K-Hop Coming

When the program “MTV Iggy” pronounced Korean girl group 2NE1 as the Best New Band in the world, it focused attention on what is increasingly being called K-hop, a subset of K-pop specifically targeted at the world’s huge cohort of hip-hop fans.

In a recent Newsweek feature, 2NE1’s lead rapper, CL, said YouTube can be credited with the group’s success.
“There is no line between Korean, Japanese or international music” thanks to YouTube, she said. “It’s just the whole world through the Internet.”

Though piracy is common in South Korea, the rise of K-pop would have been impossible without the Internet, as the domestic Korean music market is limited in the first place.

Talent agencies use YouTube to their advantage by flooding the online video service with Korean content. K-hop producers refine this strategy even more by serving up a product that has more traction for a global community that’s been cultivated by American hip-hop and R&B.

K-hop producers like Teddy Park and Jae Chong have extensive professional experience in the U.S.

Park grew up in New Jersey and California and has endeavored to make 2NE1 a major global act rather than simply a popular Korean group that expanded internationally. Chong, raised in Los Angeles, was the first Korean producer to actively promote soul and R&B in Korea, back in the 1990s. He is often credited with creating Korean hip-hop from nothing.

In fact, almost all the major K-hop artists themselves were either raised overseas or spent a good deal of time there soaking up the culture. This is especially notable in 2NE1 and other female K-hop groups, which tend to rap about subjects that the average Korean may be uncomfortable talking about.

2NE1’s biggest hit, “Ugly,” is about female body image, which is often cited as an obstacle to true independence for women in Korea.

This particular aspect of Korean music has not gone unnoticed in Japan, which continues to be its main overseas market.

Several weeks ago. the flamboyant, cross-dressing Japanese TV personality Matsuko Deluxe caused some cross-Japan Sea controversy by complaining that K-hop was nothing more than a rip-off of American music.

Rip-off or not, K-hop’s debt to the likes of will.i.am (who is already working with 2NE1 on several tracks) and Rihanna is exactly what appeals to Japanese fans who find J-pop and Japanese hip-hop stylistically sterile.

K-hop still has a way to go before it is widely accepted in the U.S. itself, but it certainly has a better chance of making it there than J-pop.