Also, I love old k-pop from like 2009 to 2015 (the year I stopped listening because all my favorite girl groups disbanded). I have a friend who sent me a spotify playlist of newer music and I am not a fan. So I just listen to Brown Eyed Girls and Wonder Girls on repeat T.T
I will also say that when Black Twitter discovered kpop the resounding complaint was that it was a copy paste of Black music and style. And while I can't say I've ever been a fan of rapping in kpop, this was the only takeaway I saw from a genre that I had liked back when no one else even knew what it was (unless you were Asian). The only other Black people I knew who liked it were online and like 3 people T.T
Anyway I thought this was great. Long live Asian pop! (I also like Chinese and Japanese pop).
What I've observed is that in the earliest days, the hiphop acts weren't considered idols. So like the guys from 1TYM, Stony Skunk, Epik High etc. BigBang were in this mold but then debuted as idols and set off a rap boom because they were so popular. That led to guys like Zico, Mino, Bobby entering the industry as idols vs doing straight hiphop, even though that is what they had been doing before debut. CL I think fits in there too.
Post-2012/2013 I think what happened is that every act decided they needed a rapper and would just assign the role out instead of bringing it in organically. It lead to a lot of pretty lame rappers. Today, I think there's a stark divide between idols and the Korean hip hop scene and for good reason.
Something that I think is interesting too is that the early guys in acts like 1TYM were from America and rap is what they listened to and loved. Same with someone like Jay Park. I think it's hard to judge Korean hip hop objectively. Do some idol rappers rip off Black performers? I don't doubt it, especially ones assigned the role of rapper and may not have much natural inclination for rapping. But the genre itself has history in Korea.
Kind of reminds me of the periodic debates in gaming over what counts as JRPG — An RPG with specific characteristics, made in Japan? (Characteristics defined by a wave of Japanese games openly inspired by now-fairly-obscure American RPGs.) Any RPG made in Japan? An RPG with those characteristics, made anywhere? Are some of the characteristics more important than others? What if the studio is Japanese, but a lot of the work is outsourced to Korea? Does any of this actually matter? (Not really.)
I think the fan debates can be fun. I remember getting into a heated debate wtih some other sci-fi nerds over whether Gravity was actually sci-fi or not. (I said it was NOT sci-fi and I'm sticking to that.) With K-Pop, one of the biggest issues I've encountered among fans, especially newer fans, is they don't understand what they're consuming at all. They don't understand what it is, where it comes from, how it works and that confusion can turn rancid. Unfortunately, I've been turned into a fandom boogeyman so they'll never read this but I think many fans would be a lot happier if they understood what they were consuming.
What is hot girl music?
Also, I love old k-pop from like 2009 to 2015 (the year I stopped listening because all my favorite girl groups disbanded). I have a friend who sent me a spotify playlist of newer music and I am not a fan. So I just listen to Brown Eyed Girls and Wonder Girls on repeat T.T
I will also say that when Black Twitter discovered kpop the resounding complaint was that it was a copy paste of Black music and style. And while I can't say I've ever been a fan of rapping in kpop, this was the only takeaway I saw from a genre that I had liked back when no one else even knew what it was (unless you were Asian). The only other Black people I knew who liked it were online and like 3 people T.T
Anyway I thought this was great. Long live Asian pop! (I also like Chinese and Japanese pop).
Thank you for reading! I think of hot girl music being like the kind of thing you listen to and feel as hot and confident as the singer.
Rap in K-Pop is such a fascinating topic because it's coming from a bunch of different sources. I did an episode on it that you might find interesting: https://www.theidolcast.com/podcasteps/episode-50-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hip-hop-idol Maybe I should just repost the whole thing to Substack.
Also the first episode in my BigBang series: https://www.theidolcast.com/podcasteps/episode-72-made-prologuethe-yg-famillenium-1988-2006
What I've observed is that in the earliest days, the hiphop acts weren't considered idols. So like the guys from 1TYM, Stony Skunk, Epik High etc. BigBang were in this mold but then debuted as idols and set off a rap boom because they were so popular. That led to guys like Zico, Mino, Bobby entering the industry as idols vs doing straight hiphop, even though that is what they had been doing before debut. CL I think fits in there too.
Post-2012/2013 I think what happened is that every act decided they needed a rapper and would just assign the role out instead of bringing it in organically. It lead to a lot of pretty lame rappers. Today, I think there's a stark divide between idols and the Korean hip hop scene and for good reason.
Something that I think is interesting too is that the early guys in acts like 1TYM were from America and rap is what they listened to and loved. Same with someone like Jay Park. I think it's hard to judge Korean hip hop objectively. Do some idol rappers rip off Black performers? I don't doubt it, especially ones assigned the role of rapper and may not have much natural inclination for rapping. But the genre itself has history in Korea.
Kind of reminds me of the periodic debates in gaming over what counts as JRPG — An RPG with specific characteristics, made in Japan? (Characteristics defined by a wave of Japanese games openly inspired by now-fairly-obscure American RPGs.) Any RPG made in Japan? An RPG with those characteristics, made anywhere? Are some of the characteristics more important than others? What if the studio is Japanese, but a lot of the work is outsourced to Korea? Does any of this actually matter? (Not really.)
I think the fan debates can be fun. I remember getting into a heated debate wtih some other sci-fi nerds over whether Gravity was actually sci-fi or not. (I said it was NOT sci-fi and I'm sticking to that.) With K-Pop, one of the biggest issues I've encountered among fans, especially newer fans, is they don't understand what they're consuming at all. They don't understand what it is, where it comes from, how it works and that confusion can turn rancid. Unfortunately, I've been turned into a fandom boogeyman so they'll never read this but I think many fans would be a lot happier if they understood what they were consuming.
To read this article, and to leave out “Yellow Magic Orchestra” (The Beatles of the East) is absolutely criminal. It all started with YMO.