anchor. From the steady pulse of an ECG monitor on inspirational opener “心托明月” [“Heart to the moon”] to the doubts expressed on dramatic rock anthem “心竭” [“My heart is very tired”], the album reveals his heart’s desires in language both figurative and direct. “I planned a mental transformation from the very start, because my early songs are very different from later ones,” Wang tells Apple Music. “My first songs have an underworld flavour but later on I wanted to be my real self. Mainly, I wanted to depict my change in attitude from before the competition to winning it—and then what came after, as I gradually filled my heart with other things, including lots of different faces.” Those “faces” include a generous helping of rock, retro-flavoured Hokkien pop on songs like “愛了傷過心” [“love too much”] and folk instruments on tracks like “男子漢一匹” [“a man”]—in arrangements that have been enriched over his competition versions. “It’s thanks to producers 2-CHI and W.LIN that the album sounds so good,” Wang says. “They’re an awesome team—like a comedy duo. Add me to the mix and you get a wonderful chemical reaction. They would tell me what they were going to do, and I’d ask, ‘Will it be cool?’ ‘It’ll definitely make you look cool,’ they’d say. ‘If it isn’t, we’ll take another look. I have faith you can make it even cooler!’” Wang had cool in mind when he started writing in Hokkien—but he resists being pigeon-holed. “When it turned out decent, I made a habit of it!” he says. “But why does that matter? Does anyone ask Gummy B why he writes in Mandarin? Does anyone ask 50 Cent why he writes in English? I’m from Taiwan so I’m going to sing in Taiwanese!” He’s also fond of Japanese wordplay—and the ’90s-styled party rap anthem “九五家滿” [“95 energy”] draws its irresistible power from the interplay of Mandarin verses and a Hokkien chorus. “I’m not especially concerned with balance,” Wang says. “I just imagine what will sound best and then put the right material in the right places. It’s all vibes. I’d really like to do some super-retro, old-school stuff. And I’d like W.LIN to teach me how to death growl.” Asked to highlight some of his favourite tracks, Wang recommends all of the heart-related songs (“must-listens”) but spreads the love around. “I’m fond of ‘男子漢一匹 [‘a man’],” he says. “And ‘愛了傷過份’ [‘love too much’] was written for a really lovely girl.”