The fact that the cradle of hip-hop in Korea was the dance club has deep implications that can be seen to this day in mainstream K-pop. Deux’s eclectic collection of music - which ran through rap, Michael Jackson–influenced pop, New Jack Swing, and funk - reinterpreted through a Korean take on American hip-hop-presaged the genre-bending conventions of modern K-pop. Deux was the first meaningful archetype of a hip-hop artist in Korean pop music. In recounting the history of Korean hip-hop, the importance of Deux cannot be overstated. This formula would be inherited by Seo Taiji and Boys, and would eventually carry over to acts like Deux (pronounced “deuce”), which was made up of only dancers. Hyeon’s act, called Hyeon Jin-yeong and Wawa debuted in 1992, and was made up of a singer and a number of backup dancers. Hyeon’s career was a milestone in many respects: He was the first project of SM Entertainment’s Lee Soo-man, who would grow into a global behemoth that launched a thousand K-pop idols. Korea’s first hip-hop star was Hyeon Jin-yeong, considered one of the greatest dancers in Moon Night’s history. The history of hip-hop in Korea did not begin with rappers and DJs it did with dancers performing to New Jack Swing. A significant portion of the biggest dance-music stars in ’90s Korean pop - including Seo Taiji and Boys, Deux, CLON, DJ Doc, R.ef and Roo’ra - began their careers at Moon Night. Particularly famous was the club Moon Night, which hosted citywide competitions for dancers who learned their moves from U.S.
Seoul’s aspiring dancers congregated to these clubs to test their mettle. Michael Jackson was a global sensation, paving the road that led to break-dancing and eventually Run-D.M.C.
WHEN DID HIP HOP ABS COME OUT FULL
The dance-music boom was in full swing at the time. But by the mid-1980s they became available for Koreans as well. Initially, the Itaewon clubs were open to American soldiers only, as they catered to the U.S. Korea’s first large-scale contact with hip-hop came in the clubs in the Itaewon neighborhood of Seoul, near the U.S. To identify the wellspring from which the history of Korean hip-hop flowed, we must look to Seoul’s dance clubs in the 1980s. However, these pieces were one-off manifestations that did not leave a traceable legacy in Korea’s hip-hop history. But the first Korean rap song that enjoyed a meaningful level of popularity was 015B’s The Story I Want to Tell You, from 1991. Under the strict definition of “rap” as rhythmic speech set to music, Korean pop music’s first rap song was “ Kimsatgat ” by Hong Seo-beom from 1989. Hip-hop in Korea was an authentic expression of the identity of the Korean artists, who were responding to the musical environments in which they found themselves. Such criticism, however, does not stand up to scrutiny.
At times, the fact of this importation gave rise to the criticism that hip-hop in Korea was inauthentic. As with all Western-style music, hip-hop was an import into Korea’s pop-music scene. This eclectic mixture reflects the history of Korean hip-hop. There’s Yoon Mi-rae, the wife of Tiger JK and, like her husband, a Korean-American MC Meta of the group Garion, the founder of Korea’s underground hip-hop scene DEFCON, another leading figure of the underground the rising stars of the new school Junoflo and myunDo, and, notably, RM of BTS, the world-beating K-pop band. The album is notable for its featured artists, a Who’s Who list of the most important figures in the history of Korean hip-hop. Drunken Tiger - which debuted as a duo of Tiger JK and DJ Shine in 1998 and operated as a one-man band after DJ Shine left the group in 2005 - finished their run with Drunken Tiger X: Rebirth of Tiger JK.
Drunken Tiger, the godfathers of Korean hip-hop, recently announced that their latest album would their last one.
0 kommentar(er)
